Evaluation of the Feasibility of Transfusing Leukocyte Depletion Filter-Processed Intraoperative Cell Salvage Blood in Metastatic Spine Tumor Surgery: Protocol for a Non-Randomized Study.

Background: Metastatic spine tumor surgery (MSTS) is often complex and extensive leading to significant blood loss. Allogeneic blood transfusion (ABT) is the mainstay of blood replenishment but with immune-mediated postoperative complications. Alternative blood management techniques (salvaged blood transfusion [SBT]) allow us to overcome such complications.

Development of Proton Density Fat Fraction Micro-MRI for Non-Invasive Quantitative Assessment of Bone Marrow Changes with Age and Radiation in Mouse Models.

Background/objectives: Bone marrow (BM) adipocytes are critical in progressing solid tumor metastases and hematological malignancies across pediatric to aging populations. Single-point biopsies remain the gold standard for monitoring BM diseases, including hematologic malignancies, but are limited in capturing the full complexity of loco-regional and global BM microenvironments. Non-invasive imaging techniques like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), could offer valuable alternatives for real-time evaluation of BM diseases in both preclinical translational and clinical studies.

Research on Flower Pattern and Roll Positioning Optimization for Roll Forming Process of TA4 Coiled Tubing.

Titanium alloy coiled tubing (CT) has great superiority while operating in deep wells with severe conditions, but it faces serious challenges during roll forming like high springback, edge cracking and surface wearing. In order to utilize the high precision and high efficiency production of titanium alloy CT, it is urgently necessary to develop a detailed process design. Based on the W-forming strategy and the cubic curve of the strip edge projection, the flower pattern and roll design for the 21-pass roll forming process were completed.

Robust Automated Mouse Micro-CT Segmentation Using Swin UNEt TRansformers.

Image-guided mouse irradiation is essential to understand interventions involving radiation prior to human studies. Our objective is to employ Swin UNEt TRansformers (Swin UNETR) to segment native micro-CT and contrast-enhanced micro-CT scans and benchmark the results against 3D no-new-Net (nnU-Net). Swin UNETR reformulates mouse organ segmentation as a sequence-to-sequence prediction task using a hierarchical Swin Transformer encoder to extract features at five resolution levels, and it connects to a Fully Convolutional Neural Network (FCNN)-based decoder via skip connections.

Necrotising fasciitis in the elderly: comparison between patients aged 60 years and older and those younger than 60 years.

Introduction: Increasing age is associated with an increased incidence of necrotising fasciitis. In this study, we aimed to compare the clinical presentation, investigations, microbiology and clinical outcome in elderly (age ≥60 years) and nonelderly (age <60 years) patients with extremity necrotising fasciitis.

Methods: A retrospective review of patients with extremity necrotising fasciitis who were surgically treated between January 2005 and December 2021 was conducted.

Targeting CEA in metastatic triple negative breast cancer with image-guided radiation followed by Fab-mediated chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.

Introduction: Although CAR-T cell therapy has limited efficacy against solid tumors, it has been hypothesized that prior treatment with Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) would increase CAR-T cell tumor infiltration, leading to improved antigen specific expansion of CAR-T cells.

Methods: To test this hypothesis in a metastatic triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) model, we engineered two anti-CEA single-chain Fab (scFab) CAR-T cells with signaling domains from CD28zeta and 4-1BBzeta, and tested them and .

Results: The anti-CEA scFab CAR-T cells generated from three different human donors demonstrated robust expression, expansion, and lysis of only CEA-positive TNBC cells, with the CD28z-CAR-T cells showing the highest cytotoxicity.

Mate-Pair Sequencing Enables Identification and Delineation of Balanced and Unbalanced Structural Variants in Prenatal Cytogenomic Diagnostics.

Background: Mate-pair sequencing detects both balanced and unbalanced structural variants (SVs) and simultaneously informs in relation to both genomic location and orientation of SVs for enhanced variant classification and clinical interpretation, while chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) only reports deletion/duplication. Herein, we evaluated its diagnostic utility in a prospective back-to-back prenatal comparative study with CMA.

Methods: From October 2021 to September 2023, 426 fetuses with ultrasound anomalies were prospectively recruited for mate-pair sequencing and CMA in parallel for prenatal genetic diagnosis.

A review of utility of wearable sensor technologies for older person frailty assessment.

Frailty is one of the most concerning aspects of global population aging, and early identification is crucial to prevent or reverse its progression. Simple, universal, and efficient frailty assessment technologies are essential for the timely detection of frailty in older patients. Various multi-dimensional assessment instruments have been developed to quantify frailty phenotypes; we review the literature on wearable sensor technologies leveraged for older person frailty assessment.

The Implementation of Perioperative Geriatric Management Could Decrease the Incidence of Postoperative Delirium in the Elderly Undergoing Major Orthopedic Surgeries.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the association of perioperative geriatric management (PGM) in major orthopedic surgeries.

Methods: One hundred seventy-five participants aged 75 and older were in-hospital patients who underwent major orthopedic surgery from September 2020 to September 2021, and they received PGM and necessary treatment for indicators with abnormal value (the PGM group). Another 175 participants in the control group only received the evaluation part of the PGM, recruited by filtering in the electronic medical record system from March 2016 to March 2017.

Targeted Circulating Lipid Mediators and Immune Cell Gene Transcripts After ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction.

Residual inflammation drives atherogenesis to atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction, which triggers acute inflammation. In preclinical studies, polyunsaturated fatty acids-derived specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs) have been shown to promote recovery after MI, in contrast to pro-inflammatory lipid mediators (PIMs). However, the dynamic changes of lipid mediators after ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), particularly after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and respective gene transcripts, are poorly understood.

