Université catholique de Louvain

About: Université catholique de Louvain is a education organization based out in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Large Hadron Collider. The organization has 25319 authors who have published 57360 publications receiving 2172080 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Louvain & UCLouvain.

Golimumab, a human anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha monoclonal antibody, injected subcutaneously every four weeks in methotrexate-naive patients with active rheumatoid arthritis: twenty-four-week results of a phase III, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of golimumab before methotrexate as first-line therapy for early-onset rheumatoid arthritis.

Abstract: Objective. To assess the safety and efficacy of golimumab in methotrexate (MTX)-naive patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods. MTX-naive patients with RA (n = 637) were randomized to receive placebo plus MTX (group 1), golimumab 100 mg plus placebo (group 2), golimumab 50 mg plus MTX (group 3), or golimumab 100 mg plus MTX (group 4). Subcutaneous injections of golimumab or placebo were administered every 4 weeks. The dosage of MTX/placebo capsules started at 10 mg/week and escalated to 20 mg/week. The primary end point, the proportion of patients meeting the American College of Rheumatology 50% improvement criteria (achieving an ACR50 response) at week 24, required significant differences between groups 3 and 4 combined (combined group) versus group 1 and significant differences in a pairwise comparison (group 3 or group 4 versus group 1). Results. An intent-to-treat (ITT) analysis of the ACR50 response at week 24 did not show a significant difference between the combined group and group 1 (38.4% and 29.4%, respectively; P = 0.053), while a post hoc modified ITT analysis (excluding 3 untreated patients) of the ACR50 response showed statistically significant differences between the combined group and group 1 (38.5% versus 29.4%; P = 0.049) and between group 3 (40.5%; P = 0.038) but not group 4 (36.5%; P = 0.177) and group 1. Group 2 was noninferior to group 1 for the ACR50 response at week 24 (33.1%; 95% confidence interval lower bound -5.2%; predefined delta value for noninferiority -10%). The combination of golimumab plus MTX demonstrated a significantly better response compared with placebo plus MTX in most other efficacy parameters, including response/remission according to the Disease Activity Score in 28 joints. Serious adverse events occurred in 7%, 3%, 6%, and 6% of patients in groups 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Conclusion. Although the primary end point was not met, the modified ITT analysis of the primary end point and other prespecified efficacy measures demonstrated that the efficacy of golimumab plus MTX is better than, and the efficacy of golimumab alone is similar to, the efficacy of MTX alone in reducing RA signs and symptoms in MTX-naive patients, with no unexpected safety concerns.

LOBSTER: Local orbital projections, atomic charges, and chemical-bonding analysis from projector-augmented-wave-based density-functional theory

Abstract: We present an update on recently developed methodology and functionality in the computer program Local Orbital Basis Suite Toward Electronic-Structure Reconstruction (LOBSTER) for chemical-bonding analysis in periodic systems. LOBSTER is based on an analytic projection from projector-augmented wave (PAW) density-functional theory (DFT) computations (Maintz et al., J. Comput. Chem. 2013, 34, 2557), reconstructing chemical information in terms of local, auxiliary atomic orbitals and thereby opening the output of PAW-based DFT codes to chemical interpretation. We demonstrate how LOBSTER has been improved by taking into account time-reversal symmetry, thereby speeding up the DFT and LOBSTER calculations by a factor of 2. Over the recent years, the functionalities have also been continually expanded, including accurate projected densities of states (DOSs), crystal orbital Hamilton population (COHP) analysis, atomic and orbital charges, gross populations, and the recently introduced k-dependent COHP. The software is offered free-of-charge for non-commercial research.

Characterization of Acute and Chronic Myocardial Infarcts by Multidetector Computed Tomography Comparison With Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance

Abstract: BACKGROUND: We evaluated whether contrast-enhanced multidetector computed tomography (CE-MDCT) might characterize myocardial infarct (MI) with patterns similar to those obtained by contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance (CE-MR) and studied the underlying mechanisms. METHODS AND RESULTS: In vivo infarct characterization by CE-MDCT was shown to be feasible between 4 and 20 minutes after contrast injection in 7 pigs with MI. Subsequently, in 16 patients with acute MI and 21 patients with chronic MI, contrast patterns by CE-MDCT were related to CE-MR. Eighteen patients had hypoenhanced regions on early CE-MDCT images at the time of coronary imaging, and 34 patients had hyperenhanced regions on images acquired 10 minutes later. On a segmental basis, there was moderately good concordance of early hypoenhanced regions (92%, kappa=0.54, P<0.001) and late hyperenhanced regions (82%, kappa=0.61, P<0.001) between CE-MDCT and CE-MR. Absolute sizes of early hypoenhanced (6+/-16 versus 7+/-16 g, P=0.25) and late hyperenhanced (36+/-34 versus 31+/-40 g, P=0.14) regions were similar on CE-MDCT and CE-MR and were highly correlated (r=0.93, P<0.001 and r=0.89, P<0.001 respectively). In 8 retrogradely perfused infarcted rabbit hearts, contrast kinetics of iomeprol were similar to gadodiamide, ie, slow wash in (8.7+/-6.7 versus 1.2+/-0.3 minutes, P<0.001) in infarct core and slow washout (20+/-12 versus 2.5+/-0.5 minutes, P<0.001) in both infarct core and rim compared with the remote region. CONCLUSIONS: Because iodated contrast agents have similar kinetics in infarcted and noninfarcted myocardium as gadolinium DPTA, CE-MDCT can characterize acute and chronic MI with contrast patterns similar to CE-MR. CE-MDCT may thus provide important information on infarct size and viability at the time of noninvasive coronary imaging.