Reporting Sex and Gender Differences in Cardiovascular Research.

Incorporating sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression (SOGIE) data into cardiovascular research design is necessary to reduce cardiovascular healthcare disparities among sexual and gender minority (SGM) people. To achieve this, researchers should not only understand appropriate terminology, but also implement inclusive survey tools that respect privacy and cultural nuances, as the benefit of obtaining SOGIE information is critical to tailoring cardiovascular interventions and ensuring equitable healthcare outcomes. In order to address potential concerns related to disclosing SOGIE information, we must prioritize sensitivity training for healthcare professionals to foster an inclusive environment for data collection, ethical considerations, and confidentiality safeguards.

Machine Learning Identifies Clinically Distinct Phenotypes in Patients With Aortic Regurgitation.

Background: Aortic regurgitation (AR) is a prevalent valve disease with a long latent period before symptoms appear. Recent data has suggested the role of novel markers of myocardial overload in assessing onset of decompensation.

Methods: The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of unsupervised cluster analyses in identifying different clinical clusters, including clinical status, and a large number of echocardiographic variables including left ventricular volumes, and their associations with mortality.

Considerations in the Care of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Patients Requiring Invasive Cardiac Catheterization.

Transgender and gender diverse patients undergoing cardiac procedures require unique considerations to ensure the delivery of respectful, safe, and high-value health care. There are several issues for which practicing clinicians may have limited experience managing, including the potential interactions between gender-affirming medical and surgical interventions and cardiovascular conditions; using correct patient name and pronouns and additional strategies to increase comfort and safety of medical interventions; and nuances of cardiac clearance before gender-affirming surgeries. This article provides a primer on these topics and sets cardiologists up to learn more about the needs of transgender and gender diverse patient populations.

Rationale and Design of OPT-RATE AF: A Randomized Clinical Trial of Increased Physiologic Pacing Rates in Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction.

Cardiac physiologic pacing (CPP) after atrioventricular node (AVN) ablation for persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) has improved outcomes in patients with heart failure with reduced and preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Emerging evidence suggests patients with HFpEF benefit from higher heart rates, yet the optimal pacing rate after AVN ablation remains unknown. Optimal Pacing Rate for cardiac resynchronization therapy after atrioventricular node ablation in persistent Atrial Fibrillation and heart failure (OPT-RATE AF) is a prospective, randomized crossover study of patients with HFpEF after AVN ablation for persistent AF (NCT06445439).

Small molecule innate immune modulators in cancer therapy.

Immunotherapy has proved to be a breakthrough in cancer treatment. So far, a bulk of the approved/late-stage cancer immunotherapy are antibody-based. Although these antibody-based drugs have demonstrated great promise, a majority of them are limited due to their access to extracellular targets, lack of oral bioavailability, tumor microenvironment penetration, induction of antibody dependent cytotoxicity etc.

Patient comfort with sexual orientation and gender identity questions in adult congenital cardiology clinics.

Background: Lack of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data creates barriers for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people in health care. Barriers to SOGI data collection include physician misperception that patients do not want to answer these questions and discomfort asking SOGI questions. This study aimed to assess patient comfort towards SOGI questions across five quaternary care adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) centres.

Microplastics increase cadmium absorption and impair nutrient uptake and growth in red amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor L.) in the presence of cadmium and biochar.

Microplastic (MP) pollution in terrestrial ecosystems is gaining attention, but there is limited research on its effects on leafy vegetables when combined with heavy metals. This study examines the impact of three MP types-polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and polystyrene (PS)-at concentrations of 0.02, 0.

Olanzapine versus standard antiemetic prophylaxis for the prevention of post-discharge nausea and vomiting after propofol-based general anaesthesia: A randomised controlled trial.

Background And Aims: Post-discharge nausea and vomiting (PDNV) is a pertinent problem in patients undergoing ambulatory surgery. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of the novel drug olanzapine, which has proved its efficiency in patients undergoing highly emetogenic chemotherapy for PDNV prevention.

Methods: This randomised controlled trial recruited 106 adult patients (18-65 years) undergoing highly emetogenic daycare surgeries with propofol-based general anaesthesia (GA).

A low-temperature thermoelectric transport study of non-stoichiometric AgSbTe.

In recent times, considerable attention has been given to examining the impact of micro/nanostructure on the thermoelectric characteristics of nonstoichiometric AgSbTe. The present investigation employed direct melting of elements that produced p-type AgSbTe with spontaneous nanostructuring due to cation ordering. The product predominantly features an Ag-deficient AgSbTe phase with monoclinic AgTe nanoprecipitates and exhibits a degenerate semiconductor-like behavior with an energy band gap of 0.

Comparative Evaluation of Bioavailability, Efficacy and Safety of MICROCORE NESC with Calcium Carbonate and Calcium Citrate Malate in Osteopenic and Osteoporotic Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Introduction: Osteoporosis is a skeletal disease characterized by loss of bone mass, reduced bone strength and increased bone fragility predisposing to fractures. This study was planned to evaluate the efficacy, safety and relative bioavailability of Microcore NESC (Natural Egg Shell Calcium) in osteopenia and osteoporotic patients.

