Purpose: Treatment efficacy of intra-arterial radioembolization for liver tumors depends on the selective targeting of tumorous tissue. Recent investigations have demonstrated that tumors may receive inadequate doses of radioactivity after radioembolization, due to unfavorable tumor to non-tumor (T/N) uptake ratios of radioactive microspheres. Hepatic arterial infusion of the vasoconstrictor angiotensin II (AT-II) is reported to increase the T/N blood flow ratio. The purpose of this systematic review was to provide a comprehensive overview of the effect of hepatic arterial AT-II on T/N blood flow ratio in patients with hepatic malignancies, and determine its clinical value for radioembolization.Methods: This review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and MetaAnalyses guidelines. A structured search was performed in the PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane databases. Only studies that presented data on T/N ratios before and after infusion of AT-II into the hepatic artery, in human patients with hepatic malignancies, were selected. Median T/N ratios before, during and after AT-II infusion, and the median T/N ratio improvement factor were extracted from the selected articles. All data on systemic blood pressure measurements and clinical symptoms were also extracted.
Results:The search identified 524 titles of which 5 studies, including a total of 71 patients were considered relevant. Median T/N ratios before infusion of AT-II ranged from 0.4 to 3.4. All studies observed a substantial improvement of the T/N ratio after AT-II infusion, with median improvement factors ranging from 1.8 to 3.1. A transitory increase of systemic blood pressure was observed during AT-II infusion.Conclusions: Infusion of AT-II into the hepatic artery leads to an increase of the tumor to non-tumor blood flow ratio, as measured by T/N uptake ratios. Clinical trials are warranted to assess safety aspects, optimal administration strategy and impact on treatment efficacy during radioembolization.
This paper focuses on co-present digital photo sharing on a notebook and investigates how this could be supported. While analyzing the current digital photo sharing situation we noticed that there was a high threshold for visitors to take control of the personal computer of the photo owner, resulting in inequity of participation. It was assumed that visitors would have the opportunity to interact with the notebook more freely if this threshold was lowered by distributing the user interface and creating a more public, instead of personal, interaction space. This, in turn, could make them feel more involved and in control during a session, creating a more enjoyable experience. To test these assumptions a design prototype was created that stimulates participants to use tangible artifacts for cooperative gestures, a promising direction for the future of HCI. The situation with the cooperative gestures was compared with the regular digital photo sharing situation, which makes use of a keyboard. In dyads, visitors felt more involved and in control in the design prototype cooperative gestures condition (especially during storytelling), resulting in a more enjoyable digital photo sharing experience.
OPEN ACCESSMachines 2015, 3 269
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