No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Bladder cancer (BCa) is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancers in men and the eighth most common in women. It is an abnormal growth of tissues which develops in the bladder lining. Histological analysis of bladder tissue facilities diagnosis as well as it serves as an important tool for research. To bet- ter understand the molecular profile of bladder cancer and to detect predictive and prognostic features, microscopy methods, such as immunofluorescence (IF), are used to investigate the characteristics of bladder cancer tissue. For this project, a new method is proposed to segment cancer epithelial us- ing nuclei morphology captured with IF staining. The method is implemented using deep learning algorithms and performance achieved is compared with the literature. The dataset is stained for nuclei (DAPI) and a marker for cancer epithelial (panEPI) which was used to create the ground truth. Three popu- lar Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) namely U-Net, Residual U-Net and VGG16 were implemented to perform the segmentation task on the tissue mi- croarray dataset. In addition, a transfer learning approach was tested with the VGG16 network that was pre-trained with ImageNet dataset. Further, the performance from the three networks were compared using 3fold cross-validation. The dice accuracies achieved were 83.32% for U-Net, 88.05% for Residual U-Net and 82.73% for VGG16. These findings suggest that segmentation of cancerous tissue regions, using only the nuclear morphol- ogy, is feasible with high accuracy. Computer vision methods better utilizing nuclear morphology captured by the nuclear stain, are promising approaches to digitally augment the conventional IF marker panels, and therefore offer im- proved resolution of the molecular characteristics for research settings.

Bakgrund: Vid muskelinvasiv urinblåsecancer är cystektomi den vanligaste behandlingen. Cystektomi innebär en stor livsomställning där bland annat individens sexuella liv förändras. På grund av bristande kunskap hos vårdpersonal förblir påverkan på sexuellt välbefinnande ofta obemärkt. Trots att patienter frågar om potentiella förändringar i sitt sexuella liv efter cystektomi, tas dessa konsekvenser sällan upp av vårdpersonal. För att kunna utföra en god omvårdnad behöver sjuksköterskor ha god kunskap om cystektomins inverkan på individers upplevelser av sin sexualitet. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturstudien var att belysa individers upplevelser av sin sexualitet efter cystektomi. Metod: En litteraturstudie baserades på åtta kvalitativa studier. Databassökning utfördes i Cinahl, PubMed och Scopus. Analysen genomfördes med inspiration från guiden för dataanalyser av litteraturöversikter av Popenoe et al. Resultat: Analysen resulterade i nio subkategorier och fyra kategorier. De fyra kategorierna var: “nedsatt sexuell funktion”, “förändrad självbild”, “förändrad intimitet med sin partner”, “bristfälligt stöd och information från vårdpersonal”. Konklusion: Cystektomi kan leda till utmaningar i individens sexualitet vilka innefattar fysiska, emotionella och sociala aspekter. För att minska individens stress och oro kring sitt sexuella liv behövs adekvat information och stöd från en sjuksköterska med god kompetens inom ämnet. Det behövs ytterligare forskning för att få en bättre inblick i hur sjuksköterskor kan förbättra sitt stöd till individer både före och efter cystektomi. / Background: The standard treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer is cystectomy. For many, cystectomy represents a significant life change, including changes in their sexual lives. However, due to a lack of knowledge among healthcare professionals, the impact on sexual well-being often goes unnoticed. While patients often ask about potential changes to their sexual life after cystectomy, these concerns are rarely addressed within healthcare settings. To provide effective nursing care, nurses must have a thorough understanding of how cystectomy affects individuals’ experiences of sexuality.  Aim: The aim was to illuminate individuals’ experiences of their sexuality following cystectomy.  Methods: A qualitative literature review was based on eight qualitative studies. Database searches were performed in Cinahl, PubMed and Scopus. The data analysis was conducted with inspiration from the guide for data analysis in literature reviews by Popenoe et al.  Results: The analysis resulted in nine subcategories and four categories: “diminished sexual function”, “changed self-image”, “changed intimacy with their partner” and “insufficient support and information from healthcare providers”.  Conclusion: Cystectomy can lead to challenges in the individual’s sexuality including physical, emotional and social aspects. To reduce the individual’s stress and concerns surrounding their sexual life, adequate information and support from nurses with good competence in this area are crucial. Further research is needed to gain deeper insights into how nurses can enhance their support for individuals both before and after cystectomy.

