Multiple myeloma in a young female presenting as an aggressive skull-base tumour.

Unlabelled: Plasma cell neoplasia has a wide presentation of disease (localised or systemic) according to the International Myeloma Working Group. Radiological imaging identifies plasmacytomas as solitary lesions or part of multiple myeloma. We present a rare case of a 21-year-old female who presented with a skull-base tumour.

Clinical validation of commercial deep-learning based auto-segmentation models for organs at risk in the head and neck region: a single institution study.

Purpose: To evaluate organ at risk (OAR) auto-segmentation in the head and neck region of computed tomography images using two different commercially available deep-learning-based auto-segmentation (DLAS) tools in a single institutional clinical applications.

Methods: Twenty-two OARs were manually contoured by clinicians according to published guidelines on planning computed tomography (pCT) images for 40 clinical head and neck cancer (HNC) cases. Automatic contours were generated for each patient using two deep-learning-based auto-segmentation models-Manteia AccuContour and MIM ProtégéAI.

The Applications and Pitfalls of Cone-Beam Computed Tomography-Based Synthetic Computed Tomography for Adaptive Evaluation in Pencil-Beam Scanning Proton Therapy.

Purpose: The study evaluates the efficacy of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT)-based synthetic CTs (sCT) as a potential alternative to verification CT (vCT) for enhanced treatment monitoring and early adaptation in proton therapy.

Methods: Seven common treatment sites were studied. Two sets of sCT per case were generated: direct-deformed (DD) sCT and image-correction (IC) sCT.

"If You Just Tell Me You're 18, I'll Still Sell to You": A Qualitative Study of Underage Tobacco Product Purchasing Experiences in a Tobacco 21 Compliance Study.

Background: Tens of thousands of underage tobacco buy attempts are conducted each year for research, compliance, and public health surveillance. However, little research has qualitatively examined the perceptions and experiences of underage buyers participating in these programs. We sought to understand underage buyers' experiences and gather recommendations for protocol improvements.

Evaluation of commercial devices for patient specific QA of stereotactic radiotherapy plans.

Stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) methods have become common for the treatment of small tumors in various parts of the body. Small field dosimetry has a unique set of challenges when it comes to the pre-treatment validation of a radiotherapy plan that involves film dosimetry or high-resolution detectors. Comparison of commercial quality assurance (QA) devices to the film dosimetry method for pre-treatment evaluation of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), fractionated SRT, and stereotactic body radiation therapy treatment plans have been evaluated in this study.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Tobacco 21 Laws to Reduce Underage Access to Tobacco: Protocol for a Repeated Multi-Site Study.

Prior to the federal law passed in December 2019, many states passed an increased age of sale law prohibiting youth under age 21 (or Tobacco 21) from purchasing tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. Although previous research has documented tobacco retail sale violations, fewer studies have examined age verification and illegal tobacco sales in the context of Tobacco 21 or repeated purchase attempts in various settings. In this study conducted between 2019 and 2022, buyers aged 18 to 20 years made repeated unsupervised purchase attempts of cigarettes, cigars, e-cigarettes, tobacco-free nicotine pouches, and smokeless tobacco at over 180 tobacco or e-cigarette retailers in New Jersey, New York City, and Pitt County (North Carolina).

A Pilot Study to Examine Retailer Compliance Before and After Tobacco 21 in New Jersey.

Despite rapid diffusion of Tobacco 21 (T21) laws in the last several years, research examining T21 compliance remains limited. This pilot study examined retailer compliance with carding before and after T21 as well as sales violations after T21 in New Jersey. A 19-year-old buyer made alternating cigar and cigarette purchase attempts in 15 licensed tobacco retailers weekly for five weeks before and 10 weeks following the T21 effective date for a total of 222 visits.

Neighborhood distribution of availability of newer tobacco products: A US four-site study, 2021.

Audits of tobacco retailers can identify marketing patterns as newer tobacco products are introduced in the US. Our study examined store and neighborhood correlates of availability of nicotine pouches and disposable e-cigarettes in four US sites. We conducted standardized store audits of n = 242 tobacco retailers in 2021 in different states: New Jersey, Kentucky, North Carolina, and New York.

Adjuvant Intravesical Chemohyperthermia Versus Passive Chemotherapy in Patients with Intermediate-risk Non-muscle-invasive Bladder Cancer (HIVEC-II): A Phase 2, Open-label, Randomised Controlled Trial.

Background: Adjuvant intravesical chemotherapy following tumour resection is recommended for intermediate-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).

Objective: To assess the efficacy and safety of adjuvant intravesical chemohyperthermia (CHT) for intermediate-risk NMIBC.

Design, Setting, And Participants: HIVEC-II is an open-label, phase 2 randomised controlled trial of CHT versus chemotherapy alone in patients with intermediate-risk NMIBC recruited at 15 centres between May 2014 and December 2017 (ISRCTN 23639415).

Multiplexed detection of bacterial nucleic acids using Cas13 in droplet microarrays.

