Publications by authors named "Lang I"

Drug development for human disease relies on preclinical model systems such as human cell cultures and animal experiments before therapeutic treatments can ultimately be tested on humans in clinical studies. We here describe the generation of a novel human cell line (HLMVEC/SVTERT289) that we generated by transfection of microvascular endothelial cells from healthy donor lung tissue with the catalytic domain of telomerase and the SV40 large T/small t-antigen. These cells exhibited satisfactory growth characteristics and largely maintained their native characteristics, including morphology, cell surface marker expression, angiogenic potential and the protein composition of secreted extracellular vesicles.

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Background: The idea of making science more accessible to nonscientists has prompted health researchers to involve patients and the public more actively in their research. This sometimes involves writing a plain language summary (PLS), a short summary intended to make research findings accessible to nonspecialists. However, whether PLSs satisfy the basic requirements of accessible language is unclear.

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Allelopathy, the chemical interaction of plants by their secondary metabolites with surrounding organisms, profoundly influences their functional features. Lichens, symbiotic associations of fungi and algae and/or cyanobacteria, produce diverse secondary metabolites, among other usnic acid, which express to have potent biological activities. Mosses, i.

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  • This study explores the link between ABO blood groups and the risk of early stent thrombosis in patients who underwent coronary interventions, focusing particularly on non-O blood groups and their association with cardiovascular issues.
  • Among 10,714 patients, only 0.73% experienced early stent thrombosis, and while non-O blood groups weren't significantly linked, those with B-antigens (B and AB blood types) showed a higher risk for early thrombosis compared to O type.
  • The findings suggest that B-antigen presence is a notable factor in early stent thrombosis risk, indicating a need for more research to understand the biological mechanisms behind this relationship.
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Background: Elevated Lp(a) (lipoprotein[a]) is a risk marker for atherosclerotic disease, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. We examined the association of Lp(a) with changes in coronary atherosclerosis following intensive lipid-lowering therapy.

Methods: In the PACMAN-AMI trial (Effects of the PCSK9 Antibody Alirocumab on Coronary Atherosclerosis in Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction), 300 patients with acute myocardial infarction were randomized to receive biweekly alirocumab 150 mg or placebo in addition to high-intensity statins.

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Emerging research suggests there is a need to consider the importance of place histories in studying neighborhood effects. Guided by a life course of place framework, the objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between two place history exposures and three contemporary home food environment outcomes. Exposures included 10-year neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) histories and multi-year nutrition community programming and policy (CPP) histories.

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Background: Dual anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) blockade has improved the outcomes of patients with early and metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. Here we present the final 10-year analysis of the ALTTO trial.

Patients And Methods: The ALTTO trial (NCT00490139) is a prospective randomized, phase III, open-label, multicenter study that investigated the role of adjuvant chemotherapy and trastuzumab alone, in combination or sequentially with lapatinib.

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Although anticoagulation remains the cornerstone treatment for patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE), catheter-directed therapy (CDT) has generated great interest as an adjunctive option for those presenting with hemodynamic decompensation or high risk for deterioration and in whom systemic thrombolysis has failed or is contraindicated. However, randomized controlled data supporting the efficacy and safety of CDT in addition to antithrombotic therapy in patients with high-risk and intermediate- to high-risk PE compared with anticoagulation and systemic thrombolysis alone are lacking. This paucity of high-quality data hampers guideline recommendations regarding the optimal therapeutic approach in such patients with PE.

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  • The coordination of swallowing phases is primarily managed by the brainstem, but also relies on peripheral feedback from the esophagus.
  • The esophageal phase of swallowing depends on signals from mucosal tension receptors, which are influenced by the bolus and involve different neural pathways.
  • Inhibitory processes, like deglutitive inhibition, ensure that new swallowing events do not obstruct ongoing peristaltic waves, highlighting the complex interaction between different swallowing phases.
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  • Despite advancements in clinical practices, pulmonary embolism (PE) remains a significant challenge in diagnosis and treatment due to factors like aging populations and health disparities.
  • Clinicians often rely on various international guidelines for managing PE, but inconsistencies and gaps in recommendations can lead to confusion.
  • This review focuses on key similarities and differences in PE guidelines and emphasizes the need for clearer management strategies and further research in this area.
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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, and despite treatment efforts, cardiovascular function cannot always be restored, and progression of disease be prevented. Critical insights are oftentimes based on tissue samples. Current knowledge of tissue pathology typically relies on invasive biopsies or postmortem samples.

