Publications by authors named "C L Loeffler"

Background: Point-of-care tests (POCT) can support diagnosis of patients with community acquired acute respiratory tract infections (CA-RTI) in primary care and thereby reduce uncertainty whether antibiotics may benefit patients. However, successful roll out of POCTs need to be built on a deep understanding of patients' perspectives on the place of POCTs in patient centred care.

Aim: To explore patients' perceptions of the value of POCTs during consultations for CA-RTI.

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  • Homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) is a key biomarker for predicting which cancer patients might respond to PARP inhibitors, but testing for HRD is complex.* -
  • The researchers created a deep learning pipeline using attention-weighted multiple instance learning (attMIL) to predict HRD status from routine histology images, achieving varying accuracy rates across different cancer types.* -
  • Results showed that HRD can be predicted directly from histology slides for multiple cancers, with the model demonstrating promising accuracy, particularly for endometrial, pancreatic, and lung cancers.*
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  • - Ciguatera poisoning (CP) is a serious health issue linked to seafood contaminated with ciguatoxins (CTXs), prompting the need for efficient testing methods due to increased seafood demand.
  • - The study compared several extraction methods for CTXs from fish tissue, finding that both methanol and enzyme-based methods offered high speeds and accuracy, enabling over 16 samples to be processed daily.
  • - All methods effectively confirmed CTX presence using advanced techniques, enhancing global screening capabilities and reducing delays in analyzing seafood safety, which is crucial for public health.
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In the spectrum of colorectal tumors, microsatellite-stable (MSS) tumors with DNA polymerase ε (POLE) mutations exhibit a hypermutated profile, holding the potential to respond to immunotherapy similarly to their microsatellite-instable (MSI) counterparts. Yet, due to their rarity and the associated testing costs, systematic screening for these mutations is not commonly pursued. Notably, the histopathological phenotype resulting from POLE mutations is theorized to resemble that of MSI.

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