Rapid and accurate diagnosis of infections is fundamental to individual patient care and public health management. Nucleic acid detection methods are critical to this effort, but are limited either in the breadth of pathogens targeted or by the expertise and infrastructure required. We present here a high-throughput system that enables rapid identification of bacterial pathogens, bCARMEN, which utilizes: (1) modular CRISPR-Cas13-based nucleic acid detection with enhanced sensitivity and specificity; and (2) a droplet microfluidic system that enables thousands of simultaneous, spatially multiplexed detection reactions at nanoliter volumes; and (3) a novel preamplification strategy that further enhances sensitivity and specificity.

A Retrospective Cohort Study to Identify the Risk Factors for Urinary Tract Infection After Office Procedures.

Objective: The objective of this study is to identify the incidence of and risk factors for urinary tract infection (UTI) after office cystoscopy and urodynamic studies (UDS) in a female population.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study investigating incidence of and risk factors for UTI after office testing. Inclusion criteria included women presenting for either cystoscopy or UDS from September 2019 to February 2020.

Designing sensitive viral diagnostics with machine learning.

Design of nucleic acid-based viral diagnostics typically follows heuristic rules and, to contend with viral variation, focuses on a genome's conserved regions. A design process could, instead, directly optimize diagnostic effectiveness using a learned model of sensitivity for targets and their variants. Toward that goal, we screen 19,209 diagnostic-target pairs, concentrated on CRISPR-based diagnostics, and train a deep neural network to accurately predict diagnostic readout.

Multiplexed CRISPR-based microfluidic platform for clinical testing of respiratory viruses and identification of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has demonstrated a clear need for high-throughput, multiplexed and sensitive assays for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and other respiratory viruses and their emerging variants. Here, we present a cost-effective virus and variant detection platform, called microfluidic Combinatorial Arrayed Reactions for Multiplexed Evaluation of Nucleic acids (mCARMEN), which combines CRISPR-based diagnostics and microfluidics with a streamlined workflow for clinical use. We developed the mCARMEN respiratory virus panel to test for up to 21 viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, other coronaviruses and both influenza strains, and demonstrated its diagnostic-grade performance on 525 patient specimens in an academic setting and 166 specimens in a clinical setting.

Clinical and Pregnancy Outcomes of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Among Hospitalized Pregnant Women in the United States.

Background: Pregnant women with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may be at greater risk of poor maternal and pregnancy outcomes. This retrospective analysis reports clinical and pregnancy outcomes among hospitalized pregnant women with COVID-19 in the United States.

Methods: The Premier Healthcare Database-Special Release was used to examine the impact of COVID-19 among pregnant women aged 15-44 years who were hospitalized and who delivered compared with pregnant women without COVID-19.

Severe maternal morbidity and mortality during delivery hospitalization of class I, II, III, and super obese women.

Background: Previous studies show that obesity predisposes patients to higher risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Data on the relationship between increasing degrees of obesity and risks of severe maternal morbidity, including mortality, are limited.

Objective: We examined the association of increasing classes of obesity, especially super obesity, with the risk of severe maternal morbidity and mortality at the time of delivery hospitalization.

Random access DNA memory using Boolean search in an archival file storage system.

DNA is an ultrahigh-density storage medium that could meet exponentially growing worldwide demand for archival data storage if DNA synthesis costs declined sufficiently and if random access of files within exabyte-to-yottabyte-scale DNA data pools were feasible. Here, we demonstrate a path to overcome the second barrier by encapsulating data-encoding DNA file sequences within impervious silica capsules that are surface labelled with single-stranded DNA barcodes. Barcodes are chosen to represent file metadata, enabling selection of sets of files with Boolean logic directly, without use of amplification.

Chemical Inhibition of ENL/AF9 YEATS Domains in Acute Leukemia.

Transcriptional coregulators, which mediate chromatin-dependent transcriptional signaling, represent tractable targets to modulate tumorigenic gene expression programs with small molecules. Genetic loss-of-function studies have recently implicated the transcriptional coactivator, ENL, as a selective requirement for the survival of acute leukemia and highlighted an essential role for its chromatin reader YEATS domain. Motivated by these discoveries, we executed a screen of nearly 300,000 small molecules and identified an amido-imidazopyridine inhibitor of the ENL YEATS domain (IC = 7 μM).

End of life simulation to improve interprofessional competencies: A mixed methods study.

Background: The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education "Standards 2016" require that pharmacy student education include training in the management of patients "across the lifespan" (Standard 12). Standards 2016 also require that students are practice-ready to participate as a contributing member of an interprofessional (IP) team (Standard 11). Didactic and experiential education in palliative or end-of-life (EOL) care is limited.

Outcome of clinical and subclinical myocardial injury in systemic lupus erythematosus - A prospective cohort study.

Objectives: To determine the outcome of subclinical lupus myocarditis (LM) over twelve months with regards to: mortality; incidence of clinical LM and change in imaging parameters (echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance [CMR]). To evaluate the impact of immunosuppression on CMR evidence of myocardial tissue injury.

Methods: SLE patients with and without CMR evidence of myocardial injury (as per 2009 Lake Louise criteria [LLC]) were included.

Availability of menthol cigarettes in Oakland, California after a partial flavor ban.

This study measures the availability of menthol cigarettes in Oakland, California where such products were banned from the majority of tobacco retailers, except for those who sold a significant amount of tobacco (e.g., 60% gross income).