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Renal sympathetic denervation (RDN) is an interventional supplement to medical treatment in patients with arterial hypertension. While the first sham-controlled trial, SYMPLICITY HTN‑3 was neutral, with improved procedural details, patient selection and follow-up, recent randomized sham-controlled trials of second-generation devices show a consistent blood pressure lowering effect of RDN, as compared to sham controls. These new data and the recent U.

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Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and their complications continue to be the leading cause of mortality globally. With recent advancements in molecular analytics, individualized treatments are gradually applied to the diagnosis and treatment of CVD. In the field of diagnostics, liquid biopsy combined with modern analytical technologies is the most popular natural source to identify disease biomarkers, as has been successfully demonstrated in the cancer field.

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Background: The European Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension (CTEPH) registry, conducted between 2007 and 2012, reported the major impact of pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) on the long-term survival of patients with CTEPH. Since then, 2 additional treatments for inoperable CTEPH have become available: balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA), and an approved oral drug therapy with the guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat. The current registry aimed to evaluate the effect of these new therapeutic approaches in a worldwide context.

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Background: Mortality risk assessment informs clinical management of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The Registry to Evaluate Early and Long-Term PAH Disease Management (REVEAL) Lite 2 is a simplified risk calculator discriminating 1-year mortality risk.

Methods: This post-hoc analysis of the phase 3 GRIPHON study assessed changes in REVEAL Lite 2 risk score with selexipag versus placebo and whether changes were prognostic or predictive of time to first morbidity/mortality (M/M) event.

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Importance: Previous studies investigated atherosclerotic changes induced by lipid-lowering therapy in extensive coronary segments irrespective of baseline disease burden (a vessel-level approach).

Objective: To investigate the effects of lipid-lowering therapy on coronary lesions with advanced atherosclerotic plaque features and presumably higher risk for future events.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The PACMAN-AMI randomized clinical trial (enrollment: May 2017 to October 2020; final follow-up: October 2021) randomized patients with acute myocardial infarction to receive alirocumab or placebo in addition to high-intensity statin therapy.

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Inhibition of CD95/Fas activation is currently under clinical investigation as a therapy for glioblastoma multiforme and preclinical studies suggest that disruption of the CD95-CD95L interaction could also be a strategy to treat inflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders. Besides neutralizing anti-CD95L/FasL antibodies, mainly CD95ed-Fc, a dimeric Fc fusion protein of the extracellular domain of CD95 (CD95ed), is used to prevent CD95 activation. In view of the fact that full CD95 activation requires CD95L-induced CD95 trimerization and clustering of the resulting liganded CD95 trimers, we investigated whether fusion proteins of the extracellular domain of CD95 with a higher valency than CD95ed-Fc have an improved CD95L-neutralization capacity.

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The goal of this study was to understand how neighborhood greenspace access may support or hinder the effectiveness of community programs and policies (CPPs) aimed at reducing racial and ethnic inequities in screen time among 4598 US children. We found higher CPP intensity was significantly associated with fewer screen time behaviors in high greenspace neighborhoods, but not neighborhoods with low or moderate greenspace. Moreover, there were significant differences in greenspace access by neighborhood-level race and ethnicity.

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Article Synopsis
  • Left heart disease (LHD) is a leading cause of pulmonary hypertension (PH), further classified into isolated post-capillary (ipcPH) or combined pre- and post-capillary PH (cpcPH).
  • Recent clinical trials emphasize avoiding pulmonary arterial hypertension treatments for PH-LHD patients outside of trials, as these treatments may cause harm.
  • A new PH-LHD staging system categorizes patients into four stages based on their clinical and hemodynamic characteristics, which aims to improve diagnosis and treatment through a more individualized approach.
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Background: Community champions have been employed across various settings to disseminate evidence-based public health information. The Building Babies' Brains programme trains champions to work with parents in communities, equipping them with child development knowledge and parental engagement strategies. We explored what makes community champions effective in distributing information to parents, including how the champion-parent relationship and champions' personal characteristics affect information dissemination.

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Introduction: We report a mixed-methods process evaluation embedded within a randomised controlled trial. We aimed to test and refine a theory of change model hypothesising key causal assumptions to understand how the New Interventions for Independence in Dementia Study (NIDUS)-Family (a manualised, multimodal psychosocial intervention), was effective relative to usual care, on the primary outcome of Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) over 1 year.

Methods: In 2021-2022, intervention-arm dyads completed an acceptability questionnaire developed to test causal assumptions.

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