Unmet needs in the clinical management of chronic hepatitis B infection.

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) remains a global problem despite effective tools to prevent, diagnosis, and control it. Unmet needs are identifiable across its clinical care cascade, underlining the challenges providers face in delivering effective care for patients with chronic hepatitis B. The review herein will focus on three timely clinical issues in HBV.

Impact of Tricuspid Regurgitation on Outcomes After Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement.

Development of functional tricuspid regurgitation (TR) because of chronic mitral disease and subsequent heart failure is common. However, the effect of TR on clinical outcomes after transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) remains unclear. We aimed to evaluate the impact of baseline TR on outcomes after TMVR.

Transcatheter Paravalvular Leak Closure With Covered Stent Tract and Vascular Plug: Tootsie Roll Technique.

Background: Transcatheter closure of transcatheter heart valve (THV)-related paravalvular leak (PVL) is associated with a high failure rate with available devices due to the complex interaction of THV and aortic/mitral annulus.

Objectives: This study reports on novel transcatheter techniques to treat PVL after THV.

Methods: The authors describe consecutive patients who underwent PVL closure after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) or transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR).

Critiquing representations of intellectual disability in occupation-based literature.

Background: Within and beyond occupation-based scholarship, concerns abound regarding the pervasiveness of discourses that promote a negative, deficit-based view of intellectual disability and associated consequences for disabled people's lives. Such representations risk reducing the complexities of human doing and being and can limit the occupational possibilities of this group. Yet, there is a lack of critically reflexive research exploring how disability is discursively constructed in occupation-based literature.

Geographic Isolation and Vulnerability Across Peru's Ecological Regions: The Influence of Regional Contexts of Extraction.

Geographically isolated places are often sites of exported environmental risks, intense resource extraction, exploitation and marginalization, and social policy neglect. These conditions create unique challenges related to vulnerability and adaptation that have direct disaster management implications. Our research investigates the relationship between geographic isolation and flood-related social vulnerability across Peru's ecological regions.

Hybrid Closure of Postinfarction Apical Ventricular Septal Defect Using Septal Occluder Device and Right Ventricular Free Wall: The Apical BASSINET Concept.

Background: Postinfarction ventricular septal defect (VSD) is a catastrophic complication of myocardial infarction. Surgical repair still has poor outcomes. This report describes clinical outcomes after a novel hybrid transcatheter/surgical repair in patients with apical VSD.

Trends and outcomes of combined percutaneous (TAVI+PCI) and surgical approach (SAVR+CABG) for patients with aortic valve and coronary artery disease: A National Readmission Database (NRD) analysis.

Background: In patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS) and concomitant severe coronary artery disease (CAD), the relative merits of a combined percutaneous (transcatheter aortic valve implantation [TAVI] and percutaneous coronary intervention [PCI]] versus surgical approach (surgical aortic valve replacement [SAVR] and coronary artery bypass graft [CABG]) remain unknown.

Aims: To determine the utility of combined percutaneous versus surgical approaches in patients with severe AS and CAD.

Methods: The National Readmission Database (NRD) (2015-2019) was queried to identify all cases of TAVI+PCI and SAVR+CABG.

Physician-Modified Endograft-Facilitated Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve Replacement in Large Right Ventricular Outflow Tract.

Background: Transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement (TPVR) in patients with a congenital or acquired abnormality resulting in enlarged right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) is challenging and may preclude treatment with dedicated devices. We describe a technique using a physician-modified endograft to facilitate TPVR.

Methods: Six patients underwent physician-modified endograft-facilitated TPVR for severe symptomatic pulmonary insufficiency with enlarged RVOT.

Metagenomics of African and (Rubiaceae) reveals the presence of leaf endophytes.

Background: Leaf symbiosis is a phenomenon in which host plants of Rubiaceae interact with bacterial endophytes within their leaves. To date, it has been found in around 650 species belonging to eight genera in four tribes; however, the true extent in Rubiaceae remains unknown. Our aim is to investigate the possible occurrence of leaf endophytes in the African plant genera and and, if present, to establish their identity.

Persistently Elevated HBV Viral-Host Junction DNA in Urine as a Biomarker for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Minimum Residual Disease and Recurrence: A Pilot Study.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV)-host junction sequences (HBV-JSs) has been detected in the urine of patients with HBV infection. This study evaluated HBV-JSs as a marker of minimum residual disease (MRD) and tumor recurrence after treatment in HBV-hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. Archived serial urine DNA from two HBV-HCC with recurrence as confirmed by MRI and four HBV-related cirrhosis (LC) patients were used.

Chronic Hepatitis B Virus: What an Internist Needs to Know: Serologic Diagnosis, Treatment Options, and Hepatitis B Virus Reactivation.

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a bloodborne infection which affects approximately 1.6 million persons in the U.S.

The ECAT dataset: expert-validated distribution data of endemic and sub-endemic trees of Central Africa (Dem. Rep. Congo, Rwanda, Burundi).

In this data paper, we present a specimen-based occurrence dataset compiled in the framework of the Conservation of Endemic Central African Trees (ECAT) project with the aim of producing global conservation assessments for the IUCN Red List. The project targets all tree species endemic or sub-endemic to the Central African region comprising the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), Rwanda, and Burundi. The dataset contains 6361 plant collection records with occurrences of 8910 specimens from 337 taxa belonging to 153 genera in 52 families.

Large scale seasonal forecasting of peak season algae metrics in the Midwest and Northeast U.S.

In recent decades, many inland lakes have seen an increase in the prevalence of potentially harmful algae. In many inland lakes, the peak season for algae abundance (summer and early fall in the northern hemisphere) coincides with the peak season for recreational use. Currently, little information regarding expected algae conditions is available prior to the peak season for productivity in inland lakes.

Ageing with (and into) assistive technology: an exploration of the narratives of amputees and polio survivors.

Purpose: Assistive technologies (AT) perform an important social role, interacting with cultural systems to produce or hinder accessibility to biosocial environments. This interaction profoundly shapes not only how an individual body can be experienced by users but also produce and hinder accessibility to biosocial environments. AT users have historically been viewed through a medical model, which deems them disabled by their impairments and by dominant ableist narratives.

First Application of the LAMPOON Procedure to a Surgical Mitral Bioprosthesis.

A cardiogenic shock patient with a history of a surgical mitral valve replacement presented to the hospital with critical mitral stenosis with thickening of prosthetic valve leaflets and thrombus in left atrial appendage. We considered TMVR inside of the degenerated bioprosthetic valve. However, there were two concerns during TMVR based on multimodality imaging assessment: 1) LVOT obstruction due to the surgical bioprosthetic leaflet, 2) stroke due to left atrial appendage thrombus.