Publications by authors named "Christopher J Hill"

Background: A kidney biopsy is an essential investigation for diagnosis but is invasive and associated with complications. Delaying or missing the opportunity to diagnose kidney disease could result in adverse patient outcomes. This study aimed to examine attitudes to kidney biopsy across the world.

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Study Question: Can a functional in vitro model, containing the main cellular components of the uterine wall, be generated from cells derived from patient tissues?

Summary Answer: We present a three-dimensional (3D) physiologically relevant, organ-on-a-chip model of the uterine wall containing primary endometrial and myometrial cellular participants, generated from human uterine tissue.

What Is Known Already: As a highly dynamic reproductive organ, the human uterus plays fundamental physiological roles in menstruation and childbirth. The endometrial-myometrial junction (EMJ) defines the interface between the inner mucosal layer (endometrium) and outer smooth muscle zone (myometrium) that comprises the uterine wall.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A study introduced a machine learning approach to create predictive models that can distinguish between live normally sited pregnancies (LNSP) and combined adverse outcomes (CAO) like miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies based on blood samples.
  • * Analyzing metabolites and hormone levels from participants, the best prediction model combined both stable metabolite signals and hormone concentrations, achieving accuracy in differentiating LNSP from CAO.
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Study Question: What is the role of iron in the pathophysiology of endometriosis?

Summary Answer: Iron excess is demonstrated wherever endometriotic tissues are found and is associated with oxidative stress, an inflammatory micro-environment, and cell damage; the iron-mediated oxidative stress is independently linked to subfertility, symptom severity, and malignant transformation.

What Is Known Already: Iron is found in excess in endometriotic tissues, and multiple mechanisms have been studied and posited to explain this. It is clear that iron excess plays a vital role in promoting oxidative stress and cell damage.

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Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether self-reported burn pit exposure is associated with increased subjective and objective sinus disease.

Design: A cross-sectional study was performed evaluating consecutive adult patients presenting to a US Military rhinology clinic. Demographics, medical histories, sinonasal quality-of-life scores, and nasal endoscopy examinations were obtained.

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The fallopian tubes (FT) play a key role in fertility by facilitating the movement of gametes to promote fertilisation and, subsequently, passage of the zygote for implantation. Histologically, the FT mucosa consists of three main cell types: secretory, ciliated and peg cells. In addition, several studies have reported the presence of immune cells.

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Recurrent implantation failure (RIF) and recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), collectively referred to as recurrent reproductive failure (RRF), are both challenging conditions with many unanswered questions relating to causes and management options. Both conditions are proposed to be related to an aberrant endometrial microenvironment, with different proposed aetiologies related to a restrictive or permissive endometrium for an invading embryo. The impressive regenerative capacity of the human endometrium has been well-established and has led to the isolation and characterisation of several subtypes of endometrial stem/progenitor cells (eSPCs).

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Abstract: Recurrent reproductive failure (RRF) encompasses recurrent implantation failure (RIF) and recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). These highly prevalent, distressing conditions have many unanswered questions regarding aetiology and management. Oestrogen receptor beta (ERβ) is the predominant oestrogen receptor expressed in the vascular endothelium of the endometrium during the window of implantation (WOI).

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Background: Human endometrium remains a poorly understood tissue of the female reproductive tract. The superficial endometrial functionalis, the site of embryo implantation, is repeatedly shed with menstruation, and the stem cell-rich deeper basalis is postulated to be responsible for the regeneration of the functionalis. Two recent manuscripts have demonstrated the 3D architecture of endometrial glands.

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Objectives/hypothesis: Tonsillectomy is one of the most common ambulatory surgeries performed in the United States, yet the incidence of post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage (PTH) in adults remains unclear. In addition, any association between non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and PTH in adults is currently unknown. The aim of this study is to examine the incidence and management of adult PTH at a single academic center and to assess for any association between NSAID use and PTH in adults.

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Recurrent implantation failure (RIF) and recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) are distressing conditions without effective treatments. The luminal epithelium (LE) is integral in determining receptivity of the endometrium, whereas functionalis glands and stroma aid in nurturing early embryo development. Calcium signalling pathways are known to be of vital importance to embryo implantation and pregnancy establishment, and anterior gradient protein 3 (AGR3) and S100 calcium-binding protein P (S100P) are involved with these pathways.

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Introduction: The purpose of this study was to determine if short-term, high-quantity opioid use following adult tonsillectomy in active duty military members results in opioid misuse, using a proxy measure of referrals to substance abuse rehabilitation programs.

