Pneumococcal Vaccination Recommendation and Completion Rates Among Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Barriers to Vaccination.

Background: Guidelines for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients receiving immunosuppression encouraged both the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) and the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13). We aimed to evaluate which pneumococcal vaccines are recommended and administered, and to understand provider and IBD patient knowledge regarding pneumococcal vaccinations.

Methods: We performed a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of 357 adult IBD patients on immunosuppression in our health care system.

Automated identification and assignment of colonoscopy surveillance recommendations for individuals with colorectal polyps.

Background And Aims: Determining surveillance intervals for patients with colorectal polyps is critical but time-consuming and challenging to do reliably. We present the development and assessment of a pipeline that leverages natural language processing techniques to automatically extract and analyze relevant polyp findings from free-text colonoscopy and pathology reports. Using this information, we categorized individual patients into 6 postcolonoscopy surveillance intervals defined by the U.

Gastroenterology visitation and reminders predict surveillance uptake for patients with adenomas with high-risk features.

Individuals diagnosed with colorectal adenomas with high-risk features during screening colonoscopy have increased risk for the development of subsequent adenomas and colorectal cancer. While US guidelines recommend surveillance colonoscopy at 3 years in this high-risk population, surveillance uptake is suboptimal. To inform future interventions to improve surveillance uptake, we sought to assess surveillance rates and identify facilitators of uptake in a large integrated health system.

Patient Navigation After Positive Fecal Immunochemical Test Results Increases Diagnostic Colonoscopy and Highlights Multilevel Barriers to Follow-Up.

Background: The fecal immunochemical test (FIT) is a common colorectal cancer screening modality in the USA but often is not followed by diagnostic colonoscopy.

Aims: We investigated the efficacy of patient navigation to increase diagnostic colonoscopy after positive FIT results and determined persistent barriers to follow-up despite navigation in a large, academic healthcare system.

Methods: The study cohort included all health system outpatients with an assigned primary care provider, a positive FIT result between 12/01/2016 and 06/01/2019, and no documentation of colonoscopy after positive FIT.

The role of vitamin D in inflammatory bowel disease: a guide for clinical practice.

Introduction: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract that carries significant morbidity and mortality. Given the need to identify modifiable risk factors to prevent IBD development and to mitigate disease severity, vitamin D has become a major candidate of interest.

Areas Covered: In this review, we discuss the regulatory role played by vitamin D in intestinal immune homeostasis, updates in the recent literature exploring its role in IBD pathogenesis and established IBD activity.

Reactivation of Hepatitis B Virus: A Review of Clinical Guidelines.

http://aasldpubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.

Opposing signaling pathways regulate morphology in response to temperature in the fungal pathogen Histoplasma capsulatum.

Phenotypic switching between 2 opposing cellular states is a fundamental aspect of biology, and fungi provide facile systems to analyze the interactions between regulons that control this type of switch. A long-standing mystery in fungal pathogens of humans is how thermally dimorphic fungi switch their developmental form in response to temperature. These fungi, including the subject of this study, Histoplasma capsulatum, are temperature-responsive organisms that utilize unknown regulatory pathways to couple their cell shape and associated attributes to the temperature of their environment.

Role of Neuropilin-1/Semaphorin-3A signaling in the functional and morphological integrity of the cochlea.

Neuropilin-1 (Nrp1) encodes the transmembrane cellular receptor neuropilin-1, which is associated with cardiovascular and neuronal development and was within the peak SNP interval on chromosome 8 in our prior GWAS study on age-related hearing loss (ARHL) in mice. In this study, we generated and characterized an inner ear-specific Nrp1 conditional knockout (CKO) mouse line because Nrp1 constitutive knockouts are embryonic lethal. In situ hybridization demonstrated weak Nrp1 mRNA expression late in embryonic cochlear development, but increased expression in early postnatal stages when cochlear hair cell innervation patterns have been shown to mature.

Genome-Wide Association Analysis Identifies Dcc as an Essential Factor in the Innervation of the Peripheral Vestibular System in Inbred Mice.

This study aimed to investigate the genetic causes of vestibular dysfunction. We used vestibular sensory-evoked potentials (VsEPs) to characterize the vestibular function of 35 inbred mouse strains selected from the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel and demonstrated strain-dependent phenotypic variation in vestibular function. Using these phenotypic data, we performed the first genome-wide association study controlling for population structure that has revealed two highly suggestive loci, one of which lies within a haplotype block containing five genes (Stard6, 4930503L19Rik, Poli, Mbd2, Dcc) on Chr.

The Genetic Architecture of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss: Evidence for a Gene-by-Environment Interaction.

The discovery of environmentally specific genetic effects is crucial to the understanding of complex traits, such as susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). We describe the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) for NIHL in a large and well-characterized population of inbred mouse strains, known as the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel (HMDP). We recorded auditory brainstem response (ABR) thresholds both pre and post 2-hr exposure to 10-kHz octave band noise at 108 dB sound pressure level in 5-6-wk-old female mice from the HMDP (4-5 mice/strain).

Large-scale phenotyping of noise-induced hearing loss in 100 strains of mice.

A cornerstone technique in the study of hearing is the Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR), an electrophysiologic technique that can be used as a quantitative measure of hearing function. Previous studies have published databases of baseline ABR thresholds for mouse strains, providing a valuable resource for the study of baseline hearing function and genetic mapping of hearing traits in mice. In this study, we further expand upon the existing literature by characterizing the baseline ABR characteristics of 100 inbred mouse strains, 47 of which are newly characterized for hearing function.

Genome-wide association study identifies nox3 as a critical gene for susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss.

In the United States, roughly 10% of the population is exposed daily to hazardous levels of noise in the workplace. Twin studies estimate heritability for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) of approximately 36%, and strain specific variation in sensitivity has been demonstrated in mice. Based upon the difficulties inherent to the study of NIHL in humans, we have turned to the study of this complex trait in mice.