Publications by authors named "Fayad Z"

Refugee children with disabilities are vulnerable to developing dysfunctional coping skills due to barriers in accessing health care services, including occupational therapy (OT). This study investigated the perceptions of refugee caregivers regarding the use of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) as a treatment for coping skills among their children with disabilities. : A qualitative survey was used to analyse the coping mechanisms and access to services among refugee children with disabilities, as well as their caregivers' perceptions regarding the use of MBIs.

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Coronary artery calcium (CAC) scans contain valuable information beyond the Agatston Score which is currently reported for predicting coronary heart disease (CHD) only. We examined whether new artificial intelligence (AI) applied to CAC scans can predict non-CHD events, including heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and stroke. We applied AI-enabled automated cardiac chambers volumetry and calcified plaque characterization to CAC scans (AI-CAC) of 5830 asymptomatic individuals (52.

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  • The study investigates the effectiveness of [F]FDG PET and LGE-CMR imaging methods for distinguishing cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) from myocardial inflammation resulting from COVID-19.
  • It involved analyzing image data from 35 post-COVID-19 patients and 40 CS patients, focusing on extracting and testing radiomic features to improve diagnostic accuracy for these conditions.
  • The results indicated that the combined signature of features from [F]FDG PET performed exceptionally well with an AUC of 0.98 and accuracy of 0.91, while LGE-CMR achieved an accuracy of 0.75 and AUC of 0.87, highlighting the potential of machine learning classifiers in enhancing diagnostic outcomes.
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Background: F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/magnetic resonance (MR) can identify inflammation and fibrosis, which are high-risk features in cardiac sarcoidosis.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the involvement of certain myocardial segments is associated with higher risk compared to others.

Methods: One hundred twenty-four patients with suspected clinical sarcoidosis underwent F-FDG-PET/MR.

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The innate immune system plays an essential role in regulating the immune responses to kidney transplantation, but the mechanisms through which innate immune cells influence long-term graft survival are unclear. The current study highlights the vital role of trained immunity in kidney allograft survival. Trained immunity describes the epigenetic and metabolic changes that innate immune cells undergo following an initial stimulus, allowing them have a stronger inflammatory response to subsequent stimuli.

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Regulating innate immunity is an emerging approach to improve cancer immunotherapy. Such regulation requires engaging myeloid cells by delivering immunomodulatory compounds to hematopoietic organs, including the spleen. Here we present a polymersome-based nanocarrier with splenic avidity and propensity for red pulp myeloid cell uptake.

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  • The study aimed to understand how mitral valve (MV) surgery affects ventricular arrhythmias (VA) in patients with arrhythmic MV prolapse, focusing on the incidence of VA at 1 year post-surgery.
  • Researchers reviewed data from 204 patients who underwent MV repair, narrowing it down to 62 patients with arrhythmic MV prolapse, highlighting factors like age, gender, and previous arrhythmias.
  • Results showed that after surgery, 98.4% of patients were free from recurrent VA at 30 days, and this dropped to 75.9% at one year, with those having minor baseline VA experiencing no recurrence post-repair.
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Background: Coronary artery calcium (CAC) scans contain valuable information beyond the Agatston Score which is currently reported for predicting coronary heart disease (CHD) only. We examined whether new artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms applied to CAC scans may provide significant improvement in prediction of all cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in addition to CHD, including heart failure, atrial fibrillation, stroke, resuscitated cardiac arrest, and all CVD-related deaths.

Methods: We applied AI-enabled automated cardiac chambers volumetry and automated calcified plaque characterization to CAC scans (AI-CAC) of 5830 individuals (52.

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The decision to extubate patients on invasive mechanical ventilation is critical; however, clinician performance in identifying patients to liberate from the ventilator is poor. Machine Learning-based predictors using tabular data have been developed; however, these fail to capture the wide spectrum of data available. Here, we develop and validate a deep learning-based model using routinely collected chest X-rays to predict the outcome of attempted extubation.

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Macrophages are key inflammatory mediators in many pathological conditions, including cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer, the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. This makes macrophage burden a valuable diagnostic marker and several strategies to monitor these cells have been reported. However, such strategies are often high-priced, non-specific, invasive, and/or not quantitative.

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Background And Aims: Chronic stress associates with cardiovascular disease, but mechanisms remain incompletely defined. Advanced imaging was used to identify stress-related neural imaging phenotypes associated with atherosclerosis.

