Publications by authors named "Helliwell J"

Introduction: Anastomotic leak (AL) represents a significant complication following gastrointestinal (GI) surgery, contributing to increased morbidity and mortality. pH monitoring has emerged as a potential diagnostic tool for the early detection of AL, but its effectiveness and clinical utility remain to be fully elucidated. This review aims to summarise the evidence regarding perianastomotic pH monitoring for AL detection.

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Background: Corticosteroids are among the few effective treatments for knee osteoarthritis, but short duration of action limits their utility. EP-104IAR, a long-acting formulation of fluticasone propionate for intra-articular injection, optimises the action of fluticasone propionate through novel diffusion-based extended-release technology. The SPRINGBOARD trial assessed the efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetics of EP-104IAR in people with knee osteoarthritis.

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  • Ileus, a common issue post-surgery leading to gastrointestinal problems, shows potential for improvement through non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS), which may reduce inflammation and enhance gut function.
  • A multicentric trial involving 97 colorectal surgery patients assessed the feasibility of self-administered nVNS compared to a sham treatment, focusing on recruitment, compliance, and clinical outcomes over 30 days.
  • While initial results indicated no significant difference in gut recovery times between the two groups, patient motivation and interest in nVNS suggest the need for further powered trials to evaluate its effectiveness definitively.
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The retention of the covalent binding of an organometalllic rhenium complex as a model for a technetium-99m imaging agent, to a protein at physiological body temperature 37 °C is described. Detailed structure comparisons are made to the related 100 K crystal structure. The generality of the need for this sort of analytical procedure for guiding ligand lead compound discovery is emphasised.

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Reminiscences of one of the founding Main Editors of JSR on its 30th anniversary.

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Introduction: There is a lack of consensus on the management of inguinal hernia with limited symptoms. To address this issue a systematic review of existing randomized clinical trials (RCTs) was performed to critically appraise all existing data on asymptomatic hernia management, focusing on generalizability.

Methods: A scoping review to identify all RCTs comparing surgical and conservative management of patients with inguinal hernias was undertaken.

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Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is the first enzyme in the pentose phosphate pathway. It has been extensively studied by biochemical and structural techniques. 13 X-ray crystal structures and five electron cryo-microscopy structures in the PDB are focused on in this topical review.

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  • Intraductal oncocytic papillary neoplasms (IOPNs) are now identified as distinct from intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs), with limited information on their recurrence and survival outcomes.
  • A study analyzed outcomes of 415 patients with invasive IOPNs and adenocarcinoma from IPMN over a median of 6 years, finding similar recurrence rates between invasive IOPNs and ductal A-IPMN, but poorer survival compared to colloid A-IPMN.
  • The research concluded that invasive IOPNs behave like aggressive cancers, with adjuvant chemotherapy showing no significant impact on recurrence rates in any of the studied cancer types.
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  • The study examines the outcomes of different precursor epithelial subtypes of adenocarcinoma from intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (A-IPMN), focusing on clinical features and recurrence patterns among patients who underwent pancreatic surgery.
  • A total of 297 patients were analyzed, revealing that gastric, pancreatobiliary, and mixed subtypes have similar outcomes that are worse than the intestinal subtype in terms of recurrence and overall survival.
  • The research found that adjuvant chemotherapy specifically improved survival rates in the pancreatobiliary subtype, but not in gastric, intestinal, or mixed subtypes, indicating a potential area for further exploration in treatment strategies.
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  • - The study investigates factors affecting long-term survival and recurrence in patients with adenocarcinoma from intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms, focusing on those who had pancreatic resection between 2010 and 2017 in Europe and Asia.
  • - It analyzed data from 288 patients, revealing that 48% experienced recurrence within about 98 months, with 35% remaining disease-free at the 5-year mark.
  • - Key negative predictors for long-term disease-free survival included multivisceral resection, tumor location in the pancreatic tail, poor differentiation, lymphovascular invasion, and perineural invasion, leading to the development of a predictive model with a good success rate.
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The hardware for data archiving has expanded capacities for digital storage enormously in the past decade or more. The IUCr evaluated the costs and benefits of this within an official working group which advised that raw data archiving would allow ground truth reproducibility in published studies. Consultations of the IUCr's Commissions ensued via a newly constituted standing advisory committee, the Committee on Data.

