The Sister Model: a framework for academic and service partnerships in nursing home settings

A unique teaching nursing home project was developed between a college of nursing and four nursing homes for the purpose of providing diverse teaching-learning experiences for nursing students, sharing resources among all participants, and attracting new nursing graduates to consider a career in long-term care. The Sister Model, a partnership model, served as a framework for the project and was designed to increase communication, share resources, promote interactive learning, and use nursing expertise to develop competence of nursing students. Evaluations of model activities were positive, and the model serves as an example of how schools of nursing and nursing homes can work together toward common goals.     

Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor with ALK/TPM3 fusion presenting as ileocolic intussusception: an unusual presentation of an unusual neoplasm

Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor is a rare spindle cell lesion of indeterminate malignant potential occurring in both pulmonary and extrapulmonary tissues. This report describes an unusual presentation of an unusual tumor at an unusual location: an intramural ileal case of inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor presenting with intussusception in a 29-year-old woman. We characterize this tumor through microscopic and ultrastructural analysis, extensive immunohistochemical analysis, ploidy analysis, and Epstein-Barr virus in situ hybridization, and we report the finding of an ALK/TPM3 fusion using fluorescence in situ hybridization.     

Activity of PXD101, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, in preclinical ovarian cancer studies

Histone deacetylase inhibitors represent a promising new class of anticancer agents. In the current investigation, we examined the activity of PXD101, a potent histone deacetylase inhibitor, used alone or in combination with clinically relevant chemotherapeutics (docetaxel, paclitaxel, and carboplatin), in preclinical in vitro and in vivo models of ovarian cancer. In vitro activity was examined in ovarian cancer and multidrug-resistant cell lines grown in monolayer culture, and in primary clinical ovarian cancer specimens grown in three-dimensional organoid culture. PXD101 was found to inhibit in vitro cancer cell growth at sub- to low micromolar IC(50) potency, exhibited synergistic activity when used in combination with relevant chemotherapeutics, and effectively inhibited the growth of multidrug-resistant cells. In vivo, PXD101 displayed single-agent antitumor activity on human A2780 ovarian cancer s.c. xenografts which was enhanced via combination therapy with carboplatin. In support of these findings, PXD101 was shown to increase the acetylation of alpha-tubulin induced by docetaxel and the phosphorylation of H2AX induced by carboplatin. Taken together, these results support the clinical evaluation of PXD101 used alone or in combination therapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer.