Endoscopic full-thickness plication for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a widespread chronic gastrointestinal condition with an increasing worldwide prevalence. This research was a systematic review and meta-analysis evaluating the efficacy, safety, and long-term outcomes of endoscopic full-thickness plication (EFTP) for the treatment of GERD. A comprehensive search of databases was conducted for studies published up to April 2023.

Infectious Illness Symptoms Are Associated with Elevated Anxiety in a Sample of Sexual and Gender Minority Young Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: To evaluate whether infectious illness symptoms (IIS) are associated with generalized anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in sexual/gender (SGM) minority young adults assigned male at birth (AMAB).

Method: Four hundred eighteen participants (median age = 25; range, 20-40) were recruited through RADAR, an ongoing Chicago-based cohort study of SGM-AMAB between September 2020 and February 2021. Participants completed online surveys.

Pulmonary Vasodilator Therapy in Severe Pulmonary Hypertension Due to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (Severe PH-COPD): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-associated pulmonary hypertension (PH-COPD) results in a significant impact on symptoms, quality of life, and survival. There is scant and conflicting evidence about the use of pulmonary hypertension (PH) specific therapy in patients with PH-COPD. PubMed, OVID, CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase, and Web of Science were searched using various MESH terms to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or observational studies investigating PH-specific therapies in patients with severe PH-COPD, defined by mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) of more than 35 mm Hg or pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) of more than 5 woods units on right heart catheterization.

Maternal and prenatal outcomes of hemochromatosis in pregnancy: A population-based study.

Background: This retrospective study investigated the impact of hemochromatosis on maternal and perinatal outcomes among delivery hospitalizations in the United States between 2010 and 2019, revealing notable trends and associations.

Methods: Utilizing data from over 36 million delivery hospitalizations, we conducted a comprehensive analysis, focusing on maternal complications, perinatal outcomes, and healthcare utilization among women with hemochromatosis compared to those without.

Results: Women with hemochromatosis exhibited a longer length of hospital stay (3.

Anatomical location, risk factors, and outcomes of lower gastrointestinal bleeding in colorectal cancer patients: a national inpatient sample analysis (2009-2019).

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the incidence, predictors, and impact of lower gastrointestinal bleeding (LGIB) on inpatient mortality among colorectal cancer patients, due to its clinical significance and potential influence on patient outcomes.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of data from the National Inpatient Sample database between 2009 and 2019, including 2,598,326 colorectal cancer patients with and without LGIB. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine predictors of LGIB and its association with inpatient outcomes.

ECC Status, CRAFT Categorization and OHRQoL Assessment in 3-6-year-old Children: A Cross-sectional Study.

Introduction: Early Childhood Caries (ECC) can affect the health and quality of life of the children. Assessing a patient's risk of developing caries is an important aspect of caries management; however, can assessing the caries risk predict the impact of ECC on the OHRQoL? Few Indian studies have reported association between caries status, risk, and the impact on OHRQoL.

Aim: To assess the association between dental caries status, risk assessment, and OHRQoL in 3-6-year-old children.

Infectious Complications After Tocilizumab in Patients with COVID: A Real-World Experience.

Introduction: Controversies remain regarding the safety of tocilizumab in the treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. In this study, we seek to describe the infectious complications after tocilizumab in COVID patients and determine the related risk factors.

Methods: A single-center retrospective observational study was conducted among adult patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection admitted between 06/01/2020 and 12/31/2021 who received tocilizumab at our institution.

Coarsening, condensates, and extremes in aggregation-fragmentation models.

We use extreme value statistics to study the dynamics of coarsening in aggregation-fragmentation models which form condensates in the steady state. The dynamics is dominated by the formation of local condensates on a coarsening length scale which grows in time in both the zero range process and conserved mass aggregation model. The local condensate mass distribution exhibits scaling, which implies anomalously large fluctuations, with mean and standard deviation both proportional to the coarsening length.

Guillain-Barré syndrome after mRNA-1273 (Moderna) COVID-19 vaccination: A case report.

Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is an acquired inflammatory polyradiculoneuropathy that often follows infection with a virus or bacteria and in rare occasions, vaccination may precede GBS. We present a case of 80-year-old male patient who presented with chief complaints of progressive, ascending bilateral lower extremity paresthesia and weakness following first dose of Moderna vaccine. His symptoms got exacerbated after 2nd dose.

Complete Molar Pregnancies with a Coexisting Fetus: Pregnancy Outcomes and Review of Literature.

 The objective of the study was to review the obstetric outcomes of complete hydatidiform molar pregnancies with a coexisting fetus (CHMCF), a rare clinical entity that is not well described.  We performed a retrospective case series with pathology-confirmed HMCF. The cases were collected via solicitation through a private maternal-fetal medicine physician group on social media.

Examining the impact of social distancing and methamphetamine use on sexual risk and intimate partner violence in sexual and gender minority young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, concerns were raised about the potential impact of pandemic-related social distancing measures on existing health disparities among sexual and gender minority (SGM) young adults, including HIV transmission risk and intimate partner violence (IPV). Another concern was the potential for increased methamphetamine use during the pandemic, which is a known risk factor for HIV transmission and IPV.

Methods: The present analysis examines the impact of COVID-19 social distancing (social distancing and quarantining) and methamphetamine use on HIV risk and IPV in a combined dataset from 3 cohort studies of SGM young adults (two in Los Angeles and one in Chicago) from May 2020 to April 2021 (n = 1142).

The mA methyltransferase METTL3 regulates muscle maintenance and growth in mice.

Skeletal muscle serves fundamental roles in organismal health. Gene expression fluctuations are critical for muscle homeostasis and the response to environmental insults. Yet, little is known about post-transcriptional mechanisms regulating such fluctuations while impacting muscle proteome.

Lived Experiences of Adult Burn Survivors with Post-Burn Contractures.

The article documents the life changes and challenges that are experienced by individuals who suffer from burns with long-lasting injury, and what are the available support mechanisms for these individuals. The experiences are drawn from a qualitative phenomenological inquiry conducted at a leading facility for burns treatment in Navi Mumbai, where people from across the country can access free non-cosmetic corrective surgery for burn-related contracture. In-depth interviews have been conducted with nine participants and three key informants.

Follistatin-induced muscle hypertrophy in aged mice improves neuromuscular junction innervation and function.

Sarcopenia, or age-related loss of muscle mass and strength, is an important contributor to loss of physical function in older adults. The pathogenesis of sarcopenia is likely multifactorial, but recently the role of neurological degeneration, such as motor unit loss, has received increased attention. Here, we investigated the longitudinal effects of muscle hypertrophy (via overexpression of human follistatin, a myostatin antagonist) on neuromuscular integrity in C57BL/6J mice between the ages of 24 and 27 months.

Kinematic analysis of sensorimotor behavior during variable ladder rung walking in short-tailed opossums (.

This protocol presents a workflow for detecting differences in kinematics between experimental conditions. It is tailored for short-tailed opossums but can be applied to any species capable of completing the ladder rung task. There are four phases of this protocol: (1) data collection, (2) pose tracking, (3) analysis of single trials, and (4) cross-condition comparisons.

Voluntary wheel running with and without follistatin overexpression improves NMJ transmission but not motor unit loss in late life of C57BL/6J mice.

Sarcopenia, or pathological loss of muscle mass and strength during aging, is an important contributor to loss of physical function in older adults. Sarcopenia is a multifactorial syndrome associated with intrinsic muscle and upstream neurological dysfunction. Exercise is well-established as an effective intervention for sarcopenia, but less is known about the long-term neurobiological impact of exercise.

Intragenic complementation of amino and carboxy terminal SMN missense mutations can rescue Smn null mice.

Spinal muscular atrophy is caused by reduced levels of SMN resulting from the loss of SMN1 and reliance on SMN2 for the production of SMN. Loss of SMN entirely is embryonic lethal in mammals. There are several SMN missense mutations found in humans.

Available Sensory Input Determines Motor Performance and Strategy in Early Blind and Sighted Short-Tailed Opossums.

The early loss of vision results in a reorganized neocortex, affecting areas of the brain that process both the spared and lost senses, and leads to heightened abilities on discrimination tasks involving the spared senses. Here, we used performance measures and machine learning algorithms that quantify behavioral strategy to determine if and how early vision loss alters adaptive sensorimotor behavior. We tested opossums on a motor task involving somatosensation and found that early blind animals had increased limb placement accuracy compared with sighted controls, while showing similarities in crossing strategy.

Conditional deletion of SMN in cell culture identifies functional SMN alleles.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by mutation or deletion of survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) and retention of SMN2 leading to SMN protein deficiency. We developed an immortalized mouse embryonic fibroblast (iMEF) line in which full-length wild-type Smn (flwt-Smn) can be conditionally deleted using Cre recombinase. iMEFs lacking flwt-Smn are not viable.

Neuromuscular junction transmission failure is a late phenotype in aging mice.

Neurodegeneration has increasingly been considered an important factor in the pathogenesis of sarcopenia or age-related loss of muscle mass and strength. Experiments were designed to investigate the fidelity of neuromuscular junction (NMJ) transmission across the lifespan in hindlimb muscles of male and female C57BL/6J mice (at 12, 20, 24, 27, and 29 months of age). Single-fiber electromyography recordings demonstrated abrupt onset of NMJ transmission failure at 27 months of age.

Early-onset aging and mitochondrial defects associated with loss of histone acetyltransferase 1 (Hat1).

Histone acetyltransferase 1 (Hat1) is responsible for the acetylation of newly synthesized histone H4 on lysines 5 and 12 during the process of chromatin assembly. To understand the broader biological role of Hat1, we have generated a conditional mouse knockout model of this enzyme. We previously reported that Hat1 is required for viability and important for mammalian development and genome stability.

Muscle contractility dysfunction precedes loss of motor unit connectivity in SOD1(G93A) mice.

Introduction: Electrophysiological measurements are used in longitudinal clinical studies to provide insight into the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and the relationship between muscle weakness and motor unit (MU) degeneration. Here, we used a similar longitudinal approach in the Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD1[G93A]) mouse model of ALS.

Methods: In vivo muscle contractility and MU connectivity assays were assessed longitudinally in SOD1(G93A) and wild type mice from postnatal days 35 to 119.

Mild SMN missense alleles are only functional in the presence of SMN2 in mammals.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by reduced levels of full-length SMN (FL-SMN). In SMA patients with one or two copies of the Survival Motor Neuron 2 (SMN2) gene there are a number of SMN missense mutations that result in milder-than-predicted SMA phenotypes. These mild SMN missense mutation alleles are often assumed to have partial function.

Muscle strength and size are associated with motor unit connectivity in aged mice.

In older adults, the loss of muscle strength (dynapenia) and the loss of muscle mass (sarcopenia) are important contributors to the loss of physical function. We sought to investigate dynapenia, sarcopenia, and the loss of motor unit function in aging mice. C57BL/6J mice were analyzed with cross-sectional (males: 3 vs.