Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Survival Analysis In A Clinical Setting, Yunzhao Liu

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the fast paced advancement of modern medicine, cancer treatments have improved greatly over the past few decades; however, the overall survival rate has not improved for head neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Traditionally, the general affected population of HNSCC was male over 50-60 years of age, whom have had history of alcohol and tobacco use. Conversely, in the recent decades, HNSCC has exhibited significant rise in younger patients, largely due to the increase in human papillomavirus (HPV) infection among young adults.

Generally, HPV as the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease, consisted of strains that do not cause harm to …

Polychlorinated Biphenyl (Pcb) Pollution Of The Hudson River: Social Policy And Health Considerations, Laura Schad

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine pollution in the Hudson River and the role General Electric has had in creating this problem. The focus will be on social issues and problems that have emerged as a result of the environmental damage from pollution. Until recently, there was little research done on the health and environmental justice issues that impact the New York communities where GE’s factories were located. This paper examines the material collected and studies that were done which document Hudson River pollution and the contributions as well as cleanup efforts of General Electric. The overall problems …

The Relation Between Patient Education And Picc Line Occlusion, Patricia Louise Petroulias

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility of using an electronic tablet to supplement patient and caregiver education about PICC line maintenance and to compare the percentage of PICC line complications in the intervention group with national percentage rates for patients and caregivers. Newly diagnosed cancer patients who had PICC lines inserted participated in this study. They used an electronic tablet to learn the 10 steps for flushing their PICC lines correctly. They also met with the researcher via FaceTime to review the steps.

A total of 11 patients participated in this quasi-experimental pilot study. They completed …

Modeling Spatially Varying Effects Of Chemical Mixtures, Jenna Czarnota

Theses and Dissertations

Cancer incidence is associated with exposures to multiple environmental chemicals, and geographic variation in cancer rates suggests the importance of accommodating spatially varying effects in the analysis of environmental chemical mixtures and disease risk. Traditional regression methods are challenged by the complex correlation patterns inherent among co-occurring chemicals, and the applicability of geographically weighted regression models is limited in the setting of environmental chemical risk analysis. In comparison to traditional methods, weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression performs well in the identification of important environmental exposures, but is limited by the assumption that effects are fixed over space. We present an …

Design, Synthesis And Physicochemical Analysis Of Ruthenium(Ii) Polypyridyl Complexes For Application In Phototherapy And Nucleic Acid Sensing, Erin Melissa Wachter

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Current chemotherapeutics exhibit debilitating side effects as a result of their toxicity to healthy tissues. Reducing these side effects by developing chemotherapeutics with selectivity for cancer cells is an active area of research. Phototherapy is one promising modality for selective treatment, where drug molecules are “turned on” when irradiated with light, reducing damage to healthy tissues by spatially restricting the areas exposed to irradiation. A second approach to improve selectivity is to exploit the differences in cancerous versus healthy cells, such as increased metabolism and/or upregulation of cell surface receptors. Ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes are candidates for phototherapy due to their …

Cdk8 And Cdk19 As Novel Regulators Of Bmp4 Induced Emt In Cancer, Anne Elizabeth Serrao

Theses and Dissertations

Bone morphogenetic protein 2/4 (BMP2/4), members of the transforming growth factor β (Tgf-β) superfamily, play a dichotomous role in the progression of cancers through cell growth suppression and the enhancement of tumorigenesis in a variety of cancers. Cyclin dependent kinase 8 (CDK8), a protein kinase that regulates gene transcription, is involved in a variety of cancers including breast and pancreatic cancers as well as in mediating BMP2 signaling via its canonical Smad1 pathway. Our studies show that BMP4 induced EMT signals primarily though Smad1 and that Yap1, a transcriptional co-activator, is necessary for BMP4 induced EMT. Using a highly specific …