Background: Despite the favorable prognosis of AJCC stage I/II melanoma patients, up to 20%-30% will develop metastases. Our objective is to predict long-term risk (probability) of recurrence in early-stage melanoma patients.
Methods: A Risk Score to predict long-term recurrence was developed using Cox regression based on 2668 patients.
Background: Human placental allografts are widely used to promote wound healing. Placental (or amniotic membrane/umbilical cord) allografts are placed along the neurovascular bundles during radical prostatectomy to improve continence and erectile function recovery. It is unknown whether placental allografts impact biochemical recurrence (BCR).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Symptomatic cholelithiasis is a common surgical problem, with many patients requiring multiple gallstone-related emergency department (ED) visits before cholecystectomy. The Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) identifies vulnerable patient populations. This study aimed to assess the association between social vulnerability and outpatient management of symptomatic cholelithiasis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Lumbosacral radiculopathy (LR), also known as sciatica, is a common type of radiating neurologic pain involving burning, tingling, and numbness in the lower extremities. It has an estimated lifetime prevalence as high as 43%.
Objectives: The objective of this randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the impact of virtually delivered Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) on patients with LR during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Purpose: Hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD) and Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) are multisystem conditions marked by dysfunctional connective tissue. This feasibility study evaluated a 9-week integrative medicine program in this population.
Methods: Using a single-arm study design, adults with HSD or EDS were given recommendations for an anti-inflammatory Mediterranean diet and self-management with additional behavioral and psychosocial support.
Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) nodal staging does not account for lymph node (LN) tumor burden. The LN anatomical compartment involved with the tumor or the quantified extent of extranodal extension (ENE) have not yet been studied in relation to biochemical recurrence-free survival (BRFS).
Methods: Histopathological slides of 66 pN1 PCa patients who underwent extended pelvic lymph node dissection were reviewed.
Purpose: Hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD) and Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) are frequently underdiagnosed, contributing to patient dissatisfaction in the healthcare system. This study evaluated the health service utilization, care, and subjective experiences of living with chronic illness among adults with HSD and EDS in the United States and Canada.
Methods: This was an anonymous, web-based, cross-sectional healthcare survey.
Introduction: Lumbosacral radiculopathy/radiculitis (LR) or "sciatica" is a commonly intractable sequelae of chronic low back pain (LBP), and challenges in the treatment of LR indicate that persistent pain may have both mechanical and neuropathic origins. Mindfulness-based interventions have been demonstrated to be effective tools in mitigating self-reported pain in LBP patients. This paper describes the protocol for a randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluating the effects of the specific mindfulness-based intervention Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) on LR symptoms and sequelae, including mental health and physical function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic has affected many aspects of American life, with reported increases in parental anxiety and adverse health outcomes among children. However, it is unknown how family functioning and parental anxiety may be associated with child health outcomes during this pandemic.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore associations among parental worrying, family functioning, and the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of middle and high school-aged children in the United States during the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic.
Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a biomarker of the systemic inflammatory response. The objective of this systematic scoping review was to examine the literature on NLR and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). PubMed, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Natural products may provide a source for the discovery and development of adjunctive pharmacological interventions to modulate the inflammatory pathways contributing to chronic disease. Xanthohumol, a flavonoid from the hops plant (Humulus lupulus), has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and may act as a prebiotic to the intestinal microbiota. Xanthohumol is not currently approved as a drug by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but is available as a dietary supplement and ingredient in medical foods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Due to the high prevalence of nutrient deficiencies in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), routine monitoring of nutrient status and supplementation are recommended.
Objective: This preliminary study was implemented to prospectively identify potential effects of a nutrition support formula on blood nutrient parameters in adults with IBD.
Methods: Ten adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis were recruited from the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area into a single-arm, open-label pilot study.
Objective: To assess the feasibility of measuring the health impacts of a 12-week naturopathic whole foods nutrition education course among adults with or at risk for prediabetes.
