Benefits and harms of cervical screening, triage and treatment strategies in women living with HIV.

To support a strategy to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reviewed its guidelines for screening and treatment of cervical pre-cancerous lesions in 2021. Women living with HIV have 6-times the risk of cervical cancer compared to women in the general population, and we harnessed a model platform ('Policy1-Cervix-HIV') to evaluate the benefits and harms of a range of screening strategies for women living with HIV in Tanzania, a country with endemic HIV. Assuming 70% coverage, we found that 3-yearly primary HPV screening without triage would reduce age-standardised cervical cancer mortality rates by 72%, with a number needed to treat (NNT) of 38.

Benefits, harms and cost-effectiveness of cervical screening, triage and treatment strategies for women in the general population.

In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a strategy to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem. To support the strategy, the WHO published updated cervical screening guidelines in 2021. To inform this update, we used an established modeling platform, Policy1-Cervix, to evaluate the impact of seven primary screening scenarios across 78 low- and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) for the general population of women.

Modelling Preferential Phagocytosis in Atherosclerosis: Delineating Timescales in Plaque Development.

Atherosclerotic plaques develop over a long time and can cause heart attacks and strokes. There are no simple mathematical models that capture the different timescales of rapid macrophage and lipid dynamics and slow plaque growth. We propose a simple ODE model for lipid dynamics that includes macrophage preference for ingesting apoptotic material and modified low-density lipoproteins (modLDL) over ingesting necrotic material.

Comparison of hospital charges between robotic, laparoscopic stapled, and laparoscopic handsewn Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

The feasibility and safety of laparoscopic and robotic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RRYGB) have been established. To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of robotic surgery we compared the hospital charges for robotic, laparoscopic stapled (SRYGB), and laparoscopic handsewn Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (HRYGB) at our institution. One hundred thirty-five consecutive patients undergoing Roux-en-Y gastric bypass at Stanford University Medical Center by handsewn, stapled or robotic techniques from 1 July 2005 to 31 December 2005 were evaluated.