Buccal Mucosal Graft as a Second Layer in the Vaginal Repair of Vesicovaginal Fistulas.

Objective: Vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) is a pathological communication between the urinary bladder and the vagina. The most common cause of VVF is hysterectomy, while less common causes include obstetric trauma and pelvic surgery. Most cases require surgical intervention.

Retinal Vascular Permeability in Diabetic Subjects without Retinopathy Compared with Mild Diabetic Retinopathy and Healthy Controls.

Objective: To investigate retinal vascular permeability mapping as a potential biomarker for diabetic retinopathy in subjects with diabetes with no signs of retinopathy and with mild nonproliferative retinopathy.

Design: This is a case-control study.

Subjects: Participants included 7 healthy controls, 22 subjects with diabetes mellitus and no clinical signs of retinopathy (DMnoDR), and 7 subjects with mild nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR).

Foveal avascular zone enlargement correlates with visual acuity decline in patients with diabetic retinopathy.

Purpose: The foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area has been explored as a measure of macular ischemia in diabetic retinopathy (DR) but is limited by its wide variability even in healthy individuals. We hypothesized that FAZ enlargement, which we defined as the difference between the functional FAZ (on optical coherence tomography angiography; OCTA) and structural FAZ (en face OCT), may be a more accurate metric of macular ischemia. In this study, we test the hypothesis that FAZ enlargement is associated with decreased best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and low luminance visual acuity (LLVA) and performs better than the functional FAZ as a marker of vision loss.

Single Cell Isolation from Human Diabetic Fibrovascular Membranes for Single-Cell RNA Sequencing.

Single-cell transcriptomic analyses have emerged as very powerful tools to query the gene expression changes at the single-cell level in physiological and pathological conditions. The quality of the analysis is heavily dependent on tissue digestion protocols, with the goal of preserving thousands of single live cells to submit to the subsequent processing steps and analysis. Multiple digestion protocols that use different enzymes to digest the tissues have been described.

RELIABILITY OF CLINICAL GRADING OF DIABETIC RETINOPATHY COMPARED WITH GRADING OF ULTRA-WIDEFIELD IMAGES.

Purpose: To evaluate the reliability of clinical grading of diabetic retinopathy (DR) severity compared with grading on ultra-widefield pseudocolor fundus (UWF-CF) and ultra-widefield fluorescein angiography (UWF-FA) images and their relative detection of sight-threatening DR and referable DR.

Methods: A total of 184 diabetic eyes were analyzed. UWF-CF and UWF-FA images were graded based on the International Clinical Diabetic Retinopathy severity scale.

Estimating Brain Injury Risk from Shipborne Underwater Blasts Using a High-fidelity Finite Element Head Model.

Introduction: Assessing the survivability of, and potential injury to, a ship's crew from underwater blast is crucial to understanding the operating capability of a military vessel following blast exposure. One form of injury that can occur and affect a crew member's ability to perform tasks is traumatic brain injury (TBI). To evaluate the risk of TBI from underwater blasts, injury metrics based on linear head acceleration have traditionally been used.

Hypertension Likely Drives Arteriolar Wall Thickening in Preclinical Diabetic Retinopathy While Diabetes Drives Wall Thickness in Clinical Retinopathy.

Purpose: Both hypertension and diabetes are known to increase the wall-to-lumen ratio (WLR) of retinal arterioles, but the differential effects are unknown. Here, we study the timing and relative impact of hypertension versus diabetes on the WLR in diabetic retinopathy (DR) to address this unresolved question.

Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study compared the retinal arteriolar WLR in 17 healthy eyes, 15 with diabetes but no apparent DR (DM no DR), and 8 with diabetic macular edema (DME) and either nonproliferative or proliferative DR.

Perfusion Deficits in Diabetes Without Retinopathy Localize to the Perivenular Deep Capillaries Near the Fovea on OCT Angiography.

Purpose: To localize early capillary perfusion deficits in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) without clinical diabetic retinopathy (DR) using averaged OCT angiography (OCTA).

Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study.

Participants: Patients with DM without DR and healthy controls.

Association between macrophage-like cell density and ischemia metrics in diabetic eyes.

We previously showed that macrophage-like cells (MLCs) are increased in eyes with advanced diabetic retinopathy (DR). Here, we hypothesized that MLC density was correlated with ischemia using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and ultra-widefield fluorescein angiography (UWF-FA). Treatment-naïve diabetic eyes were prospectively imaged with repeated OCTA (average 5.

Short Term Effect of Pre-Operative Anti-VEGF on Angiogenic and Fibrotic Profile of Fibrovascular Membranes of Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy.

Purpose: Adjuvant, pre-operative intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) injections have been used to reduce peri-operative bleeding in eyes undergoing pars-plana vitrectomy for complications of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). To address the concern over their potential off-target effects of progressive fibrous contraction, we sought to dissect the transcriptional changes in the surgically extracted fibrovascular membranes (FVMs).

Methods: We analyzed surgically extracted FVMs from 10 eyes: 4 eyes pretreated with intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) and 6 untreated eyes.

METformin for the MINimization of Geographic Atrophy Progression (METforMIN): A Randomized Trial.

Purpose: Metformin use has been associated with a decreased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) progression in observational studies. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of oral metformin for slowing geographic atrophy (GA) progression.

Design: Parallel-group, multicenter, randomized phase II clinical trial.

Fluorescein videoangiography data analysis protocol for mapping retinal vascular permeability in humans.

Fluorescein video angiographies (FVAs) are a diagnostic tool for eye diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy (DR). Currently, kinetic tracer model methods based on indicator-dilutions theory use FVAs to extract biomarkers (e.g.

Mathematical discoveries from program search with large language models.

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated tremendous capabilities in solving complex tasks, from quantitative reasoning to understanding natural language. However, LLMs sometimes suffer from confabulations (or hallucinations), which can result in them making plausible but incorrect statements. This hinders the use of current large models in scientific discovery.

Single-cell transcriptomics analysis of proliferative diabetic retinopathy fibrovascular membranes reveals AEBP1 as fibrogenesis modulator.

The management of preretinal fibrovascular membranes, a devastating complication of advanced diabetic retinopathy (DR), remains challenging. We characterized the molecular profile of cell populations in these fibrovascular membranes to identify potentially new therapeutic targets. Preretinal fibrovascular membranes were surgically removed from patients and submitted for single-cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq).

Limited Hyperoxia-Induced Proliferative Retinopathy (LHIPR) as a Model of Retinal Fibrosis, Angiogenesis, and Inflammation.

The progression to fibrosis and traction in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and other ischemic retinopathies remains an important clinical and surgical challenge, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of its pathogenesis. Fibrosis is an unbalanced deposition of extracellular matrix components responsible for scar tissue formation with consequent tissue and organ impairment. Together with retinal traction, it is among the main causes of retinal detachment and vision loss.

miRNA/epithelial-mesenchymal axis (EMT) axis as a key player in cancer progression and metastasis: A focus on gastric and bladder cancers.

The metastasis a major hallmark of tumors that its significant is not only related to the basic research, but clinical investigations have revealed that majority of cancer deaths are due to the metastasis. The metastasis of tumor cells is significantly increased due to EMT mechanism and therefore, inhibition of EMT can reduce biological behaviors of tumor cells and improve the survival rate of patients. One of the gaps related to cancer metastasis is lack of specific focus on the EMT regulation in certain types of tumor cells.

Optical coherence tomography angiography in diabetic retinopathy.

There remain many unanswered questions on how to assess and treat the pathology and complications that arise from diabetic retinopathy (DR). Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a novel and non-invasive three-dimensional imaging method that can visualize capillaries in all retinal layers. Numerous studies have confirmed that OCTA can identify early evidence of microvascular changes and provide quantitative assessment of the extent of diseases such as DR and its complications.

Beyond symptomatic diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury.

It is commonly assumed that there is no brain injury if there are no noticeable symptoms following a head impact. There is growing evidence that traumatic brain injuries can occur with no outward symptoms and that the damage from these injuries can accumulate over time resulting in disease and impairment later in life. It is time to rethink the role that symptoms play in traumatic brain injury and adopt a quantitative understanding of brain health at the cellular level to improve the way we diagnose, prevent, and ultimately heal brain injury.