Scalable policy adoption and sustainable implementation of surgical care in the Americas.

On September 29, 2023, the Republic of Ecuador convened a meeting to address surgical system strengthening and urge political leaders to invest in surgical infrastructure. The meeting included experts in health diplomacy, innovative financing, implementation strategy and national surgical plans. The event occurred in parallel with the Sixtieth Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization, Seventy-fifth session of the World Health Organization Regional Committee for the Americas.

Building resilient surgical systems that can withstand external shocks.

When surgical systems fail, there is the major collateral impact on patients, society and economies. While short-term impact on patient outcomes during periods of high system stress is easy to measure, the long-term repercussions of global crises are harder to quantify and require modelling studies with inherent uncertainty. When external stressors such as high-threat infectious disease, forced migration or climate-change-related events occur, there is a resulting surge in healthcare demand.

A Cosmopolitan Argument for Temporary "Diagonal" Short-Term Surgical Missions as a Component of Surgical Systems Strengthening.

We propose an argument for “diagonal” short-term surgical missions as a stop-gap component of global surgical systems strengthening based upon the political justice theory of moral cosmopolitanism

An end-to-end deep learning pipeline to derive blood input with partial volume corrections for automated parametric brain PET mapping.

Dynamic 2-[18F] fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (dFDG-PET) for human brain imaging has considerable clinical potential, yet its utilization remains limited. A key challenge in the quantitative analysis of dFDG-PET is characterizing a patient-specific blood input function, traditionally reliant on invasive arterial blood sampling. This research introduces a novel approach employing non-invasive deep learning model-based computations from the internal carotid arteries (ICA) with partial volume (PV) corrections, thereby eliminating the need for invasive arterial sampling.

Social determinants of gastrointestinal malformation mortality in Brazil: a national study.

Introduction: In Brazil, approximately 5% are born with a congenital disorder, potentially fatal without surgery. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between gastrointestinal congenital malformation (GICM) mortality, health indicators, and socioeconomic factors in Brazil.

Methods: GICM admissions (Q39-Q45) between 2012 and 2019 were collected using national databases.

The Need for Children's Surgical Care Prioritisation in National Surgical Care Policies: A Systematic Review of National Surgical Obstetric and Anaesthetic Plans (NSOAPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Background: Children born in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have an 85 % risk of requiring surgical care by the age of 15 [1,2]. Yet, children's surgery has been largely neglected by global health policies. National Surgical Obstetric and Anaesthetic Plans' (NSOAPs) reflect countries' strategic health priorities, policies, and targets related to surgical care.

The clinical utility of PET/CT scan and tissue biopsy in the management and follow-up of paediatric Hodgkin lymphoma in South Africa.

Background: In low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) like South Africa, there is a need to understand the clinical practices surrounding diagnosis and surveillance of paediatric Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) to reduce the burden on health systems. Understanding the clinical utility of PET/CT scans may decrease repeated tissue biopsies during disease surveillance.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of patients aged less than 18 years treated for HL at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2018.

The Global Initiative for Children's Surgery: conception, gestation, and delivery.

More than two thirds of the global population lack access to safe, affordable surgical and anesthesia care. This inequity disproportionately affects children in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). In 2016, a group of pediatric surgical care providers founded the Global Initiative for Children's Surgery (GICS).

Burn-injured patients - the preferably unheard.

Background: Data on colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis to treatment interval (DTI), an index of quality assurance in high-income countries (HICs) is lacking in South Africa. This study aimed to determine DTIs and their impact on CRC survival in a South African cohort.

Methods: Participants ( = 289) from the Colorectal Cancer in South Africa (CRCSA) cohort were identified for inclusion.

Continental-scale suppression of an invasive pest by a host-specific parasitoid underlines both environmental and economic benefits of arthropod biological control.

Biological control, a globally-important ecosystem service, can provide long-term and broad-scale suppression of invasive pests, weeds and pathogens in natural, urban and agricultural environments. Following (few) historic cases that led to sizeable environmental up-sets, the discipline of arthropod biological control has-over the past decades-evolved and matured. Now, by deliberately taking into account the ecological risks associated with the planned introduction of insect natural enemies, immense environmental and societal benefits can be gained.

Improving agricultural knowledge management: The experience.

Opportunities to use data and information to address challenges in international agricultural research and development are expanding rapidly. The use of agricultural trial and evaluation data has enormous potential to improve crops and management practices. However, for a number of reasons, this potential has yet to be realized.

Priority regions for research on dryland cereals and legumes.

