Publications by authors named "Joseph Lu"

Dengue virus (DENV) is a rapidly expanding infectious disease threat that causes an estimated 100 million symptomatic infections every year. A barrier to preventing DENV infections with traditional vaccines or prophylactic monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapies is the phenomenon of Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE), wherein sub-neutralizing levels of DENV-specific IgG antibodies can enhance infection and pathogenesis rather than providing protection from disease. Fortunately, IgG is not the only antibody isotype capable of binding and neutralizing DENV, as DENV-specific IgA1 isotype mAbs can bind and neutralize DENV while without exhibiting any ADE activity.

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Dengue virus (DENV) is the causative agent of dengue, a mosquito-borne disease that represents a significant and growing public health burden around the world. A unique pathophysiological feature of dengue is immune-mediated enhancement, wherein preexisting immunity elicited by a primary infection can enhance the severity of a subsequent infection by a heterologous DENV serotype. A leading mechanistic explanation for this phenomenon is antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), where sub-neutralizing concentrations of DENV-specific IgG antibodies facilitate entry of DENV into FcγR expressing cells such as monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The COVID-19 pandemic initially appeared to primarily affect the respiratory system, but numerous patients developed additional symptoms, including significant cardiac issues like myocarditis and pericarditis.
  • - One reported case details a patient who developed constrictive pericarditis three years after a COVID-19 infection, which initially presented with loss of smell and taste, followed by severe chest and leg symptoms.
  • - The patient's condition required a surgical procedure called pericardiectomy due to thickening of the pericardium, marking it as the first known instance of requiring such an operation for COVID-19-related constrictive pericarditis, with significant improvement noted post-surgery.
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Importance: For patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), recent data suggest that obesity has a beneficial effect on survival outcomes in various cancer types. Reports on this association in head and neck cancer are limited.

Objectives: To compare overall survival (OS) to 5 years and functional outcomes in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) treated with ICIs based on pretreatment body mass index (BMI).

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Importance: Patient education materials (PEMs) can promote patient engagement, satisfaction, and treatment adherence. The American Medical Association recommends that PEMs be developed for a sixth-grade or lower reading level. Health literacy (HL) refers to an individual's ability to seek, understand, and use health information to make appropriate decisions regarding their health.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study evaluated the safety and immune response of a low-dose DENV-3 challenge model in nine healthy individuals, following subcutaneous inoculation with an attenuated dengue virus strain.
  • - All participants developed detectable viral RNA within a week, with symptoms like fever, rash, and laboratory abnormalities indicating mild-to-moderate dengue.
  • - Immunological responses, including seroconversion and memory T cell activation, were evident within 14 days, and the severity of clinical symptoms correlated with the peak viral load in each participant.
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Background: The fragility index represents the minimum number of patients required to convert an outcome from statistically significant to insignificant. This report assesses the fragility index of head and neck cancer randomised, controlled trials.

Methods: Studies were extracted from PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Embase and Cochrane databases.

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Dengue represents a growing public health burden worldwide, accounting for approximately 100 million symptomatic cases and tens of thousands of fatalities yearly. Prior infection with one serotype of dengue virus (DENV) is the greatest known risk factor for severe disease upon secondary infection with a heterologous serotype, a risk which increases as serotypes co-circulate in endemic regions. This disease risk is thought to be mediated by IgG-isotype antibodies raised during a primary infection, which poorly neutralize heterologous DENV serotypes and instead opsonize virions for uptake by FcγR-bearing cells.

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Importance: Olfactory dysfunction (OD) is increasingly recognized as a robust marker of frailty and mortality. Despite broad recognition of frailty as a critical component of head and neck cancer (HNC) care, there is no standardized frailty assessment.

Objective: To assess the prevalence of OD and its association with frailty and postoperative outcomes in HNC.

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Objectives: This study sought to analyze the effects of perioperative blood transfusions and vasopressors on 30-day surgical complications and 1-year mortality after reconstructive surgery in head and neck free tissue transfer (FTT) and to identify predictors of administration of perioperative blood transfusions or vasopressors.

