Publications by authors named "Andrew Wu"

The emerging field of molecular cavity polaritons has stimulated a surge of experimental and theoretical activities and presents a unique opportunity to develop the many-body simulation methodology. This paper presents a numerical scheme for the extraction of key kinetic information of lossy cavity polaritons based on the transfer tensor method (TTM). Steady state, relaxation timescales, and oscillatory phenomena can all be deduced directly from a set of transfer tensors without the need for long-time simulation.

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  • Adolescent exposure to THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) alters how morphine affects behavior in adulthood, impacting anxiety and drug-related responses.
  • * In particular, THC exposure reduced anxiety during morphine withdrawal but increased the craving for morphine, indicating complex interactions between these substances.
  • * Finally, the study identified changes in brain connectivity, particularly between the frontal cortex and dopamine regions, suggesting a neurological basis for how early THC exposure influences future responses to morphine.
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Aims: When administered in early type 2 diabetes (T2DM), the strategy of 'induction' with short-term intensive insulin therapy (IIT) followed by 'maintenance' with metformin thereafter can yield outstanding glycaemic control, with some patients achieving A1c in the normal range of its assay. We thus sought to identify determinants of sustained normalisation of A1c in response to this treatment strategy.

Materials And Methods: In this study, adults with T2DM of mean duration 1.

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  • The study was a retrospective cohort analysis aimed at assessing the impact of gabapentinoids on opioid use after anterior lumbar interbody fusion surgery.
  • While gabapentinoid treatment led to a slight 2.9% reduction in daily opioid consumption, it paradoxically increased the total duration and amount of opioids prescribed significantly (37.1% and 41.7%, respectively).
  • Additionally, the use of gabapentinoids was linked to higher risks of pain-related readmissions and potential drug abuse.
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Direct measurement of spatial-temporal drug penetration and exposure in the human central nervous system (CNS) and brain tumors is difficult or infeasible. This study aimed to develop an innovative mechanistic modeling platform for quantitative prediction of spatial pharmacokinetics of systemically administered drugs in the human CNS and brain tumors. A nine-compartment CNS (9-CNS) physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model was developed to account for general anatomical structure and pathophysiological heterogeneity of the human CNS and brain tumors.

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  • A study was conducted to compare robotic minor liver resections (RMLR) with laparoscopic minor liver resections (LMLR) in patients undergoing surgery on the anterolateral liver segments.
  • The analysis included over 10,000 patients and employed propensity score matching to balance the groups for accuracy in comparisons.
  • Results indicated RMLR had benefits like less blood loss, lower major morbidity, and shorter hospital stays than LMLR, although the difference in 30-day readmission rates suggested RMLR may have some drawbacks.
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  • The study compares the outcomes of using an operating microscope (OM) vs. standard loupe (SL) for reconstructing the hepatic artery in pediatric liver transplants, focusing on HA thrombosis rates.
  • Analysis included data from 1,261 liver recipients, revealing that the OM group had significantly lower rates of HA thrombosis, better graft survival, and reduced overall mortality compared to the SL group.
  • The findings suggest that incorporating microsurgical techniques, like OM, improves outcomes in pediatric liver transplantation, although some factors such as operation times and hospital stays showed no significant difference.
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Introduction: Minimally invasive oncological resections have become increasingly widespread in the surgical management of cancers. However, the role of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for gallbladder cancer (GBC) remains unclear. We aim to perform a systematic review and network meta-analysis of existing literature to evaluate the safety and feasibility of laparoscopic and robotic surgery in the management of GBC compared to open surgery (OS) by comparing outcomes.

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Study Design: Retrospective cohort.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of semaglutide treatment for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) on the risk of short-term (<6 months) postoperative complications in patients undergoing primary cervical spine decompression and fusion (CSDF).

Summary Of Background Data: Semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, is gaining popularity as a weekly injectable medication for the treatment of T2DM and obesity.

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Instance segmentation of biological cells is important in medical image analysis for identifying and segmenting individual cells, and quantitative measurement of subcellular structures requires further cell-level subcellular part segmentation. Subcellular structure measurements are critical for cell phenotyping and quality analysis. For these purposes, instance-aware part segmentation network is first introduced to distinguish individual cells and segment subcellular structures for each detected cell.

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  • The study investigates the risk factors and outcomes related to open conversion during minimally invasive liver resections (MILR), especially in minor hepatectomies, highlighting its association with inferior results.
  • Analysis was conducted on data from over 10,500 patients who underwent laparoscopic or robotic liver resections from 2004 to 2020, identifying key independent predictors for open conversion.
  • Results show that patients who required open conversion experienced longer recovery times, increased blood loss, higher complications, and elevated 90-day mortality rates compared to those who had successful minimally invasive surgeries.
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We have developed a digital twin-based CKD identification and prediction model that leverages generalized metabolic fluxes (GMF) for patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). GMF digital twins utilized basic clinical and physiological biomarkers as inputs for identification and prediction of CKD. We employed four diverse multi-ethnic cohorts (n = 7072): a Singaporean cohort (EVAS, n = 289) and a North American cohort (NHANES, n = 1044) for baseline CKD identification, and two multi-center Singaporean cohorts (CDMD, n = 2119 and SDR, n = 3627) for 3-year CKD prediction and risk stratification.

