Publications by authors named "Bourgeois A"

Article Synopsis
  • Lyme disease (LD) surveillance in Manitoba faces challenges, including underreporting, which affects the understanding of disease trends and distribution.
  • A retrospective analysis from 2009 to 2018 identified 1,658 clinician-diagnosed LD cases from over 1.6 million registrants, with the majority occurring during peak tick activity (May to July).
  • Annualized findings revealed a mean incidence of 10.17 cases per 100,000 people, significantly higher than the 30 cases reported by the Manitoba Health surveillance system, highlighting the extent of underreporting.
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ATP citrate lyase (ACLY), a crucial enzyme in de novo lipid synthesis and histone acetylation, plays a key role in regulating vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation and survival. We found that human coronary and pulmonary artery tissues had up-regulated ACLY expression during vascular remodeling in coronary artery disease and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Pharmacological and genetic inhibition of ACLY in human primary cultured VSMCs isolated from the coronary arteries of patients with coronary artery diseases and from the distal pulmonary arteries of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension resulted in reduced cellular proliferation and migration and increased susceptibility to apoptosis.

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Article Synopsis
  • - A retrospective analysis in Canada from 2009 to 2021 studied hospitalization rates for tick-borne diseases (TBDs), focusing on demographics, trends, and geographic distribution using health data from the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD).
  • - Out of 1,626 hospitalizations for TBDs, the majority were Lyme disease (1,457 cases), with significant annual increases noted, particularly rising from 50 cases in 2009 to 259 in 2021.
  • - Other TBDs diagnosed included rickettsiosis, tularemia, and babesiosis, with rickettsiosis showing the only increase in cases; overall, this study highlights the growing burden of TBDs and identifies populations at risk.
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Objectives: Co-trimoxazole could be an alternative antibiotic to treat device-related bone and joint infection (BJI) but there are few published data about its efficacy and safety in this complex scenario to treat infection. The objective was to compare the outcome of patients with device-related BJI treated with an antibiotic regimen including co-trimoxazole versus a regimen without co-trimoxazole.

Methods: This multicentre case-control study included consecutive adult patients diagnosed with device-related BJI.

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Naked mole rats (Heterocephalus galber) are eusocial mammals from East Africa. Their extraordinary social organisation is accompanied by remarkable adaptations to an underground lifestyle, extreme longevity and resistance to many diseases, making naked mole rats a highly relevant model for biological research. However, their living conditions in controlled environments do not allow them to express fundamental behaviours: digging galleries and exploring.

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Article Synopsis
  • Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a serious problem that can happen after getting a stem cell transplant.
  • Researchers found that a special kind of cells called DP8α Tregs, which help control the immune system, might help prevent GvHD by linking to helpful gut bacteria.
  • The study showed that patients with fewer DP8α Tregs were more likely to develop GvHD, suggesting that boosting these cells could be important for preventing this disease.
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Background: Cutaneous cytological investigation is a valuable tool for the diagnosis of superficial bacterial folliculitis (SBF). Studies comparing tape strips and direct impression (DI) smears have demonstrated that DI may recover more inflammatory cells and nuclear streaming (NS). Adhesive slides (AS) have not been evaluated in cutaneous cytological investigation.

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Parasitic diseases, such as malaria, are an immense burden to many low- and middle-income countries. In 2022, 249 million cases and 608,000 deaths were reported by the World Health Organization for malaria alone. Climate change, conflict, humanitarian crises, resource constraints and diverse biological challenges threaten progress in the elimination of malaria.

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The impact of pre-graft COVID-19 vaccinations in donor or recipient as well as pre-graft infection has been studied in 157 adults having received allogeneic stem cell transplantation (Allo-SCT) for various hematological diseases during the delta/omicron waves. We showed here that pre-Allo-SCT COVID-19 vaccination and/or infection do not provide more protection in patients receiving vaccine, immunotherapy or both after transplant. COVID-19 vaccination is and remains of crucial importance after Allo-SCT, reinforcing the recommendation to start COVID-19 vaccination as soon as the third month following the transplant.

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Enterotoxigenic (ETEC) is the most prevalent bacterial pathogen causing young children to suffer acute watery diarrhea in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) [...

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Conditioning regimen prior to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation have an impact on patient fertility through the use of gonadal irradiation and/or bifunctional alkylating agents. Their impact on fertility depends mainly on the dose used and, in women, on age at the time of treatment. All patients should benefit before treatment from a consultation informing them of the potential impact on fertility and of fertility preservation techniques.

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Phospholipase A2 receptor 1 (PLA2R1) is a 180-kDa transmembrane protein that plays a role in inflammation and cancer and is the major autoantigen in membranous nephropathy, a rare but severe autoimmune kidney disease. A soluble form of PLA2R1 has been detected in mouse and human serum. It is likely produced by proteolytic shedding of membrane-bound PLA2R1 but the mechanism is unknown.

