Publications by authors named "Amy Fowler"

Introduction: We sought to develop clinical guidelines within our multidisciplinary Breast Center to support decision-making for managing high-risk breast lesions. The objective is to describe the process used to develop these guidelines and assess perceived acceptability.

Methods: We recruited clinical stakeholders to identify key "high-risk" topics.

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  • The study aimed to analyze the types of microorganisms that colonize punctal plugs and intracanalicular stents used for tear insufficiency and eye surgeries.
  • The researchers collected and cultured 181 devices from participants and found that over half (54%) were culture positive, revealing a variety of microorganisms, mainly skin and upper respiratory flora.
  • No clinical infections were reported, but the findings suggest that these ocular devices can harbor potentially harmful bacteria, indicating a need for monitoring.
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  • Estrogen receptor-positive (ER-positive) breast cancer often recurs later after initial treatment, and high levels of the protein GRHL2 are linked to a worse prognosis compared to ER-negative types.
  • *GRHL2 boosts traits associated with stem cells and dormancy in ER-positive breast cancer cells, resulting in a stronger epithelial identity and a shift towards a hybrid epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT).
  • *Research shows that increased GRHL2 leads to reduced cell growth and greater dormancy marker expression, along with enhanced self-renewal capabilities and changes in influential transcription factor motifs, suggesting it plays a significant role in cancer progression.*
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Steroid receptors regulate gene expression for many important physiologic functions and pathologic processes. Receptors for estrogen, progesterone, and androgen have been extensively studied in breast cancer, and their expression provides prognostic information as well as targets for therapy. Noninvasive imaging utilizing positron emission tomography and radiolabeled ligands targeting these receptors can provide valuable insight into predicting treatment efficacy, staging whole-body disease burden, and identifying heterogeneity in receptor expression across different metastatic sites.

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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of toxic manufactured chemicals in commercial and consumer products. They are resistant to environmental degradation and mobile in soil, air, and water. This study used the introduced bivalve Corbicula fluminea as a passive biomonitor at sampling locations in a primary drinking water source in Virginia, USA.

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Breast pain is extremely common, occurring in 70% to 80% of women. Most cases of breast pain are from physiologic or benign causes, and patients should be reassured and offered treatment strategies to alleviate symptoms, often without diagnostic imaging. A complete clinical history and physical examination is key for distinguishing intrinsic breast pain from extramammary pain.

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Early detection of breast cancer through screening mammography saves lives. However, the sensitivity of mammography for breast cancer detection is reduced in women with dense breast tissue. Imaging modalities for supplemental breast cancer screening include MRI, whole breast US, contrast-enhanced mammography, and molecular breast imaging (MBI).

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  • Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that can spread to the breast, which is pretty rare but serious.
  • Doctors can use special imaging tests to find out if melanoma has spread early, which helps with treatment.
  • This review looks at how melanoma appears in different imaging tests, like mammograms and MRIs, showing that it usually looks like round or oval lumps in the breast with smooth edges.
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. Simultaneous PET/MR scanners combine the high sensitivity of MR imaging with the functional imaging of PET. However, attenuation correction of breast PET/MR imaging is technically challenging.

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The estrogen receptor (ER), a steroid hormone receptor important in female physiology, is a significant contributor to breast carcinogenesis and progression and, as such, is an important therapeutic target. Approximately 70% of breast cancers will express ER at presentation, and the determination of ER expression by tissue assay, usually by immunohistochemistry, is part of the standard of care for newly diagnosed breast cancer. ER expression is important in guiding the approach to treatment, especially with the increase in relevant systemic therapies.

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Growing evidence suggests that microbiomes have been shaping the evolutionary pathways of macroorganisms for millennia and that these tiny symbionts can influence, and possibly even control, species interactions like host-parasite relationships. Yet, while studies have investigated host-parasites and microbiomes separately, little has been done to understand all three groups synergistically. Here, we collected infected and uninfected Eurypanopeus depressus crab hosts from a coastal North Carolina oyster reef three times over 4 months.

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Deep learning (DL) reconstruction techniques to improve MR image quality are becoming commercially available with the hope that they will be applicable to multiple imaging application sites and acquisition protocols. However, before clinical implementation, these methods must be validated for specific use cases. In this work, the quality of standard-of-care (SOC) T2w and a high-spatial-resolution (HR) imaging of the breast were assessed both with and without prototype DL reconstruction.

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Breast-specific positron imaging systems provide higher sensitivity than whole-body PET for breast cancer detection. The clinical applications for breast-specific positron imaging are similar to breast MRI including preoperative local staging and neoadjuvant therapy response assessment. Breast-specific positron imaging may be an alternative for patients who cannot undergo breast MRI.

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  • Pregnancy and breastfeeding change how breasts look and feel, which makes it trickier to check for breast cancer.
  • It's still really important to do these checks to catch any cancer early, as waiting could make things worse.
  • Doctors use different types of scans, like ultrasound or mammography, depending on the woman’s age and situation, but MRI is not usually used during pregnancy.
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Breast cancer detection has a significant impact on population health. Although there are many breast imaging modalities, mammography is the predominant tool for breast cancer screening. The introduction of digital breast tomosynthesis to mammography has contributed to increased cancer detection rates and decreased recall rates.

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  • Scientists can use a special imaging technique called F-FES PET to see how many estrogen receptors are in breast cancer patients, especially those with ER-positive cancer.
  • This technique helps doctors choose the best treatments, check hard-to-reach tumors, and get clear results when other tests are confusing.
  • Because it's effective, the FDA has approved F-FES PET for these patients, while new tests for progesterone receptors are being tested right now.
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Breast carcinomas classified based on traditional morphologic assessment provide useful prognostic information. Although morphology is still the gold standard of classification, recent advances in molecular technologies have enabled the classification of these tumors into four distinct subtypes based on its intrinsic molecular profile that provide both predictive and prognostic information. This article describes the association between the different molecular subtypes with the histologic subtypes of breast cancer and illustrates how these subtypes may affect the appearance of tumors on imaging studies.

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  • There is an increasing interest in using functional imaging techniques for breast imaging because they can detect changes that standard imaging misses.
  • Technologies like nuclear medicine and breast-specific imaging systems are being used for various purposes, such as screening and checking treatment effectiveness for breast cancer.
  • These imaging methods may be particularly beneficial for certain patient groups who don’t get adequate information from conventional imaging.
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  • Researchers created a new way to understand how serious metastatic breast cancer (MBC) is when it's first diagnosed, which helps predict patient survival better.
  • They looked at data from a lot of patients and grouped them based on certain health information to see how long they survived after diagnosis.
  • The new staging system is divided into four groups based on survival rates, and it has been tested and proven to be effective with other patient data sets.
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PET imaging with 16α-F-fluoro-17β-fluoroestradiol (F-FES), a radiolabeled form of estradiol, allows whole-body, noninvasive evaluation of estrogen receptor (ER). F-FES is approved by the U.S.

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The objective of this systematic review was to investigate the association between polymorphisms in the progesterone receptor gene (PGR) and breast cancer risk. A search of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases was performed in November 2021. Study characteristics, minor allele frequencies, genotype frequencies, and odds ratios were extracted.

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