Stem and branch form of 20-year-old radiata pine in relation to previous land use

The growth and form of 20-year-old radiata pine stands were assessed in relation to previous land use in Sunny Corner State Forest, near Lithgow, N.S.W. Basal area and merchantable volume were higher in ex-pasture (grazed land) and ex-improved pasture (grazed and cropped sites) than in an ex-native forest site, but the trees on former pastures were more deformed. A range of defects including multiple leaders, forks, stem sinuosity, butt sweep and heavy branching were most prevalent in the ex-improved pasture site. Up to 44% of trees in the ex-improved pasture were severely deformed and less than 50 stem ha^?1 were considered suitable as sawlog quality trees. Only 12% of trees in the ex-native forest site had severe defects.

Soil and foliar chemistry data showed that stem and branch deformities increased with increasing site fertility, and that deformity was directly correlated with soil mineral-N concentrations.

Deformity was also correlated with foliar manganese, aluminium and calcium, and some defects were similar to symptoms of boron deficiency. The role of these elements in “poor form” requires further study. Stand density also appeared to affect deformity. The results suggest that high densities may partially counteract the effect of high site fertility in the development of stem and branch defects.     

Automated generation of curved planar reformations from volume data: method and evaluation

The authors developed and evaluated a method to automatically create interactive vascular curved planar reformations with computed tomographic (CT) angiographic data. The method decreased user interaction time by 86%, from 15 to 2 minutes. Expert reviewers were asked to indicate their confidence in differentiating automatically created images from clinical-quality manually produced images. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.45 (95% CI: 0.39, 0.51), and a test of equivalency indicated that reviewers could not distinguish between images. They also graded image quality as equivalent to that with manual methods and found fewer artifacts on automatically created images. Automatic methods rapidly produce curved planar reformations of equivalent quality with reduced time and effort.     

A phase 1/2 trial of ibrutinib in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with mismatch repair proficient metastatic colorectal cancer

Background MMR proficient (pMMR) colorectal cancer (CRC) is usually unresponsive to immunotherapy. Recent data suggest that ibrutinib may enhance the anti-tumour activity of anti-PD-1 immunotherapy. In this study, we evaluated the safety and efficacy of ibrutinib plus pembrolizumab in refractory metastatic CRC.Methods This was a phase 1/2 study in patients with refractory metastatic pMMR CRC. The primary endpoints for phases 1 and 2 were maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and disease control rate, respectively. The secondary endpoints were safety, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).Results A total of 40 patients were enrolled. No dose-limiting toxicity was observed, and MTD was not identified. The highest tested dose of ibrutinib, 560 mg once daily, was combined with a fixed dose of pembrolizumab 200 mg every 3 weeks for the phase 2 portion. The most common grade 3/4 treatment-related adverse events were anaemia (21%), fatigue (8%) and elevated alkaline phosphatase (8%). Among 31 evaluable patients, 8 (26%) achieved stable disease, and no objective response was observed. The median PFS and OS were 1.4 and 6.6 months, respectively.Conclusion Ibrutinib 560 mg daily plus pembrolizumab 200 mg every 3 weeks appears to be well tolerated with limited anti-cancer activity in metastatic CRC.ClinicalTrials.gov identifier {"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT03332498","term_id":"NCT03332498"}}NCT03332498.Subject terms: Cancer immunotherapy, Colorectal cancer