Surgery for blood culture-negative infective endocarditis: outcomes and the role of molecular biological imaging as diagnostic approach†.

Objectives: The study aimed to analyse outcomes of surgery for blood culture-negative infective endocarditis (BCNIE) and to evaluate the role of molecular biological imaging.

Methods: Patients undergoing surgery for native or prosthetic valve endocarditis from 2013 to 2022 were analysed regarding blood culture-positive infective endocarditis (BCPIE) and BCNIE. For laboratory diagnostics in BCNIE, excised valves or prostheses underwent conventional microbiological culture and fluorescence in situ hybridization combined with 16S rRNA-gene polymerase chain reaction and sequencing (FISHseq).

An amplitude equation for the conserved-Hopf bifurcation-Derivation, analysis, and assessment.

We employ weakly nonlinear theory to derive an amplitude equation for the conserved-Hopf instability, i.e., a generic large-scale oscillatory instability for systems with two conservation laws.

[C]PS13 Demonstrates Pharmacologically Selective and Substantial Binding to Cyclooxygenase-1 in the Human Brain.

Our laboratory recently developed [C]PS13 as a PET radioligand to selectively measure cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1). The cyclooxygenase enzyme family converts arachidonic acid into prostaglandins and thromboxanes, which mediate inflammation. The total brain uptake of [C]PS13, which is composed of both specific binding and background uptake, can be accurately quantified with gold standard methods of compartmental modeling.

On the analysis of functional PET (fPET)-FDG: baseline mischaracterization can introduce artifactual metabolic (de)activations.

Functional Positron Emission Tomography (fPET) with (bolus plus) constant infusion of [F]-fluorodeoxyglucose FDG), known as fPET-FDG, is a recently introduced technique in human neuroimaging, enabling the detection of dynamic glucose metabolism changes within a single scan. However, the statistical analysis of fPET-FDG data remains challenging because its signal and noise characteristics differ from both classic bolus-administration FDG PET and from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which together compose the primary sources of inspiration for analytical methods used by fPET-FDG researchers. In this study, we present an investigate of how inaccuracies in modeling baseline FDG uptake can introduce artifactual patterns to detrended TAC residuals, potentially introducing spurious (de)activations to general linear model (GLM) analyses.