Publications by authors named "K Astbury"

Rapid urbanization and escalating climate crises place cities at the critical juncture of environmental and public health action. Urban areas are home to more than half of the global population, contributing ~ 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Structured surveys were completed by 191 leaders in city governments and civil society from 118 cities in 52 countries (February-April 2024).

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  • In the Republic of Ireland, there are long waiting times for BRCA1/BRCA2 genetic testing due to scarce resources in Clinical Genetics, often exceeding a year.
  • The pilot project aimed to "mainstream" this genetic testing in oncology/surgical clinics, inspired by successful models in other countries, and was carried out at three tertiary centres from January to July 2017.
  • Out of 101 patients tested, 12% were found to have pathogenic variants, leading to appropriate referrals to Clinical Genetics, although challenges regarding time pressures and communication of results emerged during the process.
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Preconditioning tissue with sublethal ischaemia or hypoxia can confer tolerance (protection) against subsequent ischaemic challenge. In vitro ischaemic preconditioning (IPC) is typically achieved through oxygen glucose deprivation (OGD), whereas hypoxic preconditioning (HPC) involves oxygen deprivation (OD) alone. Here, we report the effects of preconditioning of OGD, OD or glucose deprivation (GD) in ischaemic tolerance models with PC12 cells and primary rat neurons.

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Objective: To determine whether the grade of referral smear reflects the frequency of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 3 (CIN3) or worse lesions among patients with CIN2 on punch biopsy.

Methods: In a retrospective study, data were reviewed from women with a punch biopsy sample showing CIN2 and a known referral smear who underwent large loop excision of the transformation zone (LLETZ) between January 1, 2013, and January 1, 2016, at Galway University Hospital, Ireland. Data were analyzed by patient age (≤30 and >30 years), referral smear (low and high grade), and LLETZ histology (≤CIN2 and ≥CIN3).

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