Arsenic is a human carcinogen associated with urinary bladder transitional cell carcinoma and other cancers. Arsenic is also a strong comutagen and cocarcinogen. One possible mode of action for arsenic carcinogenesis/cocarcinogenesis is inhibition of DNA damage repair. In laboratory animals, urinary bladder transitional cell carcinoma has only been observed in dimethylarsinic acid [DMA(V)]-exposed F344 rats. The goal of the present studies was to investigate inhibition of DNA repair as a mode of action for arsenic carcinogenesis/ cocarcinogenesis in the urinary bladder. Methods were first developed to harvest only transitional cells, the target cell type of arsenic carcinogenesis, suitable for RNA extraction or for DNA damage detection by Comet assay. Morphological studies established that DMA(V) in drinking water at 40 ppm was cytotoxic to the urothelium of Sprague-Dawley and F344 rats, and mitochondria were targeted by DAM(V). To investigate whether DMA(V) decreases the expression of DNA repair genes, mRNA levels of DNA repair genes in transitional cells were next measured in F344 rats exposed to up to 100 ppm DMA(V) in drinking water for 4 weeks. The mRNA levels of Ataxia Telangectasia mutant (ATM), X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1), excision repair cross-complementing group 3/Xeroderma Pigmentosum B (ERCC3/XPB), and DNA polymerase beta genes were not altered, as measured by real time RT PCR. These results suggested either that DMA(V) affects DNA repair without affecting the baseline expression of DNA repair genes or that DMA(V) does not affect DNA repair in the bladder. Arsenic effects on DNA repair were further investigated in F344 rats given 100 ppm DMA(V) or arsenate in drinking water for 1 week. DNA damage levels in transitional cells and micronuclei frequency (MN) in bone marrow were measured. Dimethylarsinic acid did not affect in vivo cyclophosphamide-induced DNA damage, and neither DMA(V) nor arsenate inhibited in vitro repair of hydrogen peroxide- or formaldehyde-induced DNA damage, as measured by Comet assay. Neither DMA(V) nor arsenate increased MN or elevated in vivo cyclophosphamide-increased MN. These results suggest inhibition of DNA repair by arsenic, in the transitional epithelium, may not be a major mechanism responsible for carcinogensis/cocarcinogenesis in the bladder. / Ph. D.

No / A central theme within the concept of enzyme-directed bioreductive drug development is the potential to predict tumour response based on the profiling of enzymes involved in the bioreductive activation process. Mitomycin C (MMC) is the prototypical bioreductive drug that is reduced to active intermediates by several reductases including NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1) and NADPH cytochrome P450 reductase (P450R). The purpose of our study was to determine whether NQO1 and P450R protein expression in a panel of low-grade, human superficial bladder tumours correlates with clinical response to MMC. A retrospective clinical study was conducted in which the response to MMC of 92 bladder cancer patients was compared to the immunohistochemical expression of NQO1 and P450R protein in archived paraffin-embedded bladder tumour specimens. A broad spectrum of NQO1 protein levels exists in bladder tumours between individual patients, ranging from intense to no immunohistochemical staining. In contrast, levels of P450R were similar with most tumours having moderate to high levels. All patients were chemotherapy naïve prior to receiving MMC and clinical response was defined as the time to first recurrence. A poor correlation exists between clinical response and NQO1, P450R or the expression patterns of various combinations of the 2 proteins. The results of our study demonstrate that the clinical response of superficial bladder cancers to MMC cannot be predicted on the basis of NQO1 and/or P450R protein expression and suggest that other factors (other reductases or post DNA damage events) have a significant bearing on tumour response.