Laser hair depilation therapy for pilonidal sinus disease: A 5-year, retrospective experience in a University Teaching Hospital in the UK, 2017-2023.

Background: Pilonidal sinus disease (PSD) is a chronic debilitating condition predominantly affecting young men. Laser hair depilation is an established adjunct to surgical treatment for PSD and can lead to reduced rates of recurrence, and post-surgical interventions.This study aimed to assess the outcome of laser hair depilation therapy on disease progression in pilonidal sinus disease patients at the Birmingham Skin Regional Laser Centre.

Evaluating the Impact of a Virtual Skin Cancer Awareness Workshop for 16-19-Year-Olds.

Introduction  The incidence of malignant melanoma (MM) in the United Kingdom (UK) has significantly increased in recent years and is expected to continue to rise over the next decade. Despite the preventable nature of most MM cases, existing evidence suggests that public health education around skin cancer and sun safety is often suboptimal, particularly for secondary school populations. Unlike primary school curricula, there is no national guidance to mandate the teaching of this topic in secondary school.

Testing the Feasibility, User Experiences, and Preliminary Effect of For Behavior Change and Collaborative Goal Setting in Primary Care: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

Our team developed (CCAs), a tool to help adolescents and health care providers (HCPs) communicate and collaboratively set behavior change goals. The objectives of this pilot randomized controlled trial were to test the feasibility, user experience, and preliminary effect of using CCAs with adolescents in primary care, focusing on behavior change and collaborative goal setting among adolescents. From March 2019 to September 2022, adolescents were recruited from the Northeast Community Health Centre (Edmonton, AB).

ISB 2001 trispecific T cell engager shows strong tumor cytotoxicity and overcomes immune escape mechanisms of multiple myeloma cells.

Despite recent advances in immunotherapies targeting single tumor-associated antigens, patients with multiple myeloma eventually relapse. ISB 2001 is a CD3 T cell engager (TCE) co-targeting BCMA and CD38 designed to improve cytotoxicity against multiple myeloma. Targeting of two tumor-associated antigens by a single TCE resulted in superior cytotoxic potency across a variable range of BCMA and CD38 tumor expression profiles mimicking natural tumor heterogeneity, improved resistance to competing soluble factors and exhibited superior cytotoxic potency on patient-derived samples and in mouse models.

Youth mental health care use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta, Canada: an interrupted time series, population-based study.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, youth had rising mental health needs and changes in service accessibility. Our study investigated changes in use of mental health care services for Canadian youth in Alberta before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also investigated how youth utilization patterns differed for subgroups based on social factors (i.

Digital Sensing Systems for Electromyography.

Surface electromyogram (EMG) signals find diverse applications in movement rehabilitation and human-computer interfacing. For instance, future advanced prostheses, which use artificial intelligence, will require EMG signals recorded from several sites on the forearm. This requirement will entail complex wiring and data handling.

A protocol for the formative evaluation of the implementation of patient-reported outcome measures in child and adolescent mental health services as part of a learning health system.

Background: Mental health conditions affect one in seven young people and research suggests that current mental health services are not meeting the needs of most children and youth. Learning health systems are an approach to enhancing services through rapid, routinized cycles of continuous learning and improvement. Patient-reported outcome measures provide a key data source for learning health systems.

Development of ISB 1442, a CD38 and CD47 bispecific biparatopic antibody innate cell modulator for the treatment of multiple myeloma.

Antibody engineering can tailor the design and activities of therapeutic antibodies for better efficiency or other advantageous clinical properties. Here we report the development of ISB 1442, a fully human bispecific antibody designed to re-establish synthetic immunity in CD38+ hematological malignancies. ISB 1442 consists of two anti-CD38 arms targeting two distinct epitopes that preferentially drive binding to tumor cells and enable avidity-induced blocking of proximal CD47 receptors on the same cell while preventing on-target off-tumor binding on healthy cells.

Structure-guided engineering of immunotherapies targeting TRBC1 and TRBC2 in T cell malignancies.

Peripheral T cell lymphomas are typically aggressive with a poor prognosis. Unlike other hematologic malignancies, the lack of target antigens to discriminate healthy from malignant cells limits the efficacy of immunotherapeutic approaches. The T cell receptor expresses one of two highly homologous chains [T cell receptor β-chain constant (TRBC) domains 1 and 2] in a mutually exclusive manner, making it a promising target.

Antibody and antibody fragments site-specific conjugation using new Q-tag substrate of bacterial transglutaminase.

During the last few years Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs) have become one of the most active and very promising therapeutic weapons. Lessons learned from the traditional chemical conjugations (via lysine or cysteine residues of the antibodies) and the clinical studies of the developed ADCs have recently paved the way to the improvement of the conjugation technologies. Use of site-specific conjugation is considered as the promising path for improving the design and development of homogeneous ADCs with controlled Drug-Antibody ratio (DAR).

A systematic review of 'equity-focused' game-based learning in the teaching of health staff.

Background: An unequal distribution of the social determinants of health drives health inequalities. Existing training fails to communicate the impossible circumstances that disadvantaged groups face. Game-based learning is increasingly used as an innovative method with the potential to enhance health staff's ability to address health inequalities, but its effectiveness is unknown.

