Background: Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) affects approximately 15-20% of couples. Constitutional chromosomal abnormalities (CA) are an important cause of RPL because the gametes of carriers may have chromosomal imbalance which is lethal to the fetus. Therefore, the identification of CA helps to provide information about likely outcome of pregnancy in carriers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGap junction connectivity is crucial to intercellular communication and plays a key role in many critical processes in developmental biology. However, direct analysis of gap junction connectivity in populations of developing cells has proven difficult due to the limitations of patch clamp and dye diffusion based technologies. We re-examine a microfluidic technique based on the principle of laminar flow, which aims to electrically measure gap junction connectivity.
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February 2025
A microfluidic device has been designed to electrically measure average intercellular connectivity in a cell monolayer. This proof-of-concept design uses elastomeric microvalves to isolate cells across three microfluidic chambers, creating a direct microscale analog of benchtop sucrose gap physiology rigs. The device operation has been verified for normal rat kidney cells (NRK-49F) using a chemical gap junction blocker, 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate (2-APB).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective was to compare specialty-specific 7- and 30-day outcomes between virtual care visits and in-person visits which occurred during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Using administrative data from provincial databases in Ontario, ambulatory care visits occurring virtually and in-person during specific timeframes within the pandemic were analyzed. Virtual care visits were matched with corresponding in-person visits based on multiple baseline patient characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: CDK4/6 inhibitors in combination with aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are the standard first-line treatment for hormone receptor-positive (HR+), HER2-negative (HER2-) metastatic breast cancer. Landmark trials have demonstrated a comparable progression-free survival (PFS) across CDK4/6 inhibitors, but the overall survival (OS) outcomes have varied. This study aimed to evaluate the real-world PFS and OS for palbociclib and ribociclib when combined with AIs in patients with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer.
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