A Water Relaxation Atlas for Age- and Region-Specific Metabolite Concentration Correction at 3 T.

Metabolite concentration estimates from magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) are typically quantified using water referencing, correcting for relaxation-time differences between metabolites and water. One common approach is to correct the reference signal for differential relaxation within three tissue compartments (gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid) using fixed literature values. However, water relaxation times (T and T) vary between brain locations and with age.

Integration of lipidomics with targeted, single cell, and spatial transcriptomics defines an unresolved pro-inflammatory state in colon cancer.

Background: Over a century ago, Virchow proposed that cancer represents a chronically inflamed, poorly healing wound. Normal wound healing is represented by a transitory phase of inflammation, followed by a pro-resolution phase, with prostaglandin (PGE2/PGD2)-induced 'lipid class switching' producing inflammation-quenching lipoxins (LXA4, LXB4).

Objective: We explored if lipid dysregulation in colorectal cancers (CRCs) is driven by a failure to resolve inflammation.

Chloroplast-localized transporter OsNTP1 mediates cadmium transport from root to shoot and sugar metabolism in rice.

Cadmium (Cd) is an element with high toxicity to living organisms, and its accumulation in rice grains poses a threat to human health. In this study, we report a novel nickel-transport family protein, OsNTP1, that is involved in Cd transport from root to shoot. Heterologous expression of OsNTP1 in yeast enhanced Ni and Cd tolerance.

High-Density Dual Atoms Pairs Coupling for Efficient Electromagnetic Wave Absorbers.

Dual atoms (DAs), characterized by flexible structural tunability and high atomic utilization, hold significant promise for atom-level coordination engineering. However, the rational design with high-density heterogeneous DAs pairs to promote electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption performance remains a challenge. In this study, high-density Ni─Cu pairs coupled DAs absorbers are precisely constructed on a nitrogen-rich carbon substrate, achieving an impressive metal loading amount of 4.

Inhibition of Accumulation of Neutral Lipids and Their Hydroperoxide Species in Hepatocytes by Bioactive Extract.

Our ongoing research suggests that extracts from plant-based foods inhibit the accumulation of lipid droplets (LDs) and oxidized lipid droplets (oxLDs) in liver cells. These findings suggest their potential use in the alleviation of metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) and its most severe manifestation, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). extracts (ALs: AL1-AL9) were used to assess their ability to reduce lipid droplet accumulation (LDA) and oxidized lipid droplet accumulation (oxLDA) by inhibiting neutral lipid accumulation and oxidation in LD.

Highly Mixed Index Facet Engineering Induces Defect Formation and Converts the Wave-Transmissive Mott Insulator NiO into Electromagnetic Wave Absorbent.

Mott insulator possesses the property of converting into semiconductor under supernormal conditions and achieving the Mott insulator-semiconductor transition (IST) holds great scientific value. Nevertheless, current IST methodologies possess certain limitations because they are not capable of being implemented under conventional conditions, thereby limiting their practical applications. Herein, a highly mixed index facets (HMIF) strategy is proposed to construct homogeneous interfaces with gradient work function (WF) in Mott insulator NiO, accompanied by numerous oxygen vacancies.

Sex differences in COVID-19 vaccine confidence in people living with HIV in Canada.

Background: Understanding the roots of vaccine confidence in vulnerable populations, such as persons living with HIV (PLWH), is important to facilitate vaccine uptake, thus mitigating infection and spread of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases. In an online survey of PLWH conducted in Canada during winter 2022 (), we reported that the overall COVID-19 vaccination uptake rate in PLWH was similar by sex. Here, we examined attitudes and beliefs towards vaccination against COVID-19 based on sex.

Association of 'weekend warrior' and other leisure time physical activity patterns with obesity and adiposity: A cross-sectional study.

Aim: To investigate the effect of different physical activity patterns on obesity.

Materials And Methods: Data from adults aged 17-79 years were extracted from the Hong Kong Territory-Wide Physical Fitness Survey conducted in 2011-2012 and 2021-2022. Moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) patterns were collected through questionnaires and categorized as inactive (no MVPA ≥10 min), insufficiently active (<150 min MVPA/week), weekend warriors (≥150 min MVPA/week from 1 to 2 days) and regularly active (≥150 min MVPA/week from ≥3 days).

When Would Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery Not Be Preferable for Metastatic Spine Disease?

Background: Metastatic spine tumor surgery (MSTS) is an important treatment modality of metastatic spinal disease (MSD). Open spine surgery (OSS) was previously the gold standard of treatment till the early 2010s. However, advancements in MSTS in recent years have led to the advent of minimally invasive spinal surgery (MISS) techniques for the treatment of MSD.

Nonmetallic Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polyetheretherketone Implants Vs Titanium Implants: Analysis of Clinical Outcomes and Influence on Postoperative Radiotherapy Planning in Metastatic Spine Tumor Surgery.

Background: Titanium has been the conventional implant material of choice for fixation in both primary and metastatic spine tumor surgeries (MSTS). However, these implants result in artifact generation during postoperative computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging, resulting in poor planning of radiotherapy (RT) and suboptimal tumor surveillance. Carbon fiber-reinforced polyetheretherketone (CFR-PEEK) implants have gained momentum for instrumentation in MSTS due to their radiolucent properties.

A safe, novel and ingenious method for autogenous bone graft storage in spine surgery with constrained resources - operative site as the bone bank.

Background: The aim of our study is to establish whether the bone graft harvested and stored in the surgical wound by our novel technique is safe, reproducible and preserves the viability of the graft. In doing so, it promises successful bony fusion in spine and orthopaedic surgeries.

Methods: A prospective clinical case series was conducted for autogenous bone graft storage in complex spine surgeries requiring staged procedures, in resource constrained settings.