The myth behind the aetiology and efforts towards treatment and prevention of breast cancer were always present since antiquity. Two Egyptian papyruses, written approximately 1600 B.C. are concerned with the disease, the Edwin Smith Papyrus and the Ebers Papyrus. The first includes a case (no. 45) of bulging tumour of the breast recorded in lines 9 to 20 of the reproduction: If thou examinest a man having bulging tumours on his breast, (and) thou findest that (swellings) have spread over the breast; if thou puttest thy hand upon his breast upon these tumours, (and) thou findest them very cool, there being no fever at all therein when thy hand touches him, they have no granulation, they form no fluid, and they are bulging to thy hand, thou should say concerning him one having bulging tumours. An ailment with which I will attend. There is no (treatment). © 2006 Springer.

In invasive breast cancer, tumor associated neutrophils (TAN) represent a significant portion of the tumor mass and are associated with increased angiogenesis and metastasis. Identifying the regulatory factors that control TAN behavior will help in developing ideal immunotherapies. Vacuolar ATPases (V-ATPases), multi-subunit proton pumps, are highly expressed in metastatic breast cancer cells. A cleaved peptide from a2 isoform V-ATPase (a2NTD) has immunomodulatory role in tumor microenvironment. Here, we report for the first time the role of V-ATPase in neutrophils modulation. In invasive breast cancer cells, a2NTD was detected and a2V was highly expressed on the surface. Immunohistochemical analysis of invasive breast cancer tissues revealed that increased neutrophil recruitment and blood vessel density correlated with increased a2NTD levels. In order to determine the direct regulatory role of a2NTD on neutrophils, recombinant a2NTD was used for the treatment of neutrophils isolated from the peripheral blood of healthy volunteers. Neutrophils treated with a2NTD (a2Neuɸ) showed increased secretion of IL-1RA, IL-10, CCL-2 and IL-6 that are important mediators in cancer related inflammation. Moreover, a2Neuɸ exhibited an increased production of protumorigenic factors including IL-8, matrix metaloprotinase-9 and vascular endothelial growth factor. Further, functional characterization of a2Neuɸ revealed that a2Neuɸ derived products induce in vitro angiogenesis as well as increase the invasiveness of breast cancer cells. This study establishes the modulatory effect of breast cancer associated a2V on neutrophils, by the action of a2NTD, which has a positive impact on tumor progression, supporting that a2V can be a potential selective target for breast cancer therapy.

The breakup of a one-neutron halo nucleus is studied in the eikonal approximation. Both the nuclear and Coulomb breakup processes are taken into account. The continuum states, which are usually approximated by plane waves, are constrained to satisfy the condition of orthogonality to the bound states of the halo nucleus. Taking full account of the recoil effect, the neutron-core relative energy distribution of the breakup cross section is calculated for 11Be and 19C projectiles incident on 12C and 208Pb targets and compared to experimental data. All the data regarding the energy distribution for a 208Pb target at beam energies of 68 and 520 MeV/nucleon are accurately reproduced, except for its peak at small relative energy. The experimental data regarding the relative energy distribution for the 11Be+12C system are also accurately reproduced. It is shown that use of orthogonalized plane waves leads to reduced cross sections and is necessary to account for the experimental data. The effect of the no-recoil limit is quantified

In the framework of eikonal approximation the ’He+12C phase-shift function is calculated
at about 40 MeV/nucleon completely by a Monte Carlo integration. Thc input data
are the nucleon-nucleus optical potential and a realistic 6-nucleon wave function for a halo
nucleus ’He. The effect of the breakup of ’He on the elastic differential cross sections is
discussed. The dynamic polarization potential of the 6He and 4He are evaluated

The breakup effect on the scattering and reaction of 4,6He±p, 12C, 40Ca and 6Li±p at energies of 50–800 MeV/nucleon has been studied in the framework of the eikonal approximation. The eikonal phase-shift functions have been calculated completely employing Monte Carlo integration. Realistic 6-nucleon wave functions for the 6He and 6Li nuclei have been used. The dynamic polarization potentials have been determined. We find that the breakup effect is minimal at an incident energy of 200 MeV/nucleon. At this energy, the imaginary part of the polarization potential changes sign (negative to positive with increasing energy). The real part of the polarization potential also changes sign (repulsive to attractive) around 400 MeV/nucleon. This sign change depends neither on the target nor the projectile. It depends only on the ratio of the real to the imaginary parts of the underlying nucleon-nucleon (or nucleon-target) potential. The breakup effect is stronger in 6He than in 6Li.

COVID-19 has been suggested as a possible trigger of disease flares in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, factors associated with disease flares remain unknown. This study aimed to identify factors associated with breakthrough infection (BIs) and disease flares in patients with RA following COVID-19. We analysed data from RA patients who participated in the COVID-19 vaccination in autoimmune diseases (COVAD) study. Demographic data, patient-reported outcomes, comorbidities, pharmacologic treatment and details regarding disease flares were extracted from the COVAD database. Factors associated with disease flare-ups were determined by multivariate logistic regression analysis. The analysis comprised 1928 patients with RA who participated in the COVAD study. Younger age, Caucasian ethnicity, comorbidities with obstructive chronic pulmonary disease and asthma were associated with COVID-19 breakthrough infection. Moreover, younger age (odds ratio (OR): 0.98, 95% CI 0.96-0.99, p < 0.001), ethnicity other than Asian, past history of tuberculosis (OR: 3.80, 95% CI 1.12-12.94, p = 0.033), treatment with methotrexate (OR: 2.55, 95% CI: 1.56-4.17, p < 0.001), poor global physical health (OR: 1.07, 95% CI 1.00-1.15, p = 0.044) and mental health (OR: 0.91, 95% CI 0.87-0.95, p < 0.001) were independent factors associated disease flares in patients with RA. Our study highlights the impact of socio-demographic factors, clinical characteristics and mental health on disease flares in patients with RA. These insights may help determine relevant strategies to proactively manage RA patients at risk of flares.

The tumor suppressor gene, BRCA1 has been conferred to increase the susceptibility to breast cancer in younger women. This work studied the expression of BRCA1 (mRNA) in women with breast cancer in relation to other prognostic parameters such as histological type and grade of cancer, hormone receptor status, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu) and CA15-3. Thirty patients with positive family history of breast cancer and a control group of 20 healthy subjects were also included for the study. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) extraction from breast cancer tissues was done (considered suitable for RNA extraction if 70% or more of the tissue section contained tumor) and was followed by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. BRCA1 expression was assessed and correlated with age, histological type and grade of breast cancer, estrogen and progesterone receptor (ER, PR)