Introduction: Despite repeated vaccinations against SARS-CoV-2 virus, patients who are immunocompromised remain at very high risk of catching SARS-CoV-2 virus and becoming unwell. AZD7442 (Evusheld) is a long-acting monoclonal antibody treatment that has been shown in clinical trials to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection for up to a year after a single dose. Vaccines require a healthy immune system to generate protective immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To determine how Hardy-Rand-Rittler (HRR) colour vision testing correlates with visual functional and structural assessments in Cone and Cone-Rod Dystrophy.
Methods: Thirty-four Cone and 69 Cone-Rod Dystrophy patients diagnosed by electroretinography (ERG) at the Save Sight Institute in Sydney were included in a retrospective analysis. Each patient's HRR colour vision test scores were compared with markers of cone and rod system function including visual acuity (VA), ERG responses, changes on Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and Fundus Autofluorescence.
Immune-mediated liver and biliary conditions, such as IgG4-related pancreatobiliary disease (IgG4-PB) and a subset of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC- high(h)IgG4), exhibit increased IgG4 levels in the blood. The relative expression of IgG4+ and IgG1+ B cells in the blood and the expression of complement and Fc receptors on these IgG1+ and IgG4+ B cells in IgG4-PB and PSC have not been previously described. We hypothesised that the patterns of expression of these cells and their receptors would differ, are relevant to disease pathogenesis and may represent therapeutic targets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBones develop to structurally balance strength and mobility. Bone developmental dynamics are influenced by whether an animal is ambulatory at birth (, precocial). Precocial species, such as goats, develop advanced skeletal maturity in utero, making them useful models for studying the dynamics of bone formation under mechanical load.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: The dynamics of HBV viral load (VL) in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) on nucleos(t)ide analogue (NA) treatment and its relationship with liver disease are poorly understood. We aimed to study longitudinal VL patterns and their associations with CHB clinical outcomes.
Methods: Utilising large scale, routinely collected electronic health records from six centres in England, collated by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Health Informatics Collaborative (NIHR HIC), we applied latent class mixed models to investigate VL trajectory patterns in adults receiving NA treatment.
Intrathecal nicardipine (ITN) is an investigational therapy for cerebral vasospasm (CVS) and delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). The objective of this scoping review was to characterize the current state of the literature and map the current available evidence, examine research methodology, clarify key concepts and definitions in the literature, report procedural characteristics, identify and analyze knowledge gaps, and serve as a precursor for future systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials. An electronic search for studies on ITN for the treatment of CVS and DCI in patients with aSAH was conducted in accordance with published standards.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Emerging adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D) struggle with glycemic management that can be exacerbated by a disorganized transition process. Substantial gaps in care have been noted during this transition period and have been shown to lead to suboptimal health care utilization, worsening glycemic management, increased incidence of serious complications, and mental health challenges. A formal transition program can help prevent gaps in care, improve disease self-management skills, decrease disease burden, and reduce diabetes complications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pregnant and post-partum (collectively peri-partum) women may be at increased risk of severe COVID-19 disease.
Aims: To describe the characteristics, interventions, and outcomes of peri-partum patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) in Australia with COVID-19.
Materials And Methods: We conducted a prospective, multicentre observational study using the SPRINT-SARI Australia database across 63 ICUs in Australia.
CD4 T cells have been established as central orchestrators of cellular and humoral immune responses to infection or vaccination. However, the need for CD4 T cell help to generate primary CD8 T cell responses is variable depending on the infectious agent or vaccine and yet consistently required for the recall of CD8 T cell memory responses or antibody responses. Given the deployment of new vaccine platforms such as nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccines, we sought to elucidate the requirement for CD4 T cell help in the induction of cellular and antibody responses to mRNA and adenovirus (Ad)-vectored vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined the efficacy of a 2-year anxiety management intervention integrated with a reading intervention for struggling readers in upper-elementary grades on anxiety outcomes. The study randomly assigned 128 struggling readers to one of three conditions: (a) reading intervention with anxiety management intervention (RANX), (b) reading intervention with math fact practice, an attention control, (RMATH), and (c) business-as-usual comparison (BaU). Findings demonstrated promising results for students in the RANX condition, particularly compared with the BaU condition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: Patients with vascular liver diseases (VLD) are at higher risk of both severe courses of COVID-19 disease and thromboembolic events. The impact of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in patients with VLD has not been described and represents the aim of our study.
Methods: International, multicenter, prospective observational study in patients with VLD analyzing the incidence of COVID-19 infection after vaccination, severity of side effects, occurrence of thromboembolic events and hepatic decompensation.
Although evidence indicates that viruses are important in the ecology of spp., many questions remain. For example, how does exist at high, bloom-associated cell concentrations in the presence of viruses that infect it? The phenomenon of lysogeny and associated homoimmunity offer possible explanations to this question.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Appendicitis is a frequently encountered surgical condition, yet its diagnosis can be challenging. There is increasing research on the safety of leaving macroscopically normal appendices in situ, the necessity of routine histopathological assessment, and the impact of the intra-operative assessment on the post-operative course. We aimed to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the surgeon's intra-operative diagnosis of appendiceal pathology, which is an important factor in answering these questions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhilst SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines generate high neutralising antibodies (nAb) in most individuals, haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) recipients respond poorly. HSCT/CAR-T treatment ablates existing immune memory, with recipients requiring revaccination analogous to being vaccine naive. An optimal revaccination strategy for this cohort has not been defined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Pouchitis and Crohn's-like disease of the pouch (CLDP) are common in patients who undergo ileal pouch anal anastomosis for ulcerative colitis. We conducted separate systematic reviews to evaluate the effectiveness of available interventions to prevent and treat pouchitis and CLDP.
Methods: Through systematic literature reviews, we identified studies that evaluated the effectiveness of probiotics, antibiotics, 5-aminosalicylates, nonsystemic oral corticosteroids, and advanced therapies for prevention and treatment of pouchitis and CLDP for meta-analysis.
Introduction: The impact of diverting ileostomy in adults with ulcerative colitis (UC) undergoing ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA) is unclear. This study uses a novel approach with population-level data to identify patients with diverting ileostomy at the time of IPAA and determine the impact of diverting ileostomy on postoperative outcomes.
Methods: Using the International Business Machines (IBM) MarketScan® database, adults (18-64 years old) with a diagnosis of UC who underwent IPAA between 2000 and 2019 were examined.
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, people with disability had a right and an acute need to access accessible COVID-19 information, in formats such as sign language, Braille, large print and Easy Read/English. Yet such information was not always provided and many people with disability were without sufficient accessible information.
Objective: This paper explores the experiences of Australian accessible information provider organizations of producing accessible information during the pandemic.
The observed increase in extreme weather has prompted recent methodological advances in extreme event attribution. We propose a machine learning-based approach that uses convolutional neural networks to create dynamically consistent counterfactual versions of historical extreme events under different levels of global mean temperature (GMT). We apply this technique to one recent extreme heat event (southcentral North America 2023) and several historical events that have been previously analyzed using established attribution methods.
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