Materials And Methods: TriNetX (TriNetX LLC, Cambridge, USA), an international population-level electronic health record database, was queried to identify subjects that underwent FTT requiring perioperative (intraoperative to postoperative day 7) vasopressors or blood transfusions. Primary dependent variables were 30-day surgical complications and 1-year mortality.

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Objective: To determine whether gender differences exist in the training history, practice patterns, and home lives of surgeons who perform microvascular reconstruction of the head and neck.

Study Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Setting: Medical facilities that employ surgeons who practice head and neck microvascular reconstruction in the United States.

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Objectives: To describe swallowing and feeding-tube outcomes in patients with high-risk oropharyngeal cancer treated with trimodality therapy (TMT), including transoral robotic surgery (TORS) and adjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

Methods: A chart review was conducted on patients with HPV+ OPSCC receiving TMT with TORS at an academic medical center from March 2010 to March 2021. Data collected included demographics, treatment, feeding tube placement, functional oral intake scale (FOIS) scores, and swallowing-language pathology (SLP) evaluations.

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Objectives: This study evaluated the content and patient educational quality of YouTube videos on facelift surgery for facial rejuvenation. This study investigated the relationship between education quality compared to video content, video metrics, and popularity.

Methods: Two hundred videos were identified across 4 search terms: "facelift surgery," "facelift surgery what to expect," "facelift surgery patient education," and "what is facelift surgery.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Dengue virus (DENV) infections, prevalent in tropical areas, lead to significant health issues, with over 400 million infections annually and around 20,000 deaths, underscoring the need for better understanding of immune responses during infection.
  • - A study was conducted on individuals infected with the DENV-1 strain 45AZ5, revealing a strong immune response characterized by distinct antibodies (IgA, IgM, IgG) and specific delays in antibody production, providing insights into the timing and nature of the body's response.
  • - The research utilized RNA sequencing to identify key gene expression patterns that correlate with the onset of virus replication and adaptive immunity, highlighting important immunological features of primary DENV-1 infections that could
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Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a minimally invasive surgical procedure that is standard of care for the evaluation of clinically negative regional lymph nodes in patients with cutaneous melanoma. As the presence of metastases dictates patient prognosis and determines the need for further regional disease control or adjuvant therapy, SLNB is invaluable to clinical decision-making in patients presenting with melanoma. However, the indications for SLNB, specifically among patients with thin (<1 mm) or thick (>4 mm) melanomas, remain unclear.

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Objective: To identify key recommendations for maximizing the efficiency and efficacy of perioperative care in transsphenoidal pituitary surgery.

Methods: The authors performed a comprehensive literature search of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery protocols implemented for patients undergoing transsphenoidal adenomectomy (TSA); individual recommendations were abstracted, and the evidence base thoroughly reviewed.

Results: The authors identified 19 individual recommendations pertinent to the care of patients undergoing TSA, which were subdivided into preoperative (n=6), intraoperative (n=6), and postoperative (n=7) interventions.

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Purpose: Recurrent head and neck cancer (HNC) has a significant global disease burden and its treatment is complex. Multiple clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have been developed to improve management of these patient populations; however, no study has systematically reviewed the quality and rigor in development of these guidelines. Here, we identify and systematically appraise existing recommendations for the management of recurrent HNC and assess their clinical applicability, methodologic rigor, and transparency of development.

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mRNA vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in individuals with cancer. It is unclear, however, if systemic anti-cancer therapy impacts the coordinated cellular and humoral immune responses elicited by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines. To fill this knowledge gap, we assessed SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-elicited immunity in a cohort of patients with advanced solid tumors either under observation or receiving systemic anti-cancer therapy.

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Infantile hemangiomas (IH) are the most common benign tumors of childhood. Timely diagnosis and management of higher-risk IH is key in avoiding permanent disfigurement, visual impairment, and life-threatening airway compromise. Here, we identify and critically appraise existing clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for IH diagnosis and management.

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