Real-world effectiveness of fidaxomicin in patients at high risk of recurrence.

Objective: Compare the real-world impact of fidaxomicin (FDX) and vancomycin (VAN) on infection (CDI) recurrence in a high-risk patient population.

Design: A retrospective, matched-cohort study evaluating hospitalized patients with CDI from January 1, 2016, to November 1, 2022, within a tertiary academic medical center.

Patients: Adult patients with at least 1 prior CDI case who received either FDX or VAN for non-fulminant CDI while admitted, and had at least 1 additional risk factor for recurrence.

Transcriptome Deconvolution Reveals Absence of Cancer Cell Expression Signature in Immune Checkpoint Blockade Response.

Unlabelled: Immune checkpoint therapy (ICB) has conferred significant and durable clinical benefit to some patients with cancer. However, most patients do not respond to ICB, and reliable biomarkers of ICB response are needed to improve patient stratification. Here, we performed a transcriptome-wide meta-analysis across 1,486 tumors from ICB-treated patients and tumors with expected ICB outcomes based on microsatellite status.

Antiretroviral Stewardship: Top 10 Questions Encountered by Stewardship Teams and Solutions to Optimize Therapy.

Purpose: Infectious disease pharmacists and physicians overseeing antimicrobial stewardship programs possess expertise and often advanced certification in management of antiretrovirals to treat HIV. Stewardship programs are responsible for managing facility formularies and must stay up to date with the latest antiretrovirals, including once daily formulations and depot injectables. Furthermore, stewardship program members need to understand drug-interactions, short-, and long-term toxicities of these regimens, including dyslipidemia and cardiovascular effects.

A gait stability evaluation method based on wearable acceleration sensors.

In this study, an accurate tool is provided for the evaluation of the effect of joint motion effect on gait stability. This quantitative gait evaluation method relies exclusively on the analysis of data acquired using acceleration sensors. First, the acceleration signal of lower limb motion is collected dynamically in real-time through the acceleration sensor.

Antimicrobial Stewardship and Pandemic Preparedness: Harnessing Lessons Learned to Advance Our Mission.

Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) demonstrated poise and resilience in assisting with COVID-19 efforts across the globe, harnessing expertise in diagnostic stewardship, therapeutics, protocol development, and use of technology to rapidly expand their scope through strategic collaborations, dissemination of content expertise, and numerous contributions to the body of knowledge on COVID-19. Lessons learned from pandemic response should be used to advance the mission of ASPs and secure a "seat at the table" as health systems continue to expand and adapt to future public health crises.

Non-randomized evaluation of hospitalization after a prescription for nirmatrelvir/ritonavir versus molnupiravir in high-risk COVID-19 outpatients.

Objectives: To assess and compare subsequent hospital admissions within 30 days for patients after receiving a prescription for either oral nirmatrelvir/ritonavir or oral molnupiravir.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of 3207 high-risk, non-hospitalized adult COVID-19 patients who received a prescription for molnupiravir (n = 209) or nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (n = 2998) at an academic medical centre in New York City from April to December 2022. Variables including age, vaccination status, high-risk conditions and demographic factors were pulled from the electronic medical record.

Human milk oligosaccharides in Chinese lactating mothers and relationship with allergy development in offspring.

Background: The health benefits of breastfeeding are partly contributed by human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), but there is limited data on breast milk (BM) HMO composition in Chinese.

Objective: This study investigated the association between early-life HMO intake and allergy occurrence in Chinese children.

Methods: 103 healthy Chinese pregnant women regardless of allergy history were recruited into this birth cohort.

Expanding the scope and visibility of ambulatory stewardship programs with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) therapeutics.

Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) can be expanded to the outpatient setting to serve as a first line of defense against coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) hospitalizations and to reduce the burden on emergency departments and acute-care hospitals. Given the numerous emergency use authorizations of monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals, ASPs possess the expertise and leadership to direct ambulatory COVID-19 initiatives and transform it into a predominantly outpatient illness. In this review, we summarize the critical role and benefits of an ASP-championed ambulatory COVID-19 therapeutics program.

Assessment of unvaccinated and vaccinated patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treated with monoclonal antibodies during the delta wave (July 1-August 20, 2021): a retrospective observational monocentric study.

Background: Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) prevent COVID-19 progression when administered early. We compared mAb treatment outcomes among vaccinated and unvaccinated patients during Delta wave and assessed the feasibility of implementing stricter eligibility criteria in the event of mAb scarcity.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study of casirivimab/imdevimab recipients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 infection in an emergency department or outpatient infusion center (July 1-August 20, 2021).

Integrative epigenomic and high-throughput functional enhancer profiling reveals determinants of enhancer heterogeneity in gastric cancer.

Background: Enhancers are distal cis-regulatory elements required for cell-specific gene expression and cell fate determination. In cancer, enhancer variation has been proposed as a major cause of inter-patient heterogeneity-however, most predicted enhancer regions remain to be functionally tested.

