Purpose: This study aimed to develop and validate FinTox, a concise tool for screening and managing financial toxicity in oncology settings.
Methods: Development involved qualitative interviews with healthcare providers and patients, and feedback from a 7-member expert panel resulting in a 5-item measure that evaluates financial strain, psychological responses, and care modifications. Psychometric evaluations examined factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent and convergent validity.
Background/objectives: Weight loss outcomes vary individually. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based evaluation of adipose tissue (AT) might help to identify AT characteristics that predict AT loss. This study aimed to assess the impact of an 8-week low-calorie diet (LCD) on different AT depots and to identify predictors of short-term AT loss using MRI in adults with obesity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSex-specific abdominal organ volume and proton density fat fraction (PDFF) in people with obesity during a weight loss intervention was assessed with automated multiorgan segmentation of quantitative water-fat MRI. An nnU-Net architecture was employed for automatic segmentation of abdominal organs, including visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue, liver, and psoas and erector spinae muscle, based on quantitative chemical shift-encoded MRI and using ground truth labels generated from participants of the Lifestyle Intervention (LION) study. Each organ's volume and fat content were examined in 127 participants (73 female and 54 male participants; body mass index, 30-39.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To evaluate a compressed sensing artificial intelligence framework (CSAI) to accelerate MRI acquisition of the ankle.
Methods: Thirty patients were scanned at 3T. Axial T2-w, coronal T1-w, and coronal/sagittal intermediate-w scans with fat saturation were acquired using compressed sensing only (12:44 min, CS), CSAI with an acceleration factor of 4.
Cachexia, a multifactorial wasting syndrome, is highly prevalent among advanced-stage cancer patients. Unlike weight loss in healthy humans, the progressive loss of body weight in cancer cachexia primarily implicates lean body mass, caused by an aberrant metabolism and systemic inflammation. This may lead to disease aggravation, poorer quality of life, and increased mortality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe type I Melanoma Antigen Gene (MAGE) A3 is a functional target associated with survival and proliferation in multiple myeloma (MM). To investigate the mechanisms of these oncogenic functions, we performed gene expression profiling (GEP) of p53 wild-type human myeloma cell lines (HMCL) after MAGE-A knockdown, which identified a set of 201 differentially expressed genes (DEG) associated with apoptosis, DNA repair, and cell cycle regulation. MAGE knockdown increased protein levels of pro-apoptotic BIM and of the endogenous cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor p21.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNitrogen (N) limitation is common in most terrestrial ecosystems, often leading to strong competition between microorganisms and plants. The mechanisms of niche differentiation to reduce this competition remain unclear. Short-term (15)N experiments with NH4(+), NO3(-), and glycine were conducted in July, August and September in a temperate grassland to evaluate the chemical, spatial and temporal niche differentiation by competition between plants and microorganisms for N.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOrchids are generally recognized to have specialist pollination systems and low fruit set is often thought to be characteristic of the family. In this study, we investigated the reproductive ecology of Cleisostoma linearilobatum, an epiphytic tropical orchid, in a holy hill forest fragment and a traditional tea garden in SW China using comparable methods. C.
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