Catheter Ablation or Antiarrhythmic Drugs for Ventricular Tachycardia.

Background: Patients with ventricular tachycardia and ischemic cardiomyopathy are at high risk for adverse outcomes. Catheter ablation is commonly used when antiarrhythmic drugs do not suppress ventricular tachycardia. Whether catheter ablation is more effective than antiarrhythmic drugs as a first-line therapy in patients with ventricular tachycardia is uncertain.

Age-corrected development of preterm children: a population-based study.

Background: The standard practice to account for expected developmental lags in preterm children is calculating their age as if born on their expected delivery date. We aimed to assess the accuracy of standard age correction in a large and diverse population.

Methods: Routine surveillance data was extracted from a national network of mother-child clinics covering over 70% of the Israeli population.

Sex-Specific Developmental Scales for Surveillance.

Background: Developmental surveillance, conducted routinely worldwide, is fundamental for early detection of children at risk for developmental delay. We aimed to explore sex-related difference in attainment rates of developmental milestones and to evaluate the clinical need for separate sex-specific scales.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional, natiowide retrospective study, utilizing data from a national child surveillance program of ∼1000 maternal child health clinics.

Adherence to liraglutide among individuals with overweight and obesity: Patient characteristics and clinical measures.

Aim: To identify the sociodemographic, clinical and laboratory determinants relating to patient adherence to liraglutide treatment among individuals with overweight or obesity.

Methods: We retrospectively analysed patients with overweight or obesity who were treated with liraglutide between 2019 and 2022. Over a 6-month follow-up period, measurements of body mass index, sociodemographic characteristics, clinical and laboratory data, and prescription records for liraglutide were collected.

Early Prediction of Autistic Spectrum Disorder Using Developmental Surveillance Data.

Importance: With the continuous increase in the prevalence of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), effective early screening is crucial for initiating timely interventions and improving outcomes.

Objective: To develop predictive models for ASD using routinely collected developmental surveillance data and to assess their performance in predicting ASD at different ages and in different clinical scenarios.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study used nationwide data of developmental assessments conducted between January 1, 2014, and January 17, 2023, with minimal follow-up of 4 years and outcome collection in March 2023.

Increased rates of unattained developmental milestones among Israeli children between 2016 and 2020: a national report.

Background: The early years of children's lives are critical for their healthy development. Although children's growth and development rates may vary, a significant delay during early childhood could indicate a medical or a developmental disorder. Developmental surveillance is used worldwide by healthcare providers in routine encounters, as well as by educators and parents, to elicit concerns about child development.

Colchicine to Prevent Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence After Catheter Ablation: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

Background: Inflammation may promote atrial fibrillation (AF) recurrence after catheter ablation. This study aimed to evaluate a short-term anti-inflammatory treatment with colchicine following ablation of AF.

Methods: Patients scheduled for ablation were randomized to receive colchicine 0.

A Developmental Surveillance Score for Quantitative Monitoring of Early Childhood Milestone Attainment: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Background: Developmental surveillance, conducted routinely worldwide, is fundamental for timely identification of children at risk of developmental delays. It is typically executed by assessing age-appropriate milestone attainment and applying clinical judgment during health supervision visits. Unlike developmental screening and evaluation tools, surveillance typically lacks standardized quantitative measures, and consequently, its interpretation is often qualitative and subjective.

Top-down identification of keystone taxa in the microbiome.

Keystone taxa in ecological communities are native taxa that play an especially important role in the stability of their ecosystem. However, we still lack an effective framework for identifying these taxa from the available high-throughput sequencing without the notoriously difficult step of reconstructing the detailed network of inter-specific interactions. In addition, while most microbial interaction models assume pair-wise relationships, it is yet unclear whether pair-wise interactions dominate the system, or whether higher-order interactions are relevant.

Individualized network analysis reveals a link between the gut microbiome, diet intervention and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.

Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM), a serious complication during pregnancy which is defined by abnormal glucose regulation, is commonly treated by diabetic diet and lifestyle changes. While recent findings place the microbiome as a natural mediator between diet interventions and diverse disease states, its role in GDM is still unknown. Here, based on observation data from healthy pregnant control group and GDM patients, we developed a new network approach using patterns of co-abundance of microorganism to construct microbial networks that represent human-specific information about gut microbiota in different groups.

Assessing the Attainment Rates of Updated CDC Milestones Using a New Israeli Developmental Scale.

Objectives: Developmental milestones norms are widely used worldwide and are fundamental for early childhood developmental surveillance. We compared a new Israeli evidence-based national developmental scale with the recently updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) checklists.

Methods: We used a cohort of nearly 4.

Perioperative Safety and Early Patient and Device Outcomes Among Subcutaneous Versus Transvenous Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Implantations : A Randomized, Multicenter Trial.

