Publications by authors named "Julie Bruneau"

Article Synopsis
  • - The 2024 update of the 2018 National Guideline for Clinical Management of Opioid Use Disorder emphasizes the need for current scientific evidence to inform treatment practices for opioid use disorder in Canada.
  • - A comprehensive review from 2017 to 2023 was conducted to revise the guidelines, involving a national committee including those with personal experience in opioid use disorder, and ensuring quality through established methods.
  • - Key changes in the recommendations include recognizing methadone and buprenorphine as equally effective first-line treatments, introducing slow-release oral morphine as a second-line option, and highlighting that psychosocial interventions should be optional rather than mandatory.
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Identification and isolation of antigen-specific T cells for downstream transcriptomic analysis is key for various immunological studies. Traditional methods using major histocompatibility complex (MHC) multimers are limited by the number of predefined immunodominant epitopes and MHC matching of the study subjects. Activation-induced markers (AIM) enable highly sensitive detection of rare antigen-specific T cells irrespective of the availability of MHC multimers.

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  • Previous studies showed limited evidence on how buprenorphine versus methadone affects different groups of people using opioids, particularly with the rise of fentanyl use.
  • The study aimed to compare the risks of treatment discontinuation and mortality between individuals using buprenorphine/naloxone versus those using methadone for opioid use disorder in British Columbia from 2010 to 2020.
  • Findings revealed that users of buprenorphine/naloxone had a significantly higher likelihood of discontinuing treatment after 24 months compared to those on methadone, with 88.8% versus 81.5% discontinuing, indicating that methadone may be more effective in retaining users.
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T-lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) and thymoma are two rare primary tumors of the thymus deriving either from T-cell precursors or from thymic epithelial cells, respectively. Some thymoma subtypes (AB, B1, and B2) display numerous reactive terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-positive (TdT) T-cell precursors masking epithelial tumor cells. Therefore, the differential diagnosis between T-LBL and TdT T-lymphocyte-rich thymoma could be challenging, especially in the case of needle biopsy.

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  • * Out of 75 patients with successful BCR expression, a significant majority had mutated immunoglobulin heavy chains (IgVH), and a subgroup of 12 patients showed a highly dominant BCR clone associated with worse clinical outcomes.
  • * The results indicated that high clonal dominance correlates with reduced BCR diversity and increased expression of specific genes, leading to poorer progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) rates, corroborated by an independent patient cohort analysis.
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  • Advanced systemic mastocytosis (AdvSM) is a complex condition linked to poor outcomes, and while midostaurin is the first approved treatment, its long-lasting effectiveness is limited.
  • Various prognostic scoring systems like MARS, IPSM, and GPSM have been developed to assess patients' outcomes, but it's essential to tailor these scores to specific AdvSM subtypes for better accuracy.
  • A study of patients treated with midostaurin revealed that MARS and AdvSM subtype significantly predict overall survival, identifying five distinct patient subgroups with varying median survival times, highlighting the need for personalized management strategies.
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Background: Bidirectional interactions between eosinophils and mast cells (MCs) have been reported in various allergic diseases. Bone marrow (BM) eosinophilia, and to a lesser extent blood eosinophilia, is common in systemic mastocytosis (SM), but its significance remains unknown.

Objective: We described blood and BM eosinophil characteristics in SM.

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Background: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a herpesvirus linked to nine different human tumors and lymphoproliferative disorders. Immunosuppression promotes EBV-driven malignancies. The most frequent EBV-induced malignancies are lymphomas and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

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  • The study looked at accidental deaths from opioids and stimulants in Québec between 2012 and 2021.
  • Mortality rates from these drugs increased, hitting a high point in 2020 and staying elevated in 2021, with more deaths linked to fentanyl rather than prescription opioids.
  • The findings suggest a need for better drug policies and support systems to help reduce these dangerous drug-related deaths.
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Introduction: Follicular helper T cells are essential for helping in the maturation of B cells and the production of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) during primary viral infections. However, their role during recall responses is unclear. Here, we used hepatitis C virus (HCV) reinfection in humans as a model to study the recall collaborative interaction between circulating CD4 T follicular helper cells (cTfh) and memory B cells (MBCs) leading to the generation of NAbs.

