Estimate of Increase in Colorectal Cancer Diagnoses with Expansion of Fecal Immunochemical Testing in an Urban Safety-Net Population.

Background: Fecal immunochemical test (FIT) is less effective in detecting advanced adenomas (AA) than colonoscopy. Increase in FIT for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening may lead to an increased number of undetected AAs which may develop into future CRCs.

Aim: We determined the potential impact of FIT expansion on missed AAs and future CRC diagnoses in an urban, tertiary-care, safety-net hospital.

The NAFLD Decompensation Risk Score: External Validation and Comparison to Existing Models to Predict Hepatic Events in a Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: The NAFLD decompensation risk score (the Iowa Model) was recently developed to identify patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) at highest risk of developing hepatic events using three variables-age, platelet count, and diabetes.

Aims: We performed an external validation of the Iowa Model and compared it to existing non-invasive models.

Methods: We included 249 patients with NAFLD at Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, in the external validation cohort and 949 patients in the combined internal/external validation cohort.

The association between hepatic steatosis and incident cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all-cause mortality in a US multicohort study.

Background And Aims: NAFLD strongly associates with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors; however, the association between NAFLD and incident CVD, CVD-related mortality, incident cancer, and all-cause mortality is unclear.

Approach And Results: We included 10,040 participants from the Framingham Heart Study, the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study, and the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis to assess the longitudinal association between liver fat (defined on CT) and incident CVD, CVD-related mortality, incident cancer, and all-cause mortality. We performed multivariable-adjusted Cox regression models including age, sex, diabetes, systolic blood pressure, alcohol use, smoking, HDL, triglycerides, and body mass index at baseline or time-varying covariates.

In high-risk patients with acute upper GI bleeding, urgent vs. early endoscopy did not differ for 30-day mortality.

Lau JY, Yu Y, Tang RS, et al. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:1299-308.

Predictive Factors and Time to Development of Hepatic Decompensation in Patients with Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common causes of cirrhosis in the USA.

Objectives: We aimed to determine the time to develop hepatic events in patients with NAFLD and develop a simple model to identify patients at risk for hepatic decompensation.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Effects of hypertonic (NaCl) two-dimensional and three-dimensional culture conditions on the properties of cartilage tissue engineered from an expanded mature bovine chondrocyte source.

Clinically relevant mature cartilage cells (chondrocytes) present challenges for use in cartilage tissue engineering applications, given their low capacity for cell division and tissue production. Since the in situ environment of chondrocytes is hypertonic relative to standard culture medium conditions, in this study we tested the hypothesis that using culture medium of a hypertonic, more physiologic osmolarity during both two-dimensional (2D) expansion of mature bovine chondrocytes (MBCs) and their subsequent encapsulation culture in three-dimensional (3D) agarose hydrogel constructs produces improved engineered tissue construct mechanical and biochemical properties. Results demonstrate that 2D expansion of MBCs in hypertonic (NaCl) medium before encapsulation yielded improved construct mechanical properties.