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  • A study was conducted to determine the effects of adjuvant chemotherapy on patients with adenocarcinoma from intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasia after surgical resection, analyzing data from 459 patients across 18 centers between 2010 and 2020.
  • The results showed that 59.9% of patients received various chemotherapy regimens, but there was no significant difference in recurrence rates or survival outcomes between those who received chemotherapy and those who did not.
  • Overall, the study concluded that adjuvant chemotherapy does not appear to improve recurrence patterns or survival rates in this patient population.
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Metal-based complexes with their unique chemical properties, including multiple oxidation states, radio-nuclear capabilities and various coordination geometries yield value as potential pharmaceuticals. Understanding the interactions between metals and biological systems will prove key for site-specific coordination of new metal-based lead compounds. This study merges the concepts of target coordination with fragment-based drug methodologies, supported by varying the anomalous scattering of rhenium along with infrared spectroscopy, and has identified rhenium metal sites bound covalently with two amino acid types within the model protein.

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  • The study aimed to compare long-term cancer outcomes between patients with adenocarcinoma from intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (A-IPMN) and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) after surgical resection.
  • Data revealed that A-IPMN patients generally had better survival rates and lower recurrence rates compared to PDAC patients, including longer median survival (39.0 months for A-IPMN vs. 19.5 months for PDAC).
  • While A-IPMN showed higher rates of peritoneal and lung recurrence, PDAC had more locoregional recurrences, but overall, systemic recurrence rates were similar between the two groups.
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In recent years, there has been a major expansion in digital storage capability for hosting raw diffraction datasets. Naturally, the question has now arisen as to the benefits and costs for the preservation of such raw, i.e.

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Background: Community belonging, an important constituent of subjective well-being, is an important target for improving population health. Ageing involves transitioning across different social conditions thus, community belonging on health may vary across the life course. Using a nationally representative cohort, this study estimates the life stage-specific impact of community belonging on premature mortality.

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Interoperability of crystallographic data with other disciplines is essential for the smooth and rapid progress of structure-based science in the computer age. Within crystallography and closely related subject areas, there is already a high level of conformance to the generally accepted FAIR principles (that data be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) through the adoption of common information exchange protocols by databases, publishers, instrument vendors, experimental facilities and software authors. Driven by the success within these domains, the IUCr has worked closely with CODATA (the Committee on Data of the International Science Council) to help develop the latter's commitment to cross-domain integration of discipline-specific data.

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A seminal contribution in the domain of physiologically relevant biological structure and function determination was by Keith Moffat, of Cornell and latterly of the University of Chicago proposing that synchrotrons should offer the option of a Laue method data collection mode. I enthusiastically joined in supporting this initiative. This proposal needed detailed methods development though; theoretical, experimental and software development.

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  • The diffraction precision index (DPI) was introduced by Cruickshank in 1999 to assess the quality of biological macromolecule crystal structures, which has since been expanded to analyze individual atom coordinates.
  • A webserver has been developed that allows users to convert PDB entries to include individual atom coordinate errors calculated using the DPI method, aiding in the evaluation of molecular dynamics and non-covalent distance error estimates.
  • Challenges remain in accurately representing the standard uncertainties of atomic displacement parameters (B factors) in publications, but parallelized workflows for diffraction data processing can improve B factor precision estimation.
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Background: Understanding what promotes or hinders a community's capacity to serve the priorities of its residents is essential for the alignment of citizen needs and governance. Participatory approaches that engage community residents on the topic of community wellbeing are useful methods for defining outcomes that reflect a community's goals and priorities. Using qualitative focus group methods, the aim of this study was to outline bottom-up definitions of community wellbeing from a diverse pool of community residents in Ontario, Canada.

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  • The study investigates recurrence patterns and treatment outcomes following pancreatic surgery for adenocarcinoma originating from intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN), involving 459 patients from multiple centers between 2010 and 2020.
  • Recurrences were seen in 45.5% of patients, with a significant portion occurring within the first year, while the type of treatment did not significantly affect recurrence rates or survival based on location of the recurrence.
  • Overall survival improved for patients receiving additional treatment post-recurrence, with a median survival of 27.0 months compared to 14.6 months without further treatment.
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We have selected a set of ten 'golden oldies', diverse crystallography articles to illustrate important moments in the development of our field of science and which form landmark papers in crystallography. They are a mixture of 'science pull and technology push'. For each of our choices, we firstly created a new title that emphasizes how the paper's importance worked out from today's perspective.

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Purpose: Risk prediction models are frequently used to support decision-making in colorectal surgery but can be inaccurate. Machine learning (ML) is becoming increasingly popular, and its application may increase predictive accuracy. We compared conventional risk prediction models for postoperative mortality (based on regression analysis) with ML models to determine the benefit of the latter approach.

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