Background: Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) improve survival in patients at risk for cardiac arrest, but are associated with intravascular lead-related complications. The subcutaneous ICD (S-ICD), with no intravascular components, was developed to minimize lead-related complications.

Objective: To assess key ICD performance measures related to delivery of ICD therapy, including inappropriate ICD shocks (delivered in absence of life-threatening arrhythmia) and failed ICD shocks (which did not terminate ventricular arrhythmia).

Progression of Atrial Fibrillation after Cryoablation or Drug Therapy.

Background: Atrial fibrillation is a chronic, progressive disorder, and persistent forms of atrial fibrillation are associated with increased risks of thromboembolism and heart failure. Catheter ablation as initial therapy may modify the pathogenic mechanism of atrial fibrillation and alter progression to persistent atrial fibrillation.

Methods: We report the 3-year follow-up of patients with paroxysmal, untreated atrial fibrillation who were enrolled in a trial in which they had been randomly assigned to undergo initial rhythm-control therapy with cryoballoon ablation or to receive antiarrhythmic drug therapy.

Estimating the effect of cesarean delivery on long-term childhood health across two countries.

Assessing the impact of cesarean delivery (CD) on long-term childhood outcomes is challenging as conducting a randomized controlled trial is rarely feasible and inferring it from observational data may be confounded. Utilizing data from electronic health records of 737,904 births, we defined and emulated a target trial to estimate the effect of CD on predefined long-term pediatric outcomes. Causal effects were estimated using pooled logistic regression and standardized survival curves, leveraging data breadth to account for potential confounders.

Pan-cancer analyses reveal cancer-type-specific fungal ecologies and bacteriome interactions.

Cancer-microbe associations have been explored for centuries, but cancer-associated fungi have rarely been examined. Here, we comprehensively characterize the cancer mycobiome within 17,401 patient tissue, blood, and plasma samples across 35 cancer types in four independent cohorts. We report fungal DNA and cells at low abundances across many major human cancers, with differences in community compositions that differ among cancer types, even when accounting for technical background.

Randomized trial of conventional versus radiofrequency needle transseptal puncture for cryoballoon ablation: the CRYO-LATS trial.

Background: Transseptal puncture to achieve left atrial access is necessary for many cardiac procedures, including atrial fibrillation ablation. More recently, there has been an increasing need for left atrial access using large caliber sheaths, which increases risk of perforation associated with the initial advancement into the left atrium. We compared the effectiveness of a radiofrequency needle-based transseptal system versus conventional needle for transseptal access.

Complexity-stability trade-off in empirical microbial ecosystems.

May's stability theory, which holds that large ecosystems can be stable up to a critical level of complexity, a product of the number of resident species and the intensity of their interactions, has been a central paradigm in theoretical ecology. So far, however, empirically demonstrating this theory in real ecological systems has been a long-standing challenge with inconsistent results. Especially, it is unknown whether this theory is pertinent in the rich and complex communities of natural microbiomes, mainly due to the challenge of reliably reconstructing such large ecological interaction networks.

Standardization of a Developmental Milestone Scale Using Data From Children in Israel.

Importance: Routine developmental screening tests for children are used worldwide for early detection of developmental delays. However, assessment of developmental milestone norms lacks strong normative data, and there are inconsistencies among different screening tools.

Objective: To establish milestone norms and build an updated developmental scale.

Estimation of postpartum depression risk from electronic health records using machine learning.

Background: Postpartum depression is a widespread disorder, adversely affecting the well-being of mothers and their newborns. We aim to utilize machine learning for predicting risk of postpartum depression (PPD) using primary care electronic health records (EHR) data, and to evaluate the potential value of EHR-based prediction in improving the accuracy of PPD screening and in early identification of women at risk.

Methods: We analyzed EHR data of 266,544 women from the UK who gave first live birth between 2000 and 2017.

Prevalence of Left Atrial Thrombus in Anticoagulated Patients With Atrial Fibrillation.

Background: The prevalence of left atrial (LA) thrombus in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) or atrial flutter (AFL) on guideline-directed anticoagulation is not well known, yet this may inform transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) use before cardioversion or catheter ablation.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to quantify LA thrombus prevalence among patients with AF/AFL on guideline-directed anticoagulation and to identify high-risk subgroups.

Methods: EMBASE, MEDLINE, and CENTRAL were systematically searched from inception to July 2020 for studies reporting on LA thrombus prevalence among patients with AF/AFL undergoing TEE following at least 3 weeks of continuous therapeutic oral anticoagulation with vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) or direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs).

A top-down measure of gene-to-gene coordination for analyzing cell-to-cell variability.

Recent technological advances, such as single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), allow the measurement of gene expression profiles of individual cells. These expression profiles typically exhibit substantial variations even across seemingly homogeneous populations of cells. Two main different sources contribute to this measured variability: actual differences between the biological activity of the cells and technical measurement errors.