Publications by authors named "Carol Li"

Background: Deciphering the impact of invasive percutaneous core needle biopsy of the kidney allograft on diagnostic biomarkers may help guide their clinical usage.

Methods: We prospectively enrolled 39 adult kidney allograft recipients (patients) who underwent 41 clinically indicated, ultrasound-guided, percutaneous core needle biopsies. Pre- and post-biopsy urines were analyzed for urinary cell 3-gene signature score (UroMap), and the bloods for peripheral blood gene expression score (AlloMap Kidney) and plasma donor-derived cell-free DNA percentage (dd-cfDNA).

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  • - The study analyzed electronic health records of 1,448,390 children under 6 months old from 2009 to 2022 to evaluate trends and factors leading to surgery for otitis media (OM) and found that 5.3% underwent tympanostomy tube insertion (TTI).
  • - Key factors that significantly increased the likelihood of requiring TTI included sensorineural hearing loss, chronic adenoiditis, and having a cleft palate, with older children and those with certain health conditions more likely to undergo combined TTI and adenoidectomy.
  • - Despite a dip in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, overall surgery rates remained stable, with TTI rates around 20%
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  • This case series examines airway management outcomes, including reconstruction efforts, in 6 patients with campomelic dysplasia who faced severe airway obstructions leading to tracheostomy and reliance on ventilators.!* -
  • The average age of participants was 19.4 years, with a mean follow-up of 12.2 years; results showed that 4 patients underwent successful airway reconstruction and were able to be decannulated.!* -
  • The study highlights that while campomelic dysplasia was once seen as a life-threatening condition, successful airway management can lead to improved survival rates and quality of life for affected individuals into adulthood.!*
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Store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) is essential for cellular signaling. Earlier studies of the pyrazole derivative BTP2, an efficient inhibitor SOCE, identified that SOCE blockade suppresses proinflammatory gene expression. The impact of SOCE blockade on gene expression at the whole transcriptome level, however, is unknown.

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Background: Post-stroke upper limb (UL) motor improvement is associated with adaptive neuroplasticity and motor learning. Both intervention-related (including provision of intensive, variable, and task-specific practice) and individual-specific factors (including the presence of genetic polymorphisms) influence improvement. In individuals with stroke, most commonly, polymorphisms are found in Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), Apolipoprotein (APOE) and Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT).

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  • Acute rejection (AR) in kidney transplantation can significantly negate the benefits of the procedure and is typically diagnosed through invasive methods like biopsies.
  • Researchers developed a noninvasive urinary cell three-gene signature test that can differentiate between different types of AR (T cell-mediated, antibody-mediated, or mixed) and patients with no rejection.
  • The study showed that this gene signature effectively distinguished all types of AR from non-rejection cases with high accuracy, suggesting it could be a valuable tool in kidney transplant monitoring.
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Urine is a rich source of nucleic acid biomarkers including cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and RNA for monitoring the health of kidney allografts. In this study, we aimed to evaluate whether urine filtration can serve as an alternative to the commonly used method of centrifugation to collect urinary fluid and cell pellets for isolating cfDNA and cellular messenger RNA (mRNA). We collected urine specimens from kidney allograft recipients and obtained the urine supernatant and cell pellet from each specimen using both filtration and centrifugation for paired analyses.

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Purpose: To examine whether the Upper Extremity Functional Index (UEFI) score independently contributes to the Stroke Impact Scale (SIS) score and quantified its relative contribution to SIS scores in chronic stroke survivors.

Materials And Methods: A cross-sectional study in a university-based rehabilitation centre with people with chronic stroke ( = 95) aged ≥ 50 years. The outcome measures included paretic hand grip strength, Fugl-Meyer Upper Extremity Assessment (FMA-UE), Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT), UEFI, and SIS.

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Pediatric patients with persistent obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) after adenotonsillectomy often have additional sites of upper airway obstruction such as the tongue base or larynx. Sleep endoscopy and cross-sectional, dynamic imaging can be used to direct the surgical management of persistent OSA. The tongue base is one of the most common sites of obstruction in children with persistent OSA, especially for patients with Trisomy 21.