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Article Synopsis
  • Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies have been effective against SARS-CoV-2 in at-risk groups, but their effectiveness is declining due to new variants.
  • Health authorities are using in vitro tests to guide treatment recommendations, but these tests may not accurately reflect clinical efficacy in real-world situations.
  • A study using hamsters shows that while AZD7442 retains some effectiveness against specific variants like BA.1 and BA.2, its reliability drops significantly against BA.5, underscoring the need for animal studies to enhance understanding of antibody performance in humans.
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Unlabelled: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is characterized by obliterative vascular remodeling of the small pulmonary arteries (PA) and progressive increase in pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) leading to right ventricular (RV) failure. Although several drugs are approved for the treatment of PAH, mortality remains high. Accumulating evidence supports a pathological function of integrins in vessel remodeling, which are gaining renewed interest as drug targets.

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Background: Despite advances in cancer research and treatment, the burden of cancer is not evenly distributed. People experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage have higher rates of cancer, later stage at diagnoses, and are dying of cancers that are preventable and screen-detectable. However, less is known about barriers to accessing cancer treatment.

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Controlled human infection models are important tools for the evaluation of vaccines against diseases where an appropriate correlate of protection has not been identified. Enterotoxigenic (ETEC) strain LSN03-016011/A (LSN03) is an LT enterotoxin and CS17-expressing ETEC strain useful for evaluating vaccine candidates targeting LT-expressing strains. We sought to confirm the ability of the LSN03 strain to induce moderate-to-severe diarrhea in a healthy American adult population, as well as the impact of immunization with an investigational cholera/ETEC vaccine (VLA-1701) on disease outcomes.

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Article Synopsis
  • Nocardiosis is a serious infection that can occur after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), and this study aimed to identify its risk factors and the impact of certain preventive treatments.
  • A review of 64 cases of nocardiosis and 128 matched controls showed that factors like tacrolimus use, low lymphocyte counts, male sex, recent corticosteroid use, and previous CMV infections increased the risk of developing this infection.
  • Conversely, patients on trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole prophylaxis had a significantly lower risk of nocardiosis; however, those who did develop it had poorer survival rates compared to controls.
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Despite the global importance of forested watersheds as sources of drinking water, few studies have examined the effects of forestry on drinking water treatability. Relatively little is known about how the interaction between landscape variation and flow impacts source water quality and what this interaction means for drinking water treatability. To address this knowledge gap, we examined variability in sediments, dissolved organic matter, and disinfection byproduct formation potentials (DBP-FPs) across a range of flow conditions in four small watersheds with contrasting forest harvest histories and soil characteristics on Vancouver Island.

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Late relapse, beyond 2 years following alloHSCT for AML, is rare. Among the 376 patients allografted for AML in our center between 1990 and 2016, 142 (38%) relapsed. The majority (68%) of relapses occurred during the first year following transplantation.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The only known curative treatment for CEP is allogeneic stem cell transplantation (Allo-SCT), which has mainly been documented in children and not in adults.
  • * This study presents the first successful case of a 46-year-old man cured of CEP with Allo-SCT, showing promising results over a 5-year follow-up period.
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Exogenous attention, the process that makes external salient stimuli pop-out of a visual scene, is essential for survival. How attention-capturing events modulate human brain processing remains unclear. Here we show how the psychological construct of exogenous attention gradually emerges over large-scale gradients in the human cortex, by analyzing activity from 1,403 intracortical contacts implanted in 28 individuals, while they performed an exogenous attention task.

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The present review examined the consequences of focal brain injury on spatial attention studied with cueing paradigms, with a particular focus on the disengagement deficit, which refers to the abnormal slowing of reactions following an ipsilesional cue. Our review supports the established notion that the disengagement deficit is a functional marker of spatial neglect and is particularly pronounced when elicited by peripheral cues. Recent research has revealed that this deficit critically depends on cues that have task-relevant characteristics or are associated with negative reinforcement.

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Article Synopsis
  • Ticks are key vectors for Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases in Canada, and analyzing tick surveillance data helps identify areas at risk and guide public health efforts.
  • The study utilized both passive and active surveillance data from various health authorities and eTick for 2020 to examine seasonal and geographical trends in tick populations and the pathogens they carry.
  • Results showed significant tick submissions across provinces, with multiple pathogens identified, providing valuable information to assess the exposure risk to these diseases nationwide.
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Timely access to guideline-recommended cancer treatment is known to be an indicator of the quality and accessibility of a cancer care system. Yet people who are socially disadvantaged experience inequities in access to cancer treatment that have significant impacts on cancer outcomes and quality of life. Among people experiencing the intersecting impacts of poor access to the social determinants of health and personal identities typically marginalized from society ('social disadvantage'), there are significant barriers to accessing cancer, many of which compound one another, making cancer treatment extremely difficult to access.

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