During pregnancy, invading HLA-G+ extravillous trophoblasts (EVT) play a key role in placental development, uterine spiral artery remodeling, and prevention of detrimental maternal immune responses to placental and fetal antigens. Failures of these processes are suggested to play a role in the development of pregnancy complications, but very little is known about the underlying mechanisms. Here we present validated methods to purify and culture primary HLA-G+ EVT from the placental disk and chorionic membrane from healthy term pregnancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) has one of the highest diagnostic sensitivities for detection of the significance of coronary artery disease (CAD); however, sensitivity is moderate and may result in increased catheterization rates. We performed an efficacy study to determine whether a trained machine learning algorithm that uses coronary CTA data may improve CAD diagnosis accuracy.
Methods: Sixty-four-patient image datasets based on coronary CTA were retrospectively collected to generate eight views considering 45° increments around the coronary artery centerline.
Background: CT-guided tissue sampling is a very effective tool. However, false-negative results are obtained when regions such as necrotic core or surrounding reactive fibrosis and inflammation are sampled. PET/CT-guided sampling can circumvent these limitations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: While chemotherapeutic agents result in an improvement in both disease-free and overall survival in cancer patients, treatment can result in short and long-term complications. One well-known complication is neuropathy which can result from a number of chemotherapeutic agents. However, chemotherapy-induced phrenic neuropathy is an exceedingly rare phenomenon with few cases reported in the literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe incorporation of histone variants into nucleosomes has important functional consequences in all aspects of eukaryotic chromatin biology. H2A.Z is a conserved histone variant found in all eukaryotes from yeast to mammals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe describe the histological, histochemical, and immunohistochemical features of an unusual neoplasm of the parathyroid gland showing the histologic criteria of a mixed neuroendocrine-nonneuroendocrine neoplasm (MiNEN). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of such a tumor. A 43-year old male presented with acute and severe abdominal pain due to acute pancreatitis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Systemic bevacizumab is a novel targeted therapy for severe epistaxis and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding in hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT), but published data are very limited.
Aim: We conducted a survey-based study to characterize current treatment practices and physician-reported safety and effectiveness of systemic bevacizumab for bleeding in (HHT).
Methods: A 27-item survey was sent to physician centre directors of 31 International HHT Centers of Excellence.
Opioid analgesics represent a critical treatment for chronic pain in the analgesic ladder of the World Health Organization. However, their use can result in a number of unwanted side-effects including incomplete efficacy, constipation, physical dependence, and overdose liability. Cannabinoids enhance the pain-relieving effects of opioids in preclinical studies and dampen unwanted side-effects resulting from excessive opioid intake.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDecidual NK cells (dNK) are the main lymphocyte population in early pregnancy decidual mucosa. Although dNK decrease during pregnancy, they remain present in decidual tissues at term. First trimester dNK facilitate trophoblast invasion, provide protection against infections, and were shown to have many differences in their expression of NKRs, cytokines, and cytolytic capacity compared with peripheral blood NK cells (pNK).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control
September 2020
Catheter ablation is a common treatment for arrhythmia, but can fail if lesion lines are noncontiguous. Identification of gaps and nontransmural lesions can reduce the likelihood of treatment failure and recurrent arrhythmia. Intracardiac myocardial elastography (IME) is a strain imaging technique that provides visualization of the lesion line.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLife cycle-based analyses are considered crucial for designing product value chains towards lower carbon emissions. We have used data reported by companies to CDP for public disclosure to build a database of 866 product carbon footprints (PCFs), from 145 companies, 30 industries, and 28 countries. We used this database to elucidate the breakdown of embodied carbon emissions across products' value chains, how this breakdown varies by industry, and whether the reported emission reductions vary with the granularity of the PCF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNed Tijdschr Geneeskd
April 2020
The excessive use of screens is a contemporary problem that can have a number of effects on health. It is of particular influence on the onset and exacerbation of myopia, and for these reasons a group of professionals decided to draw up recommendations on a more sensible use of screens. The group comprised an ophthalmologist-epidemiologist, an orthoptist, paediatric and adolescent physicians, a youth health care nurse, an orthopaedic surgeon, a movement therapist-epidemiologist, health scientists and psychologists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMetastatic colonization, whereby a disseminated tumor cell is able to survive and proliferate at a secondary site, involves both tumor cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic factors. To identify tumor cell-extrinsic (microenvironmental) factors that regulate the ability of metastatic tumor cells to effectively colonize a tissue, we performed a genome-wide screen utilizing the experimental metastasis assay on mutant mice. Mutant and wildtype (control) mice were tail vein-dosed with murine metastatic melanoma B16-F10 cells and 10 days later the number of pulmonary metastatic colonies were counted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Low tube potential-high tube current computed tomography (CT) imaging allows reduction in iodine-based contrast dose and may extend the benefit of routine contrast-enhanced CT exams to patients at risk of nephrotoxicity.
Purpose: To determine the ability of an iodine contrast reduction algorithm to maintain diagnostic image quality for contrast-enhanced abdominal CT.
Material And Methods: CT exams with iodine contrast reduction were prescribed for patients at risk for renal dysfunction.
Neutrophils are the most abundant immune cells found in actively inflamed joints of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and most animal models for RA depend on neutrophils for the induction of joint inflammation. Exogenous IL-4 and IL-13 protect mice from antibody-mediated joint inflammation, although the mechanism is not understood. Neutrophils display a very strong basal expression of STAT6, which is responsible for signaling following exposure to IL-4 and IL-13.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudy Objective: To assess diagnostic value of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in endometrial aspirates (EAs) in comparison with conventional tests for diagnosis of female genital tuberculosis (TB) and to find agreement between EA PCR done for endometrial TB and laparoscopic findings of pelvic TB in women with unexplained infertility.
Design: Prospective observational cohort study.
Setting: Tertiary care hospital.
Unlabelled: Cytological examination plays an important role in the initial work-up of the serous cavity effusion fluids to find out the possible etiology as benign or malignant. Among malignant effusions, cytology is helpful in determining the exact type, site, and stage of the tumor. However, for reporting effusion cytology specimens, there is no consistent and reproducible reporting system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the most common malignant pediatric liver tumor, and cytology material is often the only tissue available for evaluation before definitive therapy. Subcategorization of HB based on cytomorphological features thus carries an important role in its prognostication. Spalt-like transcription factor 4 (SALL4), a marker of embryonic stem cells that is also found in the fetal liver, is reactivated in certain liver tumors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: India possibly carries the highest burden of antimicrobial resistant typhoidal salmonellae in the world. We report on the health-care ecosystem that produces data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) testing and the resistance patterns of typhoidal isolates in the city of Ahmedabad.
Materials And Methods: Through municipality records and internet searches, we identified 1696 private and 83 public laboratories in the city; 4 medical colleges, 4 health-care institution attached laboratories, and 4 corporate laboratories (CLs) were performing culture and antibiotic sensitivity testing (AST), but only 2 medical colleges and 1 CL shared their data with us.
A 71-year-old male with endocarditis mediated severe paravalvular leak and nonischemic cardiomyopathy underwent percutaneous repair attempts with a closure device followed by valve-in-valve transcatheter aortic replacement procedure. The case was complicated by cardiac arrest requiring hemodynamic support with Impella placement and secondary iatrogenic central aortic insufficiency requiring further intervention. ().
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Neurophysiol
March 2021
Purpose: Although there are many case reports on the role of ultrasonography (US) in distal ulnar nerve neuropathy (Guyon canal syndrome), there is a paucity of large series in the literature because of its rarity. During an 8-year period, 33 instances of electrodiagnostically confirmed cases underwent US imaging. These cases were analyzed to determine the role of US in uncovering the cause of distal ulnar nerve neuropathy and its contribution to further management.
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