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  • Pediatric patients with ongoing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) after surgery may have other obstruction sites like the tongue base or larynx.
  • Sleep endoscopy and advanced imaging techniques help guide surgical treatment options for these patients.
  • Various surgical interventions, such as lingual tonsillectomy and epiglottopexy, target specific areas of obstruction to improve breathing during sleep.
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Purpose: To provide updated evidence about the effects of MT with ES for recovering upper extremities motor function in people with stroke.

Methods: Systematic review and meta-analysis were completed. Methodological quality was assessed using the version 2 of the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool.

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Background: Delineation of T-cell genes, gene sets, pathways, and T-cell subtypes associated with acute T cell-mediated rejection (TCMR) may improve its management.

Methods: We performed bulk RNA-sequencing of 34 kidney allograft biopsies (16 Banff TCMR and 18 no rejection [NR] biopsies) from 34 adult recipients of human kidneys. Computational analysis was performed to determine the differential intragraft expression of T-cell genes at the level of single-gene, gene set, and pathways.

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Introduction: A kidney allograft biopsy may display acute T cell-mediated rejection (TCMR), antibody-mediated rejection (ABMR), or concurrent TCMR + ABMR (MR). Development of noninvasive biomarkers diagnostic of all three types of acute rejection is a useful addition to the diagnostic armamentarium.

Methods: We developed customized RT-qPCR assays and measured urinary cell mRNA copy number in 145 biopsy-matched urine samples from 126 kidney allograft recipients and calculated urinary cell three-gene signature score from log -transformed values for the 18S-normalized CD3E mRNA, 18S-normalized CXCL10 mRNA and 18S rRNA.

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Natural killer (NK) cells mediate spontaneous cell-mediated cytotoxicity and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. This dual functionality could enable their participation in chronic active antibody-mediated rejection (CA-ABMR). Earlier microarray profiling studies have not subcategorized antibody-mediated rejection into CA-ABMR and active-ABMR, and the gene expression pattern of CA-ABMR has not been compared with that of T cell-mediated rejection (TCMR).

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Key Points: , , , and are the most common genera in the anterior nares. The nasal abundance of is inversely correlated with the nasal abundance of . Peritoneal dialysis patients have a distinctly diverse representation of and in their anterior nares.

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It is known that there can be neurologic complications related to acute infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Currently, there is a growing body of evidence that postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection can manifest as neurologic sequelae as a result of direct neuroinvasion, autoimmunity, and possibly lead to chronic neurodegenerative processes. Certain complications can be associated with worse prognosis, lower functional outcome, and higher mortality.

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Background: Thirty-seven patients have received a living-donor kidney transplant in a phase 2 study designed to induce tolerance with facilitated allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant. The study protocol is based on tolerogenic CD8 + /T-cell receptor - facilitating cells (FCR001; also including hematopoietic stem cells and αβ-T-cell receptor + T cells) and low-dose, nonmyeloablative conditioning. Persistent chimerism allowing full immunosuppression (IS) withdrawal was achieved in 26 patients (time off IS 36-123 mo).

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Unlabelled: In COVID-19 patients requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), our primary objective was to determine the frequency of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). Secondary objectives were to estimate the frequency of ischemic stroke, to explore association between higher anticoagulation targets and ICH, and to estimate the association between neurologic complications and in-hospital mortality.

Data Sources: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Cochrane, and MedRxiv databases from inception to March 15, 2022.

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Calcium is a critical signaling molecule in many cell types including immune cells. The calcium-release activated calcium channels (CRAC) responsible for store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) in immune cells are gated by STIM family members functioning as sensors of Ca store content in the endoplasmic reticulum. We investigated the effect of SOCE blocker BTP2 on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) stimulated with the mitogen phytohemagglutinin (PHA).

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In patients with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT), pulmonary function impairment has been reported but data are conflicting. Moreover, it remains unclear whether pulmonary dysfunction is associated with iron overload. This study aimed to evaluate the pulmonary function in patients with TDT and to investigate the associations between pulmonary dysfunction and iron overload.

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