Dryland cereals and legumes  are important crops in farming systems across the world.  Yet they are frequently neglected among the priorities for international agricultural research and development, often due to lack of information on their magnitude and extent. Given what we know about the global distribution of dryland cereals and legumes, what regions should be high priority for research and development to improve livelihoods and food security? This research evaluated the geographic dimensions of these crops and the farming systems where they are found worldwide.

Spatial and temporal contrasts in the distribution of crops and pastures across Amazonia: A new agricultural land use data set from census data since 1950.

Unlabelled: Amazonia holds the largest continuous area of tropical forests with intense land use change dynamics inducing water, carbon, and energy feedbacks with regional and global impacts. Much of our knowledge of land use change in Amazonia comes from studies of the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for two thirds of the region. Amazonia outside of Brazil has received less attention because of the difficulty of acquiring consistent data across countries.

Epigenetic approaches in glioblastoma multiforme and their implication in screening and diagnosis.

Epigenetic modifications have been reported in a number of non-germ-line tumor types. Epigenetic modifications to the genome, especially DNA methylation and histone modifications, affect gene expression causing increased risk for cancers and other diseases. We have summarized information about DNA methylation percentages in Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) line HTB-12, alveolar cell carcinoma, and acute lymphocytic leukemia samples and determined H3 (K27) methyltransferase activity in GBM and leukemia cells and made comparisons to H3 (K27) methyltransferase activity in normal astrocyte, lung, and lymphocyte cells.

Identification of the Transmembrane Glucose Regulated Protein 78 as a Biomarker for the Brain Cancer Glioblastoma Multiforme by Gene Expression and Proteomic Studies.

The prognosis of patients with Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), the most malignant adult glial brain tumor, remains poor in spite of advances in treatment procedures, including surgical resection, irradiation and chemotherapy. Genetic heterogeneity of GBM warrants extensive studies to gain a thorough understanding of the biology of this tumor. While there have been several studies of global transcript profiling of glioma with the identification of gene signatures for diagnosis and disease management, translation into clinics is yet to happen.

Spatial analysis to support geographic targeting of genotypes to environments.

Crop improvement efforts have benefited greatly from advances in available data, computing technology, and methods for targeting genotypes to environments. These advances support the analysis of genotype by environment interactions (GEI) to understand how well a genotype adapts to environmental conditions. This paper reviews the use of spatial analysis to support crop improvement research aimed at matching genotypes to their most appropriate environmental niches.

Effects of high-dose large neutral amino acid supplementation on exercise, motor skill, and mental performance in Australian Rules Football players.

This study investigated the effects of high-dose large neutral amino acid (LNAA) supplementation on attenuating fatigue-induced decrements in exercise and motor skill performance in Australian Rules Football (ARF) players. Fifteen subelite ARF players participated in 3 testing sessions separated by 7 days. Players completed an initial control trial involving a reactive motor skills test (RMST) and a reactive agility test (RAT) carried out before and after fatiguing exercise.

[Methodology for selecting areas for biofortified crop intervention].

Objective: To identify geographical areas in Latin America and the Caribbean where biofortification of staple crops, such as beans, corn, rice, cassava, and sweet potatoes, might help reduce nutritional deficiencies in the Region.

Methods: A geographic information system (GIS) was produced with records on nutritional risks, crop production, food consumption, and demographic and socioeconomic data, for 11 countries in the Region. Four case studies were conducted (in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico) using exploratory and descriptive analysis of thematic maps that were superimposed and compared to reveal overlapping and spatial patterns, thereby identifying areas suited to intervention.

Identifying candidate sites for crop biofortification in Latin America: case studies in Colombia, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

Background: Agricultural science can address a population's vitamin, amino acid and mineral malnutrition through biofortification - agronomy, plant breeding and biotechnology to develop crops with high nutrient contents. Biofortified crop varieties should be grown in areas with populations at risk of nutrient deficiency and in areas where the same crop is already grown and consumed. Information on the population at risk of nutrient deficiency is rarely available for sub-national administrative units, such as provinces, districts, and municipalities.

Jumper's knee in volleyball athletes: advancements in diagnosis and treatment.

Jumper's knee, or patellar tendinopathy, affects nearly one half of elite volleyball athletes and causes significant morbidity. The diagnosis and treatment of jumper's knee is evolving with heavier reliance on the use of diagnostic ultrasound with and without color or power Doppler. Research suggests that conservative treatment is very effective using an eccentric exercise regimen and decline squats.