Methods: Twenty-seven individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 45 trauma-exposed controls without PTSD, and 22 healthy controls underwent 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (18F-FDG PET/MRI).

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Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback is often performed with structured education, laboratory-based assessments, and practice sessions. It has been shown to improve psychological and physiological function across populations. However, a means to remotely use and monitor this approach would allow for wider use of this technique.

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Objectives: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and atherosclerosis share many common inflammatory pathways. We studied whether a multi-biomarker panel for RA disease activity (MBDA) would associate with changes in arterial inflammation in an interventional trial.

Methods: In the TARGET Trial, RA patients with active disease despite methotrexate were randomly assigned to the addition of either a TNF inhibitor or sulfasalazine+hydroxychloroquine (triple therapy).

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Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates how physical activity (PA) affects cardiovascular disease (CVD) and psychological health, particularly focusing on stress-related brain activity.
  • It found that increased PA is linked to lower stress-related neural activity and a reduction in CVD events, with these effects being more pronounced in individuals with depression.
  • The results suggest that engaging in PA may help decrease CVD risk partly by reducing stress impacts on the brain, especially for those suffering from depression.
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Assessing atherosclerosis severity is essential for precise patient stratification. Specifically, there is a need to identify patients with residual inflammation because these patients remain at high risk of cardiovascular events despite optimal management of cardiovascular risk factors. Molecular imaging techniques, such as PET, can have an essential role in this context.

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a ubiquitous medical imaging technology with applications in disease diagnostics, intervention, and treatment planning. Accurate MRI segmentation is critical for diagnosing abnormalities, monitoring diseases, and deciding on a course of treatment. With the advent of advanced deep learning frameworks, fully automated and accurate MRI segmentation is advancing.

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Background: Imaging with late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) magnetic resonance (MR) and F-fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) PET allows complementary assessment of myocardial injury and disease activity and has shown promise for improved characterization of active cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) based on the combined positive imaging outcome, MR(+)PET(+).

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate qualitative and quantitative assessments of hybrid MR/PET imaging in CS and to evaluate its association with cardiac-related outcomes.

Methods: A total of 148 patients with suspected CS underwent hybrid MR/PET imaging.

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  • PTSD is linked to a higher risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), but the exact reasons for this connection are not well understood.
  • Recent research indicates that neuro-immune mechanisms—such as increased stress-related neural activity, autonomic nervous system function, and inflammation—may be responsible for this link.
  • The study found that these neuro-immune mechanisms (specifically stress-associated neural activity, heart rate variability, and inflammation markers) mediate the relationship between PTSD and MACE, suggesting that targeting these mechanisms could improve treatment for PTSD and reduce MACE risk.
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The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine in the last few years highlights the importance of developing bigger and better systems for data and model sharing. However, the presence of Protected Health Information (PHI) in medical data poses a challenge when it comes to sharing. One potential solution to mitigate the risk of PHI breaches is to exclusively share pre-trained models developed using private datasets.

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Nanomaterials have revolutionized medicine by enabling control over drugs' pharmacokinetics, biodistribution, and biocompatibility. However, most nanotherapeutic batches are highly heterogeneous, meaning they comprise nanoparticles that vary in size, shape, charge, composition, and ligand functionalization. Similarly, individual nanotherapeutics often have heterogeneously distributed components, ligands, and charges.

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Innate immune memory, also called "trained immunity," is a functional state of myeloid cells enabling enhanced immune responses. This phenomenon is important for host defense, but also plays a role in various immune-mediated conditions. We show that exogenously administered sphingolipids and inhibition of sphingolipid metabolizing enzymes modulate trained immunity.

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Background: The increasing use of smartphones, wearables, and connected devices has enabled the increasing application of digital technologies for research. Remote digital study platforms comprise a patient-interfacing digital application that enables multimodal data collection from a mobile app and connected sources. They offer an opportunity to recruit at scale, acquire data longitudinally at a high frequency, and engage study participants at any time of the day in any place.

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Background: Previous retrospective studies suggest a good diagnostic performance of F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (F-FDG-PET)/computed tomography (CT) in left ventricular assist device (LVAD) infections. Our aim was to prospectively evaluate the role of PET/CT in the characterization and impact on clinical management of LVAD infections.

Methods: A total of 40 patients (aged 58 [53-62] years) with suspected LVAD infection and 5 controls (aged 69 [64-71] years) underwent F-FDG-PET/CT.

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