TY  - JOUR
A1  - Borchers, Svenja
A1  - Müller, Laura
A1  - Synofzik, Matthis
A1  - Himmelbach, Marc
T1  - Guidelines and quality measures for the diagnosis of optic ataxia
JF  - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
N2  - Since the first description of a systematic mis-reaching by Balint in 1909, a reasonable number of patients showing a similar phenomenology, later termed optic ataxia (OA), has been described. However, there is surprising inconsistency regarding the behavioral measures that are used to detect OA in experimental and clinical reports, if the respective measures are reported at all. A typical screening method that was presumably used by most researchers and clinicians, reaching for a target object in the peripheral visual space, has never been evaluated. We developed a set of instructions and evaluation criteria for the scoring of a semi-standardized version of this reaching task. We tested 36 healthy participants, a group of 52 acute and chronic stroke patients, and 24 patients suffering from cerebellar ataxia. We found a high interrater reliability and a moderate test-retest reliability comparable to other clinical instruments in the stroke sample. The calculation of cut-off thresholds based on healthy control and cerebellar patient data showed an unexpected high number of false positives in these samples due to individual outliers that made a considerable number of errors in peripheral reaching. This study provides first empirical data from large control and patient groups for a screening procedure that seems to be widely used but rarely explicitly reported and prepares the grounds for its use as a standard tool for the description of patients who are included in single case or group studies addressing optic ataxia similar to the use of neglect, extinction, or apraxia screening tools.
KW  - systems
KW  - deficit
KW  - target
KW  - damage
KW  - delay
KW  - posterior cortical atrophy
KW  - Balints-Syndrome
KW  - hand
KW  - impairments
KW  - reliability
KW  - cerebellar atrophy
KW  - cerebellar ataxia
KW  - cerebellum
KW  - parietal lobe
KW  - optic ataxia
KW  - beside test
Y1  - 2013
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-122439
SN  - 1662-5161
VL  - 7
IS  - 324
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - De Giorgi, Valeria
A1  - Buonaguro, Luigi
A1  - Worschech, Andrea
A1  - Tornesello, Maria Lina
A1  - Izzo, Francesco
A1  - Marincola, Francesco M.
A1  - Wang, Ena
A1  - Buonaguro, Franco M.
T1  - Molecular Signatures Associated with HCV-Induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Liver Metastasis
JF  - PLoS ONE
N2  - Hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) are a heterogeneous group of tumors that differ in risk factors and genetic alterations. In Italy, particularly Southern Italy, chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection represents the main cause of HCC. Using high-density oligoarrays, we identified consistent differences in gene-expression between HCC and normal liver tissue. Expression patterns in HCC were also readily distinguishable from those associated with liver metastases. To characterize molecular events relevant to hepatocarcinogenesis and identify biomarkers for early HCC detection, gene expression profiling of 71 liver biopsies from HCV-related primary HCC and corresponding HCV-positive non-HCC hepatic tissue, as well as gastrointestinal liver metastases paired with the apparently normal peri-tumoral liver tissue, were compared to 6 liver biopsies from healthy individuals. Characteristic gene signatures were identified when normal tissue was compared with HCV-related primary HCC, corresponding HCV-positive non-HCC as well as gastrointestinal liver metastases. Pathway analysis classified the cellular and biological functions of the genes differentially expressed as related to regulation of gene expression and post-translational modification in HCV-related primary HCC; cellular Growth and Proliferation, and Cell-To-Cell Signaling and Interaction in HCV-related non HCC samples; Cellular Growth and Proliferation and Cell Cycle in metastasis. Also characteristic gene signatures were identified of HCV-HCC progression for early HCC diagnosis. 
Conclusions: A diagnostic molecular signature complementing conventional pathologic assessment was identified.
KW  - identification
KW  - hepatitis C virus
KW  - United States
KW  - gene expression
KW  - class I
KW  - endoplasmic reticulum
KW  - motile phenotype
KW  - bladder cancer
KW  - up-regulation
KW  - target
Y1  - 2013
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-131155
VL  - 8
IS  - 2
ER  -