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Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a significant global health burden, particularly among people who inject drugs. Rapid point-of-care HCV testing has emerged as a promising approach to improve HCV detection and linkage to care in harm reduction organizations such as needle and syringe programs. The objective of this study was to use an intersectionality lens to explore the barriers and enablers to point-of-care HCV testing in a needle and syringe program.

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Cannabidiol (CBD) has been proposed to have a therapeutic potential over a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders, including substance use disorders. Pre-clinical evidence suggests that CBD can increase anandamide (AEA) plasma concentration, possibly mediating some of its therapeutic properties. Whether CBD exerts such an effect on AEA in individuals with cocaine use disorder (CUD) remains unknown.

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Introduction: Limited data exists on psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic among people who use drugs (PWUD). This study aimed to determine the prevalence and correlates of severe psychological distress (PD) among PWUD in Montreal around the beginning of the pandemic.

Methods: We conducted a rapid assessment study from May to December 2020 among PWUD recruited via a community-based cohort of people who inject drugs in Montreal (Hepatitis C cohort [HEPCO], N = 128) and community organisations (N = 98).

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Extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTCL) is an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-related neoplasm with male dominance and a poor prognosis. A better understanding of the genetic alterations and their functional roles in ENKTCL could help improve patient stratification and treatments. In this study, we performed a comprehensive genetic analysis of 178 ENKTCL cases to delineate the landscape of mutations, copy number alterations (CNA), and structural variations, identifying 34 driver genes including six previously unappreciated ones, namely, HLA-B, HLA-C, ROBO1, CD58, POT1, and MAP2K1.

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Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) are a priority population in HCV elimination programming. Overcoming sex and gender disparities in HCV risk, prevention, and the cascade of care is likely to be important to achieving this goal, but these have not yet been comprehensively reviewed.

Methods: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

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Background And Aims: Systemic mastocytosis (SM) is characterized by the accumulation of atypical mast cells (MCs) in organs. Liver histology of SM has been marginally described and accurate histological classification is critical, given the consequences of aggressive SM diagnosis. We aimed to describe the histological features associated with liver SM using updated tools.

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Article Synopsis
  • Study highlights improved engagement in hepatitis C virus (HCV) care post-direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), with increases in RNA testing (86% in 2018 vs. 77% pre-DAAs) and treatment initiation (64% vs. 40%).
  • Vulnerable populations, including certain older adults and individuals facing social deprivation, show higher risks of not being tested or treated.
  • Ongoing inequities in HCV care indicate a need for targeted interventions, particularly for marginalized subgroups, to enhance their engagement in the care cascade.
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Background: Instrumental variable (IV) analysis provides an alternative set of identification assumptions in the presence of uncontrolled confounding when attempting to estimate causal effects. Our objective was to evaluate the suitability of measures of prescriber preference and calendar time as potential IVs to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of buprenorphine/naloxone versus methadone for treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD).

Methods: Using linked population-level health administrative data, we constructed five IVs: prescribing preference at the individual, facility, and region levels (continuous and categorical variables), calendar time, and a binary prescriber's preference IV in analyzing the treatment assignment-treatment discontinuation association using both incident-user and prevalent-new-user designs.

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Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can control virus replication and prolong the life of people living with HIV (PLWH). However, the virus remains dormant within immune cells in what is called the HIV reservoir. Furthermore, 2.

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  • Primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBL) is a rare but aggressive form of lymphoma that typically has a good prognosis, although 10-15% of cases are resistant to chemotherapy.
  • Researchers studied a group of 120 patients to identify which ones might be at higher risk for poor outcomes using gene expression profiling.
  • Their findings showed that high expression of the genes PDL1 and PDL2 is linked to worse survival rates, suggesting that these patients may need alternative treatments like checkpoint inhibitors instead of standard chemotherapy.
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  • The systematic review examines how different testing frequencies for hepatitis C virus (HCV) reinfection among key populations can impact detection and prevention of ongoing transmission.
  • It analyzed data from 41 studies, finding an overall HCV reinfection rate of 4.13 per 100 person-years, with men who have sex with men (MSM) experiencing the highest rates.
  • Results suggest that shorter testing intervals (≤6 months) may lead to higher detection rates of reinfections, emphasizing the need for more frequent testing to help in HCV elimination efforts.
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