Materials And Methods: An Institutional Review Board-approved retrospective chart review was performed of 741 active duty patients who underwent tonsillectomy between 2012 and 2017. Data collection included preoperative medications within 60 days of surgery, all postoperative opioid prescriptions up to 12 months following surgery, and referrals to substance abuse rehabilitation within a year of surgery.

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We report the presence of a rare cell type, the olfactory rod cell, in the developing zebrafish olfactory epithelium. These cells each bear a single actin-rich rod-like apical projection extending 5-10 μm from the epithelial surface. Live imaging with a ubiquitous Lifeact-RFP label indicates that the olfactory rods can oscillate.

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In the COVID-19 era, preprocedural patients are almost uniformly screened for symptoms, asked to quarantine preoperatively, and then undergo a test of uncertain validity with very low pretest probability. A small percentage of these tests return positive. As a result, surgical procedures are delayed and patients are required to quarantine.

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Endometrial cancer (EC) is the commonest gynaecological malignancy. Current prognostic markers are inadequate to accurately predict patient survival, necessitating novel prognostic markers, to improve treatment strategies. Telomerase has a unique role within the endometrium, whilst aberrant telomerase activity is a hallmark of many cancers.

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The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a momentous impact on the field of otolaryngology due to the high number of aerosol-generating procedures involving the upper aerodigestive tract. These procedures bear significant risk to the provider and clinical environment due to the possibility of viral aerosolization. While significant attention has been appropriately paid to personal protective equipment during this pandemic, an understanding of industrial hygiene is also necessary for the safe delivery of health care to mitigate the risk of exposure to other patients and health care workers.

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Endometriosis is a common, oestrogen driven chronic condition, where endometrium-like epithelial and stromal cells exist in ectopic sites. At present, no curative treatments are available and the existing evidence for disease progression is conflicting. The pathogenesis is still unknown and evidently complex, as mechanisms of initiation may depend on the anatomical distribution of endometriotic lesions.

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Macroautophagy/autophagy functions to degrade cellular components and intracellular pathogens. Autophagy receptors, including SQSTM1/p62, target intracellular pathogens. is a significant pathogen of humans, especially in immunocompromise.

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Regular menstrual shedding and repair of the endometrial functionalis is unique to humans and higher-order primates. The current consensus postulates endometrial glands to have a single-tubular architecture, where multi-potential stem cells reside in the blind-ending glandular-bases. Utilising fixed samples from patients, we have studied the three-dimensional (3D) micro-architecture of the human endometrium.

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Uveal melanoma (UM) is fatal in ~50% of patients as a result of disseminated disease. This study aims to externally validate the Liverpool Uveal Melanoma Prognosticator Online V3 (LUMPO3) to determine its reliability in predicting survival after treatment for choroidal melanoma when utilizing external data from other ocular oncology centers. Anonymized data of 1836 UM patients from seven international ocular oncology centers were analyzed with LUMPO3 to predict the 10-year survival for each patient in each external dataset.

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Fucoidan is a brown algae-derived polysaccharide having several biomedical applications. This study simultaneously compares the anti-cancer activities of crude fucoidans from and , and effects of low (LMW, 10-50 kDa), medium (MMW, 50-100 kDa) and high (HMW, >100 kDa) molecular weight fractions of fucoidan against osteosarcoma cells. Glucose, fucose and acid levels were lower and sulphation was higher in crude fucoidan compared to crude fucoidan.

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The development of cell culture systems for the naturalistic propagation, self-renewal and differentiation of cells ex vivo is a high goal of molecular engineering. Despite significant success in recent years, the high cost of up-scaling cultures, the need for xeno-free culture conditions, and the degree of mimicry of the natural extracellular matrix attainable in vitro using designer substrates continue to pose obstacles to the translation of cell-based technologies. In this regard, the ZT biopolymer is a protein-based, stable, scalable, and economical cell substrate of high promise.

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The development of extracellular matrix mimetics that imitate niche stem cell microenvironments and support cell growth for technological applications is intensely pursued. Specifically, mimetics are sought that can enact control over the self-renewal and directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) for clinical use. Despite considerable progress in the field, a major impediment to the clinical translation of hPSCs is the difficulty and high cost of large-scale cell production under xeno-free culture conditions using current matrices.

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Porous polystyrene microspheres were produced by a process of nonsolvent induced phase separation (NIPS) from ternary polymer-solvent-nonsolvent (polystyrene-toluene-ethanol) systems and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) techniques. This study provides evidence for a link between the structural morphology of the porous polystyrene particles and the polystyrene concentration in the initial solutions. A reciprocal relationship between pore diameter and polymer concentration was observed for the systems with the polymer amount below the critical chain overlap concentration, C*.

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