Methods: This was a randomized, open label, parallel group interventional clinical trial which included 60 study participants with osteopenia and osteoporosis who were randomized into three groups (20 each).

What are the Desired Characteristics of Calibration Sets? Identifying Correlates on Long Form Scientific Summarization.

Summarization models often generate text that is poorly calibrated to quality metrics because they are trained to maximize the likelihood of a single reference (MLE). To address this, recent work has added a calibration step, which exposes a model to its own ranked outputs to improve relevance or, in a separate line of work, contrasts positive and negative sets to improve faithfulness. While effective, much of this work has focused on to generate and optimize these sets.

Epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition potentiates chemotherapeutics-mediated sensitization of metastatic breast cancer stem cells.

Background: Metastasis has been a cause of the poor prognosis and cancer relapse of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients. The metastatic nature of TNBC is contributed by the breast cancer stem cells (CSCs) which have been implicated in tumorigenesis. Higher expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in breast CSCs has been used as a molecular target for breast cancer therapeutics.

Defecatory disorders are a common cause of chronic constipation in Parkinson disease.

Background And Aims: Up to 50% of patients with Parkinson disease have constipation (PD-C), but the prevalence of defecatory disorders caused by rectoanal dyscoordination in PD-C is unknown. We aimed to compare anorectal function of patients with PD-C versus idiopathic chronic constipation (CC).

Methods: Anorectal pressures, rectal sensation, and rectal balloon expulsion time (BET) were measured with high-resolution anorectal manometry (HR-ARM) in patients with PD-C and control patients with CC, matched for age and sex.

Glycophorin B-PfEMP1 interaction mediates robust rosetting in Plasmodium falciparum.

P. falciparumerythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) is the major parasite protein responsible for rosetting by binding to host receptors such as heparan sulfate, CR1 on RBC surface. Usually monomeric protein-carbohydrate interactions are weak [1], therefore PfEMP1 binds to plasma proteins like IgM or α2-macroglobulin that facilitate its clustering on parasitized RBC surface and augment rosetting [2,3].

Gross Appearance of Fine Needle Aspiration Smears: Can Adequacy of the Sample be Assessed and Correlated with their Microscopic Cytological Yield.

Background: Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a simple procedure that is widely accepted as a first-line investigation. It should ideally be performed near the patient with microscopic assessment for evaluation of adequacy of aspirate. Since this is not always possible, a worthwhile substitute is to assess the gross appearance of the material obtained.

Emphasizing Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data Capture for Improved Cardiovascular Care of the LGBTQ+ Population.

Importance: The rising self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) population makes understanding the unique health care needs of sexual and gender minoritized patients an urgent one. The interaction between minority stress and cardiovascular disease has been well described among underrepresented minoritized populations. The underrepresentation of minoritized populations in clinical research is partly responsible for worse cardiovascular outcomes in these populations.

On the intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution dynamics of aromatic complexes: A comparative study on C6H6-C6H5Cl, C6H6-C6H3Cl3, C6H6-C6Cl6 and C6H6-C6H5F, C6H6-C6H3F3, C6H6-C6F6.

Chemical dynamics Simulation studies on benzene dimer (Bz2) and benzene-hexachlorobenzene (Bz-HCB) as performed in the past suggest that the coupling between the monomeric (intramolecular) vibrational modes and modes generated due to the association of two monomers (intermolecular) has to be neither strong nor weak for a fast dissociation of the complex. To find the optimum coupling, four complexes are taken into consideration in this work, namely, benzene-monofluorobenzene, benzene-monochlorobenzene, benzene-trifluorobenzene (Bz-TFB), and benzene-trichlorobenzene. Bz-TFB has the highest rate of dissociation among all seven complexes, including Bz2, Bz-HCB, and Bz-HFB (HFB stands for hexafluorobenzene).

Dynamic prediction of malignant ventricular arrhythmias using neural networks in patients with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.

Background: Risk stratification for ventricular arrhythmias currently relies on static measurements that fail to adequately capture dynamic interactions between arrhythmic substrate and triggers over time. We trained and internally validated a dynamic machine learning (ML) model and neural network that extracted features from longitudinally collected electrocardiograms (ECG), and used these to predict the risk of malignant ventricular arrhythmias.

Methods: A multicentre study in patients implanted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) between 2007 and 2021 in two academic hospitals was performed.

Characterization of Myocardial Injury With High-Sensitivity Troponin.

Background: High-sensitivity troponin I, cardiac form (hs-cTnI) accelerates the assessment of acute coronary syndrome. Little has been documented about its performance, how it relates to different types of myocardial injury, and its impact on morbidity and mortality. This study sought to expand understanding of hs-cTnI by characterizing types of myocardial injury, the impact of comorbidities, and 30-day outcomes.

Most patients with disorders of gut-brain interaction receive pharmacotherapy with major or moderate drug-gene interactions.

Background: How variations predicted by pharmacogenomic testing to alter drug metabolism and therapeutic response affect outcomes for patients with disorders of gut- brain interaction is unclear.

Aims: To assess the prevalence of pharmacogenomics-predicted drug-gene interactions and symptom outcomes for patients with disorders of gut-brain interaction.

Methods: Patients who were treated in our clinical practice for functional dyspepsia/bowel disorder underwent pharmacogenomic testing.