Neurological outcome following out of hospital cardiac arrest: Evaluation of performance of existing risk prediction models in a UK cohort.

Introduction: Out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a common problem. Rates of survival are low and a proportion of survivors are left with an unfavourable neurological outcome. Four models have been developed to predict risk of unfavourable outcome at the time of critical care admission - the Cardiac Arrest Hospital Prognosis (CAHP), MIRACLE, Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA), and Targeted Temperature Management (TTM) models.

EPidemiology Of Cardiogenic sHock in Scotland (EPOCHS): A multicentre, prospective observational study of the prevalence, management and outcomes of cardiogenic shock in Scotland.

Background: Despite high rates of cardiovascular disease in Scotland, the prevalence and outcomes of patients with cardiogenic shock are unknown.

Methods: We undertook a prospective observational cohort study of consecutive patients with cardiogenic shock admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) or coronary care unit at 13 hospitals in Scotland for a 6-month period. Denominator data from the Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group were used to estimate ICU prevalence; data for coronary care units were unavailable.

A critical care follow-up service evaluation: Acquired peripheral nerve injury after admission with COVID-19 respiratory disease.

Anticipated sequelae of critical care admission for COVID-19 disease remain unclear. Our Edinburgh-based critical care follow-up service identified patterns with nerve injury in 13 of 35 patients who attended following a critical care admission between 15/03/2020 and 25/12/2020. This included 7 cases of meralgia parasthetica, 1 brachial plexopathy, 2 common peroneal neuropathies and 3 ulnar neuropathies.

Development, Implementation and Assessment of a Comprehensive Strategic Plan in a School of Pharmacy.

To develop, implement and assess a strategic plan and its process within a school of pharmacy. The process for developing the strategic plan included five phases: designing and scanning by a planning committee; divergent thinking with input from key internal and external stakeholders who shared their vision for the school; convergent planning in which faculty members helped to prioritize the clusters, goals, and metrics that had been identified; refining ideas into strategies; and assessment, during which metrics were aligned with assessment plans and data were collected and analyzed. The completed strategic plan had five broad strategies, 20 specific goals, and 90 associated metrics.

Laparoscopic Adrenalectomy for Conn's Syndrome is Beneficial to Patients and is Cost Effective in England.

Purpose: Adrenalectomy has the potential to cure or improve the control of hypertension in patients with primary hyperaldosteronism due to unilateral adrenal adenoma (Conn's syndrome). This study assesses the patients' perception of, and costs associated with, laparoscopic adrenalectomy for Conn's syndrome.

Materials And Methods: Clinical, radiological, operative, and pathological data were collected on patients undergoing adrenalectomy for Conn's syndrome over 8-years period in a UK tertiary referral center.

An evaluation of a human stem cell line to identify risk of developmental neurotoxicity with antiepileptic drugs.

Determination of the impact of a drug on human brain development relies instead on surrogate animal studies. Here we have exploited the human stem cell line, TERA2.cl.

Effect of monthly vitamin D3 supplementation in healthy adults on adverse effects of earthquakes: randomised controlled trial.

Objective: To determine whether supplementation with vitamin D improves resilience to the adverse effects of earthquakes.

Design: Opportunistic addition to an established randomised double blind placebo controlled trial.

Setting: Christchurch, New Zealand, where a prolonged series of catastrophic earthquakes beginning on 4 September 2010 occurred, which caused widespread destruction, fatalities, and extensive psychological damage.

Ischaemic strokes in patients with pulmonary arteriovenous malformations and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia: associations with iron deficiency and platelets.

Background: Pulmonary first pass filtration of particles marginally exceeding ∼7 µm (the size of a red blood cell) is used routinely in diagnostics, and allows cellular aggregates forming or entering the circulation in the preceding cardiac cycle to lodge safely in pulmonary capillaries/arterioles. Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations compromise capillary bed filtration, and are commonly associated with ischaemic stroke. Cohorts with CT-scan evident malformations associated with the highest contrast echocardiographic shunt grades are known to be at higher stroke risk.

AKT-induced tamoxifen resistance is overturned by RRM2 inhibition.

Unlabelled: Acquired tamoxifen resistance develops in the majority of hormone-responsive breast cancers and frequently involves overexpression of the PI3K/AKT axis. Here, breast cancer cells with elevated endogenous AKT or overexpression of activated AKT exhibited tamoxifen-stimulated cell proliferation and enhanced cell motility. To gain mechanistic insight on AKT-induced endocrine resistance, gene expression profiling was performed to determine the transcripts that are differentially expressed post-tamoxifen therapy under conditions of AKT overexpression.

Effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on upper respiratory tract infections in healthy adults: the VIDARIS randomized controlled trial.

Context: Observational studies have reported an inverse association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) levels and incidence of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs). However, results of clinical trials of vitamin D supplementation have been inconclusive.

Objective: To determine the effect of vitamin D supplementation on incidence and severity of URTIs in healthy adults.

Stickiness to hydrophobic surfaces varies widely among peptides and proteins.

To determine whether there are differences in stickiness to hydrophobic surfaces among peptides and proteins under immunoassay conditions, peptides and proteins were radio-labeled with (125)I and competitive adsorption with human serum albumin (HSA) in polystyrene or polypropylene tubes was used to determine the IC (50), the concentration of HSA required to reduce the adsorption of the labeled polypeptides to 50% of maximal. Stickiness was defined as log(10)(10(9) IC (50)). Stickiness varied significantly between the labeled polypeptides (p < 0.

Low serum iron levels are associated with elevated plasma levels of coagulation factor VIII and pulmonary emboli/deep venous thromboses in replicate cohorts of patients with hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia.

