Publications by authors named "Becker P"

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses significant risks for solid organ transplant recipients, who have atypical but poorly characterized immune responses to infection. We aim to understand the host immunologic and microbial features of COVID-19 in transplant recipients by leveraging a prospective multicenter cohort of 86 transplant recipients age- and sex-matched with 172 non-transplant controls. We find that transplant recipients have higher nasal SARS-CoV-2 viral abundance and impaired viral clearance, and lower anti-spike IgG levels.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Determining why some upper respiratory illnesses provoke asthma exacerbations remains an unmet need.

Objective: To identify transcriptome-wide gene expression changes associated with colds that progress to exacerbation.

Methods: 208 urban children (6-17 years) with exacerbation-prone asthma were prospectively monitored for up to two cold illnesses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The "Climate and Sustainability" working group of the German Society for Rehabilitation Sciences was founded in March 2023. The members represent research, practice, and service providers in rehabilitation. The aim is to make rehabilitation in Germany sustainable and to focus on climate protection and the health consequences of climate change.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Patients with AML and measurable residual disease (MRD) undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) may benefit from myeloablative conditioning (MAC) when feasible to reduce relapse risk. Fludarabine-Melphalan (FluMel) is a common reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) regimen; however, data in MRD+ patients is sparse. We performed a retrospective review of AML patients who underwent their first HCT (2016-2021) without morphologic disease at City of Hope who had pre-transplant marrow evaluated for MRD using multicolor flow cytometry (MFC) and received radiation-based MAC or FluMel conditioning.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The standard first-line treatment for acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD) is systemic, high-dose glucocorticoids which have historically had limited responses. Combined cytokine blockade therapy (CCBT) with the monoclonal antibodies infliximab (a TNF-α inhibitor) and basiliximab (an IL-2 receptor blocker) has had limited discussion in the literature.

Methods: Sixty patients with steroid-refractory aGVHD were analyzed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hospitalized COVID-19 patients exhibit diverse immune responses during acute infection, which are associated with a wide range of clinical outcomes. However, understanding these immune heterogeneities and their links to various clinical complications, especially long COVID, remains a challenge. In this study, we performed unsupervised subtyping of longitudinal multi-omics immunophenotyping in over 1,000 hospitalized patients, identifying two critical subtypes linked to mortality or mechanical ventilation with prolonged hospital stay and three severe subtypes associated with timely acute recovery.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Chronic viral infections can reactivate during acute illnesses, and this study looked at how SARS-CoV-2 infection affects latent viruses like Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) in over 1,154 hospitalized COVID-19 patients.* -
  • The analysis showed significant reactivation of multiple virus families during the acute stage of COVID-19, which correlated with disease severity, demographics, and clinical outcomes, including higher mortality rates.* -
  • Additionally, persistent viral reactivation after recovery was linked to ongoing symptoms of Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), emphasizing the importance of understanding these interactions for better treatment and management strategies.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study aimed to identify factors influencing the completeness of primary and re-excision of basal cell carcinoma (BCC), cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and cutaneous carcinoma in situ (CIS) of the head and neck. A retrospective single-center analysis was conducted, encompassing 1513 instances of cutaneous tumors recorded between 2015 and 2022. This dataset comprised 1108 primary excisions and 405 re-excisions, all of which were histologically verified cases of BCC, SCC, and CIS located within the head and neck region.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Oral rehabilitation with dental implants is a common procedure in modern dentistry due to its high success rates. However, complications such as implant displacement can occur, particularly in the maxillary region due to factors like atrophied maxilla, thin alveolar bone, and low bone density. This case series explores scenarios of maxillary dental implant displacement, emphasizing the impact of immediate preoperative imaging on patient outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Neoantigen immunogenicity prediction is a highly challenging problem in the development of personalised medicines. Low reactivity rates in called neoantigens result in a difficult prediction scenario with limited training datasets. Here we describe ImmugenX, a modular protein language modelling approach to immunogenicity prediction for CD8+ reactive epitopes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Conventional navigation systems (CNS) in surgery require strong spatial cognitive abilities and hand-eye coordination. Augmented Reality Navigation Systems (ARNS) provide 3D guidance and may overcome these challenges, but their accuracy and efficiency compared to CNS have not been systematically evaluated. In this randomized crossover study with 36 participants from different professional backgrounds (surgeons, students, engineers), drilling accuracy, time and perceived workload were evaluated using ARNS and CNS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Studies have focused on smoking and alcohol as risk factors for colorectal cancer (CRC). Caucasians and other populations have been studied worldwide, and both smoking and alcohol have been validated as causes of CRC. However, there are limited data on the black population; studies that have been performed in Africa have not specifically focused on these two risk factors but rather in combination with other risks.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

