Community-based communication interventions improve health outcomes and foster positive behavioral changes across diverse populations. However, their potential to support vaccine readiness remains underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by investigating the opinions and preferences of ethnic minority community members who attended a health information session regarding community-delivered vaccine messaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: The Lemann Index (LI), an endpoint to measure cumulative structural bowel damage in Crohn's disease (CD), has been recently updated and validated. We applied this to investigate predictors of bowel damage in a real-world cohort.
Methods: We performed a retrospective study (2008-2022) involving two tertiary referral IBD centers in the US.
Excessive lipolysis in white adipose tissue (WAT) leads to insulin resistance (IR) and ectopic fat accumulation in insulin-sensitive tissues. However, the impact of Gi-coupled receptors in restraining adipocyte lipolysis through inhibition of cAMP production remained poorly elucidated. Given that the Gi-coupled P2Y13 receptor (P2Y13-R) is a purinergic receptor expressed in WAT, we investigated its role in adipocyte lipolysis and its effect on IR and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been associated with coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction (MI) in prostate cancer patients, but controversy persists regarding its effects on cardiovascular mortality (CVM).
Objective: We assessed the long-term relationship between ADT and CVM in a prostate cancer randomized trial (NRG Oncology/Radiation Therapy Oncology Group 9202).
Design, Setting, And Participants: From 1992 to 1995, 1554 men with locally advanced prostate cancer (T2c-T4, prostate-specific antigen <150 ng/ml) received radiotherapy with 4 mo (short-term [STADT]) versus 28 mo (longer-term [LTADT]) of ADT.
Torque teno virus (TTV) is emerging as a potential marker for monitoring immune status. In transplant recipients who are immunosuppressed, higher TTV DNA loads are observed than in healthy individuals. TTV load measurement may aid in optimizing immunosuppressive medication dosing in solid organ transplant recipients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLignins represent a high interest in cosmetics as promising multifunctional ingredients. Despite this, uncovering the sensory profile of lignin-based emulsions has remained an unexplored frontier. This study aims to bridge this gap by employing expert sensory evaluation and instrumental characterization to assess the sensory attributes of lignin-based emulsions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTorque Teno Virus (TTV) is a non-pathogenic virus that is highly prevalent among kidney transplant recipients (KTRs). Its circulating load is associated with an immunological status in KTR and is considered a promising tool for guiding immunosuppression. To allow for optimal guidance, it is important to identify other determinants of TTV load.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: The 1.5 Tesla (T) Magnetic Resonance Linear Accelerator (MRL) provides an innovative modality for improved cardiac imaging when planning radiation treatment. No MRL based cardiac atlases currently exist, thus, we sought to comprehensively characterize cardiac substructures, including the conduction system, from cardiac images acquired using a 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: RTOG 0617 was a phase III randomized trial for patients with unresectable stage IIIA/IIIB non-small cell lung cancer comparing standard-dose (60 Gy) versus high-dose (74 Gy) radiotherapy and chemotherapy, plus or minus cetuximab. Although the study was negative, based on prior evidence that patients with the KRAS-variant, an inherited germline mutation, benefit from cetuximab, we evaluated KRAS-variant patients in RTOG 0617.
Experimental Design: From RTOG 0617, 328 of 496 (66%) of patients were included in this analysis.
Purpose: Radiation therapy is part of the standard treatment regimen for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Although radiation therapy is an effective tool to manage NSCLC, it can be associated with significant dose-limiting toxicities. These toxicities can lead to treatment interruption or early termination and worsening clinical outcomes in addition to reductions in patient quality of life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTorquetenovirus (TTV), a small, single stranded anellovirus, is currently being explored as a marker of immunocompetence in patients with immunological impairment and inflammatory disorders. TTV has an extremely high prevalence and is regarded as a part of the human virome, the replication of which is controlled by a functioning immune system. The viral load of TTV in plasma of individuals is thought to reflect the degree of immunosuppression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The standard of care for unresectable locally advanced NSCLC is concurrent chemotherapy and radiation (CRT) followed by adjuvant durvalumab, established by the PACIFIC trial, which revealed acceptable although higher rates of pneumonitis with durvaluamb than placebo. We retrospectively reviewed patients with locally advanced NSCLC from 2018 to 2022 treated with definitive CRT (≥60 Gy) followed by at least one dose of adjuvant durvalumab.
Objective: To review the incidence of pneumonitis and contributing factors, and also to review grade 5 pneumonitis (G5) events.
Background: The study of oligometastatic esophageal cancer (EC) is relatively new. Preliminary data suggests that more aggressive treatment regimens in select patients may improve survival rates in oligometastatic EC. However, the consensus recommends palliative treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Intermediate-risk prostate cancer is a heterogeneous disease state with diverse treatment options. The 22-gene Decipher genomic classifier (GC) retrospectively has shown to improve risk stratification in these patients. We assessed the performance of the GC in men with intermediate-risk disease enrolled in NRG Oncology/RTOG 01-26 with updated follow-up.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To report patient-reported outcomes (PROs) of a phase III trial evaluating total androgen suppression (TAS) combined with dose-escalated radiation therapy (RT) for patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer.
Methods: Patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer were randomly assigned to dose-escalated RT alone (arm 1) or RT plus TAS (arm 2) consisting of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone agonist/antagonist with oral antiandrogen for 6 months. The primary PRO was the validated Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC-50).
Purpose: For patients with lung cancer, it is critical to provide evidence-based radiation therapy to ensure high-quality care. The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Radiation Oncology Program partnered with the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) as part of the VA Radiation Oncology Quality Surveillance to develop lung cancer quality metrics and assess quality of care as a pilot program in 2016. This article presents recently updated consensus quality measures and dose-volume histogram (DVH) constraints.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Conventional treatment of pulmonary metastatic sarcoma primarily involves surgery, with systemic therapy added in select patients. However, broader applications of radiation therapy techniques have prompted investigation into the use of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for treatment of metastatic sarcoma, an attractive non-invasive intervention with potential for lower rates of adverse events than surgery. Current data are limited to retrospective analyses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Previous studies indicate that the benefit of short-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with radiotherapy (RT) for prostate cancer depends on competing risks.
Objective: To determine whether a quantitative method to stratify patients by risk for competing events (omega score) could identify subgroups that selectively benefit from ADT.
Design, Setting, And Participants: An ancillary analysis of NRG/RTOG 9408 phase 3 trial (NCT00002597) involving 1945 prostate cancer patients was conducted.
Food insecurity has been linked to numerous chronic conditions and higher healthcare costs; however, screening for food insecurity lags behind screening for other social determinants of health, particularly in the hospital setting. Although our hospital serves a population with a high prevalence of food insecurity, no process previously existed to universally screen patients. Our multidisciplinary team developed and implemented a process to screen hospitalized adults for food insecurity and connect them with food resources, which we piloted on a 26-bed hospital medicine unit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFColloids Surf B Biointerfaces
September 2022
Nowadays, there is a growing demand for effective cosmetic skincare products that can address the specific skin problems of consumers. Delivery systems play an important role in the effective action of cosmetic skincare formulations. Delivery systems are attractive and smart technologies used as carriers for cosmetic ingredients, which are sensitive to various physical factors such as light, oxygen, pH and temperature.
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