Evidencing the effectiveness of upper limb prostheses: a multi-stakeholder perspective on study requirements.

The provision of upper limb prosthetic devices through the National Health Services (NHS) within the United Kingdom is driven by national policies. NHS England have recently published a new policy to provide multi-grip myoelectric hands. The policy highlighted that there was limited evidence to support its deployment and it will be reviewed should new information arise.

Autophagic dysfunction and gut microbiota dysbiosis cause chronic immune activation in a Drosophila model of Gaucher disease.

Mutations in the GBA1 gene cause the lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease (GD) and are the greatest known genetic risk factors for Parkinson's disease (PD). Communication between the gut and brain and immune dysregulation are increasingly being implicated in neurodegenerative disorders such as PD. Here, we show that flies lacking the Gba1b gene, the main fly orthologue of GBA1, display widespread NF-kB signalling activation, including gut inflammation, and brain glial activation.

Reducing Motor Variability Enhances Myoelectric Control Robustness Across Untrained Limb Positions.

The limb position effect is a multi-faceted problem, associated with decreased upper-limb prosthesis control acuity following a change in arm position. Factors contributing to this problem can arise from distinct environmental or physiological sources. Despite their differences in origin, the effect of each factor manifests similarly as increased input data variability.

Protein retention in the endoplasmic reticulum rescues Aβ toxicity in Drosophila.

Amyloid β (Aβ) accumulation is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. In adult Drosophila brains, human Aβ overexpression harms climbing and lifespan. It's uncertain whether Aβ is intrinsically toxic or activates downstream neurodegeneration pathways.

Priority topics for child and family health research in community-based paediatric health care according to caregivers and health care professionals.

Background: Patient-oriented research (POR) aligns research with stakeholders' priorities to improve health services and outcomes. Community-based health care settings offer an opportunity to engage stakeholders to determine the most important research topics to them. Our objectives were to identify unanswered questions that stakeholders had regarding any aspect of child and family health and prioritize their 'top 10' questions.

Prognostic and predictive impact of gene expression in node-positive early breast cancer patients receiving dose-dense versus standard-dose adjuvant chemotherapy.

The utility of multigene expression assays in advanced (≥ 4 positive lymph nodes) early breast cancer (EBC) is limited. We conducted exploratory transcriptomic analysis of 758 genes (Breast Cancer 360 panel, nCounter platform; NanoString) in primary tumor samples collected during a phase 3 trial comparing adjuvant taxane-containing dose-dense chemotherapy (ddCTX) versus standard-dosed chemotherapy (stCTX) in resected EBC with ≥ 4 positive lymph nodes. Prognostic and predictive associations with disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were evaluated by Cox regression with false discovery rate (FDR) adjustment.

The Impacts of COVID-19 Restrictions on Physical Activity in Children and Youth: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Evidence.

Background: The objectives of this systematic review were to synthesize qualitative evidence on the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on physical activity (PA) for children and youth, and explore factors perceived to influence those impacts.

Methods: Five databases (MEDLINE, Embase, SPORTDiscus, ERIC, and CINAHL) were searched initially in June 2021 and updated in December 2021 to locate qualitative articles considering COVID-19 restrictions and PA for children and youth (≤18 y old), in any setting. Eligibility, quality assessments, and data extraction were completed by 2 independent reviewers.

Delaying feedback during pre-device training facilitates the retention of novel myoelectric skills: a laboratory and home-based study.

The objective of this study was to assess the impact of delayed feedback training on the retention of novel myoelectric skills, and to demonstrate the use of this training approach in the home environment.We trained limb-intact participants to use a motor learning-based upper-limb prosthesis control scheme called abstract decoding. A delayed feedback paradigm intended to prevent within-trial adaptation and to facilitate motor learning was used.

Cerebriform eruption related to acute coral dermatitis.

A 27-year-old woman presented with an acute, tender, geographic lesion on her left shin that developed after contact with a brain coral while scuba diving. Photographs obtained two hours after the incident reveal a well-demarcated, geographic, erythematous plaque with a serpiginous and cerebriform pattern at the site of contact, resembling the outermost surface contour of brain coral. The plaque resolved spontaneously over a three-week period.

Vitality surveillance at distance using thin-film tandem-like narrowband near-infrared photodiodes with light-enhanced responsivity.

Remote measurement of vital sign parameters like heartbeat and respiration rate represents a compelling challenge in monitoring an individual's health in a noninvasive way. This could be achieved by large field-of-view, easy-to-integrate unobtrusive sensors, such as large-area thin-film photodiodes. At long distances, however, discriminating weak light signals from background disturbance demands superior near-infrared (NIR) sensitivity and optical noise tolerance.

Identification of the Origin of Ultralow Dark Currents in Organic Photodiodes.

Organic bulk heterojunction photodiodes (OPDs) attract attention for sensing and imaging. Their detectivity is typically limited by a substantial reverse bias dark current density (J ). Recently, using thermal admittance or spectral photocurrent measurements, J has been attributed to thermal charge generation mediated by mid-gap states.