BCL-2 protein overexpression, common in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), including the Philadelphia (Ph)-like subtype, mediates leukemic cell survival. We treated 24 patients with 14 days of BCL-2 inhibitor, venetoclax, 400 mg daily (dose level 1) during induction and consolidation cycles combined with the CALGB 10403 regimen in newly diagnosed adults with Ph-negative B-ALL. Median age was 31 (range: 18-53) years, 92% were Hispanic, and 12 (50%) patients had Ph-like ALL.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the role of 2,3-bisphosphoglycerate mutase (BPGM) in the kidney, highlighting its upregulation during acute kidney injury in both mice and humans.
  • Using a specialized mouse model, researchers found that BPGM is mainly located in the distal nephron and its knockout led to rapid kidney injury and structural damage after just four days.
  • The absence of BPGM disrupts crucial metabolic processes, elevating oxidative stress and inflammation while linking stress responses between different parts of the nephron, underscoring its importance in kidney function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Information on the use of validated malnutrition risk screening tools in pediatric facilities to guide malnutrition identification, diagnosis, and treatment is scarce. Therefore, a survey of pediatric healthcare facilities and practitioners to ascertain malnutrition risk screening practices in North America was conducted. A pediatric nutrition screening practices survey was developed and sent to members of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, the Council for Pediatric Nutrition Professionals and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Pediatric Nutrition Practice Group.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Since the development of consensus-recommended indicators for pediatric malnutrition in 2014, screening and diagnosis of pediatric malnutrition have improved, but the indicators are not always used; malnutrition continues to be underdiagnosed in some community and healthcare settings. In particular, mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) is underused as a screening indicator for pediatric malnutrition, despite its unique advantages and usefulness in several clinical situations. In December 2022, a scientific roundtable was held to bring together several experts in pediatric malnutrition.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Sexual violence is a widespread issue that has significant negative effects on victims, which can be influenced by whether individuals consider their experience as rape.
  • This study examined rape acknowledgment among a diverse sample, finding that 44% acknowledged their rape, while 20% were uncertain, and 33% did not recognize their experience as rape.
  • Results showed that gender identity plays a crucial role in acknowledgment, with sexual minority transgender/nonbinary individuals being the most likely to acknowledge their rape compared to other groups, highlighting a need for further research in this area.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Allogeneic Hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) remains the only curative therapy for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML). The impact of spliceosome mutations on allo-HCT outcome is unclear and further understanding is needed to assess the implications of this class of mutations on risk of relapse, overall survival (OS) and non-relapse mortality (NRM) in order to make decision regarding timing of allo-HCT. We examined the allo-HCT outcomes of MDS/CMML patients based on their spliceosome mutation profile to understand the impact of these mutations on transplant outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bimodal neuromodulation is emerging as a nonsurgical treatment for tinnitus. Bimodal treatment combining sound therapy with electrical tongue stimulation using the Lenire device is evaluated in a controlled pivotal trial (TENT-A3, NCT05227365) consisting of 6-weeks of sound-only stimulation (Stage 1) followed by 6-weeks of bimodal treatment (Stage 2) with 112 participants serving as their own control. The primary endpoint compares the responder rate observed in Stage 2 versus Stage 1, where a responder exceeds 7 points in the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The optimal myeloablative conditioning regimen for ALL patients undergoing hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) with an alternative donor is unknown. We analyzed HCT outcomes ALL patients (n = 269) who underwent HCT at our center from 2010 to 2020 in complete remission (CR) after FTBI-etoposide and CNI-based GvHD prophylaxis for matched donor HCT (ETOP-package; n = 196) or FTBI-Fludarabine and post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy)-based prophylaxis for HLA- mismatched (related or unrelated) donors (FLU-package; n = 64). Patients in FLU-package showed a significant delay in engraftment (p < 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The "Dairy Diary" is a user-friendly web-based dairy intake screener. The reliability and validity are unknown. We aimed to evaluate the screener in terms of test-retest reliability and comparative validity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The aim of the current study was to assess the influence of maternal weight gain in different clinical gestational conditions on the child's weight at pre-school age. This was a longitudinal observational study of a prospective and controlled multiple cohort of 372 mother-child pairs with four causal groups of different adverse intrauterine environments (smoking, diabetic, hypertensive and intrauterine growth-restricted pregnant women) and a control group, in the period of, from 2011 to 2016 in three hospitals in Porto Alegre (Brazil). Sociodemographic, prenatal and perinatal data were analysed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) remains the sole curative treatment for most patients with hematologic malignancies. A well-matched donor (related or unrelated) remains the preferred donor for patients undergoing allogeneic HCT; however, a large number of patients rely on alternative donor choices of mismatched related (haploidentical) or unrelated donors to access HCT. In this retrospective study, we investigated outcomes of patients who underwent mismatched donor (related or unrelated) HCT with a radiation-based myeloablative conditioning MAC regimen in combination with fludarabine, and post-transplantation cyclophosphamide (PTCy) as higher-intensity graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Caesarean section is a life-saving procedure which is associated with high rates of maternal and neonatal complications. It has been estimated that globally, 29.7 million births occur by caesarean section annually.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Caesarean section is a life-saving procedure which is associated with high rates of maternal and neonatal complications. It has been estimated that globally, 29.7 million births occur by caesarean section annually.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF