Weight Surveillance and Heart Failure Self-assessment in Patients with Chronic Leg Wounds: A Pilot Study.

Objective: To determine if a weight check and heart failure symptom evaluation with each wound care visit could impact wound healing in patients with heart failure and chronic leg wounds.

Methods: This was a descriptive, correlational study at an outpatient wound healing center in the Pacific Northwest. A convenience sample of individuals currently enrolled at the center with leg wounds and heart failure was identified from standardized electronic medical records.

Professional language use by alumni of the Harvard Medical School Medical Language Program.

Background: Despite the growing number of patients with limited English proficiency in the United States, not all medical schools offer medical language courses to train future physicians in practicing language-concordant care. Little is known about the long-term use of non-English languages among physicians who took language courses in medical school. We conducted a cross-sectional study to characterize the professional language use of Harvard Medical School (HMS) alumni who took a medical language course at HMS and identify opportunities to improve the HMS Medical Language Program.

Viscosity of ASDs at humid conditions.

Many amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) are thermodynamically unstable. Thus, the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) might crystallize over time. The crystallization kinetics and therewith the long-term stability of ASDs depends on the storage conditions temperature and relative humidity (RH) as they determine the molecular mobility of the API in the polymer.

Dynamics and visualization of MCF7 adenocarcinoma cell death by aptamer-C1q-mediated membrane attack.

This study was designed to characterize binding of a DNA aptamer to breast cancer cells and to test whether that aptamer could be used to kill target cells in vitro as part of an aptamer-C1q protein conjugate by coupling to the classic complement cascade. A biotinylated DNA aptamer designated MUC1-5TR-1 was shown to decorate the plasma membranes of human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF7) cells via fluorescence confocal microscopy. Biotinylated aptamer binding successfully initiated the classical complement pathway leading to complement fixation on the target cells via a streptavidin-C1q conjugate as previously reported.

Creatine kinase elevations with clozapine.

We describe a patient with marked elevations of creatine kinase following institution of clozapine treatment. The enzyme levels promptly subsided with discontinuation of clozapine. The clinical features did not meet any of the published criteria for neuroleptic malignant syndrome.