Background: Elevated plasma levels of coagulation factor VIII are a strong risk factor for pulmonary emboli and deep venous thromboses.

Objectives: To identify reversible biomarkers associated with high factor VIII and assess potential significance in a specific at-risk population.

Patients/methods: 609 patients with hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia were recruited prospectively in two separate series at a single centre.

Stability of plasma adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH): influence of hemolysis, rapid chilling, time, and the addition of a maleimide.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of hemolysis, rapid chilling, time, and the addition of a maleimide on the stability of human plasma ACTH measurements.

Design And Methods: Partially hemolyzed EDTA blood (n=10), initially at 37°C, was centrifuged at 4°C either immediately or after rapid chilling in ice/water. Plasma ACTH was then measured either immediately, or after 1h at 22°C with or without the addition of 2mM N-phenyl maleimide (NPM).

FGF23 elevation and hypophosphatemia after intravenous iron polymaltose: a prospective study.

Context: Parenteral iron administration has been associated with hypophosphatemia. Fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) has a physiological role in phosphate homeostasis via suppression of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] activation and promotion of phosphaturia. We recently reported a case of iron-induced hypophosphatemic osteomalacia associated with marked FGF23 elevation.

Pre-analytical requirements.

Correct test selection: a test must have the potential to alter patient management and have the specificity and sensitivity appropriate to the pretest probability of disease. Correct dynamic test procedure: dynamic tests may assist diagnosis and protocols must be readily available. Correct patient preparation: fasting, or other patient preparation, may reduce variability.

Seasonal variation in vitamin D levels in the Canterbury, New Zealand population in relation to available UV radiation.

Aim: The optimal plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration is probably >75 nmol/L but in temperate regions lower levels are common. Few studies report the intensity of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation when 25(OH)D is measured. We measured plasma 25(OH)D and incident solar UVB radiation in Christchurch and modelled the relationship between them.

Cross-reactivities of macroprolactin and big-prolactin in three commercial immunoassays for prolactin: a chromatographic analysis.

Objectives: To compare the recently released Elecsys Prolactin II with the Access and Centaur assays for reactivity with macroPRL, bigPRL and monomeric PRL in samples fractionated using gel filtration chromatography (GFC).

Methods: Prolactin (PRL) concentration was measured before (total PRL) and after GFC over Superdex 75 (n=16-18) using prolactin assays on the Access2 (Beckman Coulter Inc.) and Centaur (Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics) analyzers and the Prolactin II assay (Roche Diagnostics) on the Elecsys 2010 analyzer.

Kurtosis provides a good omnibus test for outliers in small samples.

Objectives: To compare the power of the Healy, single-outlier Grubbs, skewness and kurtosis tests for outliers and their applicability to quality control (QC).

Design And Methods: Power to detect outliers was calculated in simulated samples of twenty normal variates, one or two of which were shifted in mean or increased in variance.

Results: All tests showed similar power against a single outlier.

Modeling the reactions of superoxide and myeloperoxidase in the neutrophil phagosome: implications for microbial killing.

Neutrophils kill bacteria by ingesting them into phagosomes where superoxide and cytoplasmic granule constituents, including myeloperoxidase, are released. Myeloperoxidase converts chloride and hydrogen peroxide to hypochlorous acid (HOCl), which is strongly microbicidal. However, the role of oxidants in killing and the species responsible are poorly understood and the subject of current debate.

Macroprolactin, big-prolactin and potential effects on the misdiagnosis of hyperprolactinemia using the Beckman Coulter Access Prolactin assay.

Objective: To examine whether use of the Beckman Coulter Access Prolactin (PRL) assay, which has low reactivity with macro-PRL, obviates the need for screening hyperprolactinemic samples.

Design And Methods: Samples from 1020 hyperprolactinemic individuals and 401 healthy volunteers were treated with polyethylene glycol (PEG). Macro-PRL was assessed from (1) percent PRL recovery, using cut-off values derived by gel filtration chromatography (GFC) and (2) significant (p<0.

Mean and variance quality control for multiple correlated levels of replicated control samples.

Mean and variance rules for quality control are more powerful than rules based on individual values. An algorithm for applying such rules is described that controls type I errors (false alarms), while allowing for multiple levels of quality control samples, correlation between levels, small numbers of preliminary values, replication of samples and autocorrelation arising from random effects. Based on ANOVA and empirical approximations for small samples, the algorithm maintains a low per-batch probability of type I errors.

2-Aminoethoxydiphenyl borate perturbs hormone-sensitive calcium stores and blocks store-operated calcium influx pathways independent of cytoskeletal disruption in human A549 lung cancer cells.

Recent studies have identified novel actions for 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate (2-APB) in triggering calcium release and enhancing calcium influx induced by the depletion of intracellular calcium stores. In this study, we have examined the effects of 2-APB on the human lung adenocarcinoma A549 cell line, which we have previously shown displays a unique calcium influx response, when ER calcium stores are depleted by thapsigargin (TG) treatment. Here, we show that low concentrations of 2-APB failed to induce the rapid augmentation of TG-activated calcium influx previously reported for other cell types.

Analysis of Piperaceae germplasm by HPLC and LCMS: a method for isolating and identifying unsaturated amides from Piper spp extracts.

A method for extraction and high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometer (HPLC-MS) analysis of the medicinally important genus Piper (Piperaceae) was developed. This allows for a rapid and accurate measure of unsaturated amides, or piperamides, in black pepper, Piper nigrum L., and in wild species from Central America.