Design: A pilot nonrandomized pre-post intervention design investigated physiological changes associated with participation in a 12-week structured naturopathic nutrition education course. Follow-up measures were assessed at 6 and 12 months from baseline.
Objective: To prospectively examine the long-term safety of a cardiovascular health dietary supplement by assessing a comprehensive set of safety measures.
Design: Single-arm, open-label study.
Location: National University of Natural Medicine, Portland, OR.
Sensory contribution to perception and action depends on both sensory receptors and the organization of pathways (or projections) reaching the central nervous system. Unlike the semicircular canals that are divided into three discrete sensitivity directions, the utricle has a relatively complicated anatomical structure, including sensitivity directions over essentially 360° of a curved, two-dimensional disk. The utricle is not flat, and we do not assume it to be.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Elevated blood cholesterol levels are a major risk factor for coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. Probiotics have been investigated as potential cholesterol-lowering therapies, but no previous studies have assessed the effect of the probiotic yeast Saccharomyces boulardii on cholesterol levels in human volunteers. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThough fibromyalgia is not traditionally considered an inflammatory disorder, evidence for elevated inflammatory processes has been noted in this disorder in multiple studies. Support for inflammatory markers in fibromyalgia has been somewhat equivocal to date, potentially due to inattention to salient patient characteristics that may affect inflammation, such as psychiatric distress and aging milestones like menopause. The current study examined the relationships between proinflammatory cytokines and hormone levels, pain intensity, and psychological distress in a sample of 34 premenopausal and postmenopausal women with fibromyalgia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study collected patient visit data to explore similarities and differences between conventional and naturopathic primary care (PC). Administrative data from practice management software systems from the main teaching clinics of four of the eight accredited North American naturopathic academic institutions were abstracted into an integrated database containing five years (2006-2010) of visit, patient, laboratory, and prescribing data. Descriptive analyses of healthcare services were compared to the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article addresses the intersection between perceptual estimates of head motion based on purely vestibular and purely visual sensation, by considering how nonvisual (e.g. vestibular and proprioceptive) sensory signals for head and eye motion can be combined with visual signals available from a single landmark to generate a complete perception of self-motion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt has been shown experimentally that under certain combinations of sensory stimuli, human subjects can perceive one of several distinct illusions about their overall orientation in or movement through space. In at least some cases, the structure of such multistable illusory perceptions of orientation can be efficiently described by perceptual transformations that act on a current orientation estimate to yield an updated perceptual construct. Repeated application of identified generating transformations yields a limited set of predicted illusions for a given sensory environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe object of this study is to mathematically specify important characteristics of visual flow during translation of the eye for the perception of depth and self-motion. We address various strategies by which the central nervous system may estimate self-motion and depth from motion parallax, using equations for the visual velocity field generated by translation of the eye through space. Our results focus on information provided by the movement and deformation of three-dimensional objects and on local flow behavior around a fixated point.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCognitive deficits such as poor concentration and short-term memory loss are known by clinicians to occur frequently among patients with vestibular abnormalities. Although direct scientific study of such deficits has been limited, several types of investigations do lend weight to the existence of vestibular-cognitive effects. In this article we review a wide range of studies indicating a vestibular influence on the ability to perform certain cognitive functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe discharge of secondary vestibular neurons relays the activity of the vestibular endorgans, occasioned by movements in three-dimensional physical space. At a slightly higher level of analysis, the discharge of each secondary vestibular neuron participates in a multifiber projection or pathway from primary afferents via the secondary neurons to another neuronal population. The logical organization of this projection determines whether characteristics of physical space are retained or lost.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this article results of several published studies are synthesized in order to address the neural system for the determination of eye and head movement amplitudes of horizontal eye/head gaze shifts with arbitrary initial head and eye positions. Target position, initial head position, and initial eye position span the space of physical parameters for a planned eye/head gaze saccade. The principal result is that a functional mechanism for determining the amplitudes of the component eye and head movements must use the entire space of variables.
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