Methods: We analyzed 132 epigenomic histone modification profiles of 18 primary gastric cancer (GC) samples, 18 normal gastric tissues, and 28 GC cell lines using Nano-ChIP-seq technology.

Reinforced nitrite supplement by cathode nitrate reduction with a bio-electrochemical system coupled anammox reactor.

Anammox has been widely used for the treatment of nitrogen wastewater. However, the problem of stable NO supplement becomes one of the limiting factors. It is an effective method to obtain NO by denitrifying the NO, including the by-product of Anammox.

A potential microbiological approach to the evaluation of earthquake-induced soil liquefaction.

Earthquakes occur thousands of times every day around the world. They are naturally destructive seismic events and often result in soil liquefaction. Soil microbiota plays a vital role in soil environments and may serve as an effective indicator to assess soil liquefaction after earthquakes.

Longitudinal Effects of Motivation and Physical Activity on Depressive Symptoms among College Students.

High prevalence of depression and physical inactivity have been consistently reported among college students, especially in females. Guided by Lubans et al.'s conceptual framework, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal relationships of PA motivation with leisure-time PA and depressive symptoms among college students over one academic year.

Tissue-specific cell-free DNA degradation quantifies circulating tumor DNA burden.

Profiling of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) may offer a non-invasive approach to monitor disease progression. Here, we develop a quantitative method, exploiting local tissue-specific cell-free DNA (cfDNA) degradation patterns, that accurately estimates ctDNA burden independent of genomic aberrations. Nucleosome-dependent cfDNA degradation at promoters and first exon-intron junctions is strongly associated with differential transcriptional activity in tumors and blood.

MutSpot: detection of non-coding mutation hotspots in cancer genomes.

Recurrence and clustering of somatic mutations (hotspots) in cancer genomes may indicate positive selection and involvement in tumorigenesis. MutSpot performs genome-wide inference of mutation hotspots in non-coding and regulatory DNA of cancer genomes. MutSpot performs feature selection across hundreds of epigenetic and sequence features followed by estimation of position- and patient-specific background somatic mutation probabilities.

Genomic and epigenomic EBF1 alterations modulate TERT expression in gastric cancer.

Transcriptional reactivation of telomerase catalytic subunit (TERT) is a frequent hallmark of cancer, occurring in 90% of human malignancies. However, specific mechanisms driving TERT reactivation remain obscure for many tumor types and in particular gastric cancer (GC), a leading cause of global cancer mortality. Here, through comprehensive genomic and epigenomic analysis of primary GCs and GC cell lines, we identified the transcription factor early B cell factor 1 (EBF1) as a TERT transcriptional repressor and inactivation of EBF1 function as a major cause of TERT upregulation.

Comparison of Recommendations for Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Children and Adolescents: A Position Paper of the Federation of International Societies of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.

Objective: This position paper written by the Hepatitis Expert Team of the Federation of International Societies of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition aimed to systematically evaluate clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), medical consensus, and position papers on the use of direct-acting antivirals (DAA) to treat chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in adolescents and children in order to compare recommendations and provide the basis for developing a unified position statement.

Methods: MEDLINE, Cochrane-Library, National Guideline Clearinghouse and select websites of relevant societies/organizations were used to identify CPGs, medical consensus and position papers between 2011-2019.

Results: A total of 5 documents were analysed: 3 CPGs, 1 medical consensus, and 1 position paper.

Ensemble-Based Somatic Mutation Calling in Cancer Genomes.

Identification of somatic mutations in tumor tissue is challenged by both technical artifacts, diverse somatic mutational processes, and genetic heterogeneity in the tumors. Indeed, recent independent benchmark studies have revealed low concordance between different somatic mutation callers. Here, we describe Somatic Mutation calling method using a Random Forest (SMuRF), a portable ensemble method that combines the predictions and auxiliary features from individual mutation callers using supervised machine learning.

A Determination Method for Gait Event Based on Acceleration Sensors.

A gait event is a crucial step towards the effective assessment and rehabilitation of motor dysfunctions. However, for the data acquisition of a three-dimensional motion capture (3D Mo-Cap) system, the high cost of setups, such as the high standard laboratory environment, limits widespread clinical application. Inertial sensors are increasingly being used to recognize and classify physical activities in a variety of applications.

Impact of early home psychotropic medication reinitiation on surrogate measures of intensive care unit delirium.

Introduction: Intensive care unit (ICU) delirium is a major contributing factor to increased mortality, length of stay, and cost of care. Psychotropic medications may often require extensive tapering to prevent withdrawal symptoms; during ICU admission, home psychotropics are frequently held which may precipitate acute drug withdrawal and subsequent delirium.

Methods: This is a single-center, observational, retrospective chart review.