Relationship between pruritus and sleep in participants with primary biliary cholangitis in the Phase 2b GLIMMER trial.

Background: Cholestatic pruritus and fatigue are debilitating conditions associated with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and can significantly impact patients' quality of life. Pruritus in PBC often worsens at night and patients frequently report sleep disturbance, which contributes to cognitive symptoms and fatigue. Linerixibat is an ileal bile acid transporter inhibitor in clinical development for the treatment of pruritus associated with PBC and was recently assessed versus placebo in the Phase 2b GLIMMER trial.

Statistical analysis of actigraphy data with generalised additive models.

There is a growing interest in the use of physical activity data in clinical studies, particularly in diseases that limit mobility in patients. High-frequency data collected with digital sensors are typically summarised into actigraphy features aggregated at epoch level (e.g.

A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the LAG-3-depleting monoclonal antibody GSK2831781 in patients with active ulcerative colitis.

Background: Selective depletion of T cells expressing LAG-3, an immune checkpoint receptor that is upregulated on activated T cells, has been investigated in pre-clinical models as a potential therapeutic approach in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases where activated T cells are implicated.

Aims: GSK2831781, a depleting monoclonal antibody that specifically binds LAG-3 proteins, may deplete activated LAG-3 cells in ulcerative colitis (UC).

Methods: Patients with moderate to severe UC were randomised to GSK2831781 or placebo.

Randomized Trial of the Safety, Tolerability, Pharmacokinetics, and Pharmacodynamics of GSK2831781 in Healthy Japanese and White Participants.

This study investigated ethnic differences in the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of GSK2831781, an anti-lymphocyte activation gene 3 (LAG3) monoclonal antibody, in healthy participants, and determined local tolerability and bioavailability following subcutaneous (SC) administration. A double-blind, randomized study of (A) single intravenous (IV) doses of GSK2831781 450 mg or placebo in Japanese and White participants; and (B) single SC doses of GSK2831781 150 or 450 mg, or placebo in White participants, was conducted. Blood samples for analyses were collected before dosing and over 112 days after dosing.

Left atrial strain by speckle tracking predicts atrial fibrosis in patients undergoing heart transplantation.

Aims: In patients with heart failure (HF), chronically raised left ventricular (LV) filling pressures lead to progressive left atrial (LA) dysfunction and fibrosis. We aimed to assess the correlation of LA reservoir strain (peak atrial longitudinal strain, PALS) by speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) and LA fibrosis assessed by myocardial biopsy in patients undergoing heart transplantation (HTx).

Methods And Results: Forty-eight patients with advanced HF [mean age 51.

Modelling and forecasting art movements with CGANs.

Conditional generative adversarial networks (CGANs) are a recent and popular method for generating samples from a probability distribution conditioned on latent information. The latent information often comes in the form of a discrete label from a small set. We propose a novel method for training CGANs which allows us to condition on a sequence of continuous latent distributions , …, .

The Role of Urinary Calcium and Chitotriosidase in a Cohort of Chronic Sarcoidosis Patients.

Background: Calcium metabolism alterations are quite common in sarcoidosis and have been correlated with disease activity.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to investigate the clinical significance of calcium metabolism alterations in patients with chronic sarcoidosis. We paid particular attention to associations with specific disease phenotypes and chitotriosidase (CTO) expression.

Left Atrial Fractional Shortening: A Simple and Practical "Strain" for Everyone.

Background: The function of the left atrium (LA) is reduced in many cardiac diseases even with normal size. The assessment of its compliance could represent an added value in an echocardiographic report in case the gold standard technique (speckle-tracking echocardiography [STE]) is not available. We sought to test a simple and quick method as surrogate of STE: the dynamic measurement of the LA anteroposterior diameter (APD) that we called LA fractional shortening (LAFS).

ACUTE HF score, a multiparametric prognostic tool for acute heart failure: A real-life study.

Background: Acute heart failure (AHF) is the first cause of hospitalization for over-65 individuals, associated with high mortality and readmission rate. The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic value of a multiparametric score combining clinical, biochemical and echocardiographic indexes in AHF for clinical practice.

Methods: 830 patients hospitalized for AHF were enrolled.

Prognosis and Risk Stratification of Patients With Advanced Heart Failure (from PROBE).

In recent years, many prognostic scores have been developed for advanced chronic heart failure (CHF), but none of them is comprised of first- and second level echocardiographic indexes. The aim was to create a new prognostic echocardiographic score for patients with advanced CHF. Patients with advanced CHF were analyzed by standard, 3D, and speckle tracking echocardiography and followed prospectively for 2 ± 0.

Left atrial, ventricular and atrio-ventricular strain in patients with subclinical heart dysfunction.

Arterial hypertension (AH) and diabetes mellitus (DM) are the most common causes of heart deterioration because of their high prevalence in the population. The aim of this study was to evaluate peak left atrial (LA), longitudinal strain (PALS), left ventricular (LV), longitudinal  strain (LS) and global atrial-ventricular strain (GAVS), by speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE), in asymptomatic patients with AH or/and DM and normal LA, LV size and ejection fraction (EF), to analyze their capability to detect early subclinical dysfunction. We enrolled 162 patients affected by AH and/or DM with normal indexed LA volume, LV end-diastolic diameter and a LVEF > 52% (females) or > 54% (males) (60 hypertensives, 52 diabetics and 50 both) and 60 healthy controls.

Left heart longitudinal deformation analysis in mitral regurgitation.

In mitral regurgitation (MR), left atrium (LA) and left ventricle (LV) undergo remodeling even if the patient is asymptomatic. The aim of our study was to identify the best echo index that correlates with MR severity in asymptomatic patients affected by MR. We enrolled 150 MR patients (50: mild, 50: moderate, 50: severe), asymptomatic for exertional dyspnea and 50 healthy controls.