Prescribing Hydroxyurea in Sickle Cell Disease Patients: The Pattern and Association with Co-Prescribed Medications Used to Manage the Disease Complications.

Hydroxyurea (HU) is an effective medication used to reduce the frequency of painful crises associated with sickle cell disease (SCD). However, data describing its prevalence among SCD patients in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia are scarce. This is a multi-center, retrospective, cross-sectional study that aims to investigate the pattern of prescribing HU in SCD patients and to determine the association between prescribing HU and other co-prescribed medications used to manage SCD complications.

Pattern of Prescribing Proton Pump Inhibitors: Evaluating Appropriateness and Factors Contributing to Their Adverse Effect Reaction Risk.

: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are amongst the most commonly prescribed classes of medication. However, inappropriate PPI use can lead to several adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Limited data exist on factors contributing to the risk of ADRs associated with PPI prescribing patterns in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia.

The prevalence of polypharmacy and hyper-polypharmacy among middle-aged vs older patients in Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional study.

Introduction: Polypharmacy, the use of multiple medications, is a growing concern among middle-aged and older patients, posing potential risks and challenges in healthcare management.

Aim: This study aimed to identify the prevalence of polypharmacy and hyper-polypharmacy among populations of middle-aged vs older patients and identify its associated common comorbidities and prescribed medications in Qatif Central Hospital (QCH), Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Patients aged 40 years or older who presented to an outpatient medical care clinic at QCH, Saudi Arabia, between 1 January and 31 December 2021 were included, and their comorbidities, prescribed medications, and recent clinical laboratory test results were collected.

Prevalence of Iron Deficiency and its Association With Breast Cancer in Premenopausal Compared to Postmenopausal Women in Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia.

Iron is an essential cofactor needed for normal functions of various enzymes and its depletion lead to increase DNA damage, genomic instability, deteriorate innate, adaptive immunity, and promote tumor development. It is also linked to tumorigenesis of breast cancer cells through enhancing mammary tumor growth and metastasis. There is insufficient data describing this association in Saudi Arabia.

Single-molecule imaging and microfluidic platform reveal molecular mechanisms of leukemic cell rolling.

Hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell (HSPC) and leukemic cell homing is an important biological phenomenon that occurs through key interactions between adhesion molecules. Tethering and rolling of the cells on endothelium, the crucial initial step of the adhesion cascade, is mediated by interactions between selectins expressed on endothelium to their ligands expressed on HSPCs/leukemic cells in flow. Although multiple factors that affect the rolling behavior of the cells have been identified, molecular mechanisms that enable the essential slow and stable cell rolling remain elusive.

Functional binding of E-selectin to its ligands is enhanced by structural features beyond its lectin domain.

Selectins are key to mediating interactions involved in cellular adhesion and migration, underlying processes such as immune responses, metastasis, and transplantation. Selectins are composed of a lectin domain, an epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like domain, multiple short consensus repeats (SCRs), a transmembrane domain, and a cytoplasmic tail. It is well-established that the lectin and EGF domains are required to mediate interactions with ligands; however, the contributions of the other domains in mediating these interactions remain obscure.

Microfluidics-based super-resolution microscopy enables nanoscopic characterization of blood stem cell rolling.

Hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell (HSPC) homing occurs via cell adhesion mediated by spatiotemporally organized ligand-receptor interactions. Although molecules and biological processes involved in this multistep cellular interaction with endothelium have been studied extensively, molecular mechanisms of this process, in particular the nanoscale spatiotemporal behavior of ligand-receptor interactions and their role in the cellular interaction, remain elusive. We introduce a microfluidics-based super-resolution fluorescence imaging platform and apply the method to investigate the initial essential step in the homing, tethering, and rolling of HSPCs under external shear stress that is mediated by selectins, expressed on endothelium, with selectin ligands (that is, CD44) expressed on HSPCs.

Complete genome sequence of Mycobacterium vaccae type strain ATCC 25954.

Mycobacterium vaccae is a rapidly growing, nontuberculous Mycobacterium species that is generally not considered a human pathogen and is of major pharmaceutical interest as an immunotherapeutic agent. We report here the annotated genome sequence of the M. vaccae type strain, ATCC 25954.