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Access to medical technologies is a critical component of universal access to care; however, the advancement of technologies for children has historically lagged behind those for adults. The small market size, anatomic and physiologic variability, and legal and ethical implications pose unique barriers to developing and commercialising paediatric biomedical innovations. These challenges are magnified in low-resource settings (LRS), which often lack appropriate regulatory oversight, support for service contracts, and supply chain capacity.

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  • Minimally invasive liver surgery has become more common over the last 30 years, especially for treating colorectal liver metastases, but the effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on surgical outcomes are not well understood.
  • A study analyzed a large database of nearly 5,000 patients who underwent minimally invasive liver surgeries to compare outcomes between those who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and those who did not.
  • The results showed that neoadjuvant chemotherapy did not significantly affect the short-term surgical outcomes in patients undergoing these liver procedures.
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A novel type of chemosensor based on tin(IV) complexes incorporating hydroxyquinoline derivatives has been designed and investigated for selectively detecting fluoride ions. Sn(meq)Cl (meq = 2-methyl-8-quinolinol) (complex 1) exhibits a significant enhancement in luminescence upon the introduction of fluoride ions. This enhancement greatly surpasses that observed with SnqCl and Sn(dmqo)Cl (q = 8-hydroxyquinnoline; dmqo = 5,7-dimethyl-8-quinolinol).

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Chronic myeloid leukemia is a multistep, multi-lineage myeloproliferative disease that originates from a translocation event between chromosome 9 and chromosome 22 within the hematopoietic stem cell compartment. The resultant fusion protein BCR::ABL1 is a constitutively active tyrosine kinase that can phosphorylate multiple downstream signaling molecules to promote cellular survival and inhibit apoptosis. Currently, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), which impair ABL1 kinase activity by preventing ATP entry, are widely used as a successful therapeutic in CML treatment.

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  • A clinical trial was conducted in rural Cambodia to assess the safety of a low-cost oxygen blender, called LESS, used in conjunction with bCPAP for children under five experiencing respiratory distress.
  • The trial included 32 patients, and clinical failure (like needing intubation or showing new respiratory issues) occurred in only one case (3.1%).
  • While the LESS O blender was generally safe, there were issues such as frequent repairs and adjustments needed, highlighting the potential for design improvements to enhance its performance and reliability.*
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Purpose: The pharmacokinetics of intrathecally administered antibody or small-molecule drugs in the human central nervous system (CNS) remains poorly understood. This study aimed to provide mechanistic and quantitative perspectives on the CNS pharmacokinetics of intrathecal chemotherapy, by using a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling approach.

Experimental Design: A novel CNS PBPK model platform was developed and verified, which accounted for the human CNS general anatomy and physiologic processes governing drug distribution and disposition.

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Background: We sought to assess the accuracy of a novel parameter proportional to the rod shear stress (RSS) in identifying patients at risk of rod fracture (RF) after surgery for correction of adult spinal deformity.

Methods: We performed a retrospective medical record review of patients aged ≥18 years treated for adult spinal deformity between 2004 and 2014 with ≥24 months of follow-up. The primary outcome was RFs identified radiographically.

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Importance: Pediatric ventilator-associated events (PedVAEs, defined as a sustained worsening in oxygenation after a baseline period of stability or improvement) are useful for surveillance of complications from mechanical ventilation. It is unclear whether interventions to mitigate known risk factors can reduce PedVAE rates.

Objective: To assess whether adherence to 1 or more test factors in a quality improvement bundle was associated with a reduction in PedVAE rates.

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  • This study assessed how liver cirrhosis (LC) influences the challenges of minimally invasive liver resection (MILR), specifically for minor surgeries involving primary liver tumors in anterolateral segments.
  • Conducted from 2004 to 2021 across 60 centers, the research involved 3,675 patients, with varying degrees of cirrhosis classified as Child A and Child B.
  • Results indicated that patients with Child A cirrhosis faced higher risks of complications, such as increased blood loss and rates of open conversion, while those with Child B cirrhosis had longer hospital stays and more significant morbidity; overall, the severity of LC complicates the surgical process, highlighting the need for better difficulty
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  • Minimally invasive liver resections (MILR) can reduce blood loss and recovery time compared to traditional methods, but the impact of cirrhosis on these procedures is not fully understood.
  • A study reviewed data from 2534 patients who underwent minimally invasive major liver surgeries worldwide, focusing on outcomes related to different levels of cirrhosis.
  • Results showed that advanced cirrhosis leads to higher blood transfusion rates, more postoperative complications, and longer hospital stays, suggesting that cirrhosis severity should be considered in future assessments of surgical difficulty in MILR.*
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Background: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is a collection of connective tissue disorders which are often associated with tissue laxity and disc degeneration. However, the implications of EDS on the risk of adjacent segment disease (ASD) after transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) are not well described. The objective of this study is to compare the rates of ASD among patients with EDS and those without EDS.

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Imatinib Mesylate (imatinib) was once hailed as the magic bullet for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and remains a front-line therapy for CML to this day alongside other tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). However, TKI treatments are rarely curative and patients are often required to receive life-long treatment or otherwise risk relapse. Thus, there is a growing interest in identifying biomarkers in patients which can predict TKI response upon diagnosis.

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Study Design: Retrospective cohort.

Objective: To compare the rates of all-cause surgical complications of synthetic interbody devices versus allograft or autograft in patients undergoing 1-2 levels anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) procedures.

Summary Of Background Data: Cervical degenerative disorders affect up to 60% of older adults in the United States.

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