Esophagogastric Junction Outflow Obstruction (EGJOO): A Manometric Phenomenon or Clinically Impactful Problem.

Purpose Of Review: Esophagogastric junction outflow obstruction (EGJOO), defined manometrically by impaired esophagogastric junction relaxation (EGJ) with preserved peristalsis, can be artifactual, due to secondary etiologies (mechanical, medication-induced), or a true motility disorder. The purpose of this review is to go over the evolving approach to diagnosing and treating clinically relevant EGJOO.

Recent Findings: Timed barium esophagram (TBE) and the functional lumen imaging probe (FLIP) are useful to identify clinically relevant EGJOO that merits lower esophageal sphincter (LES) directed therapies.

Robotic colorectal surgery: quality assessment of patient information available on the internet using webscraping.

The primary goal of this study is to assess current patient information available on the internet concerning robotic colorectal surgery. Acquiring this information will aid in patients understanding of robotic colorectal surgery. Data was acquired through a web-scraping algorithm.

Modern Machine Learning Practices in Colorectal Surgery: A Scoping Review.

Objective: The use of machine learning (ML) has revolutionized every domain of medicine. Surgeons are now using ML models for disease detection and outcome prediction with high precision. ML-guided colorectal surgeries are more efficient than conventional surgical procedures.

Depression and sleep disorders are associated with early mortality in women with breast cancer in the United Kingdom.

Background: The aim of this study was to estimate the association between common mental disorders and mortality in breast cancer patients.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included women aged 18-80 for whom an initial diagnosis of breast cancer was documented in one of 200 general practices in the UK between January 2008 and December 2012. The main outcome of this study was the mortality within 5 years of the index date as a function of depression, anxiety disorder, and sleep disorders, using Cox regression models.

Knowledge and practices of primary care physicians or general practitioners treating post-infectious Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Background: Post-infectious Irritable Bowel Syndrome (PI-IBS) is a functional bowel disorder which has significant impacts to a patient's quality of life. No IBS-specific biomarker or treatment regimen for PI-IBS currently exists, therefore understanding practice patterns and variance is of interest.

Methods: This online survey of primary care physicians and general practitioners in the USA aimed to understand the knowledge and treatment of PI-IBS within the physician's current practice.

Association between thyroid gland diseases and breast cancer: a case-control study.

Background: At the present time, there is no consensus on the association between benign thyroid diseases and breast cancer (BC). Therefore, the aim of this study is to help shed some light on the association between hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, and thyroiditis and breast cancer risk.

Methods: Use of the Disease Analyzer database (IQVIA) enabled us to perform a retrospective case-control study of 7408 women aged between 18 and 80, who were treated for an initial breast cancer diagnosis in a general practice in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2015 (index date).

Assessing Injury and Violence Prevention in North Carolina's Local Health Departments.

Background: Injury and violence-related morbidity and mortality present a major public health problem in North Carolina. However, the extent to which local health departments (LHDs) engage in injury and violence prevention (IVP) has not been well described.

Objectives: One objective of the current study is to provide a baseline assessment of IVP in the state's LHDs, describing capacity, priorities, challenges, and the degree to which programs are data-driven and evidence-based.

Reactance to Health Warnings Scale: Development and Validation.

Background: Health warnings may be less effective if they elicit reactance, a motivation to resist a threat to freedom, yet we lack a standard measure of reactance.

Purpose: We sought to validate a new health warning reactance scale in the context of pictorial cigarette pack warnings.

Methods: A national sample of adults (n = 1413) responded to reactance survey questions while viewing randomly assigned pictorial or text warnings on images of cigarette packs.

Effect of Pictorial Cigarette Pack Warnings on Changes in Smoking Behavior: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Pictorial warnings on cigarette packs draw attention and increase quit intentions, but their effect on smoking behavior remains uncertain.

Objective: To assess the effect of adding pictorial warnings to the front and back of cigarette packs.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This 4-week between-participant randomized clinical trial was carried out in California and North Carolina.

Social Interactions Sparked by Pictorial Warnings on Cigarette Packs.

The Message Impact Framework suggests that social interactions may offer smokers the opportunity to process pictorial warnings on cigarette packs more deeply. We aimed to describe adult smokers' social interactions about pictorial cigarette pack warnings in two longitudinal pilot studies. In Pilot Study 1, 30 smokers used cigarette packs with one of nine pictorial warnings for two weeks.

Long term rehabilitation management and outcome of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis: case reports.

Background: Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis is an auto immune-disorder. It is a life threatening condition that typically presents with viral illness, headaches, severe psychiatric symptoms, seizures, behavioural changes, decreasing levels of unconsciousness and progressive unresponsiveness, cognitive impairment, abnormal movements (e.g.

PKG-1α leucine zipper domain defect increases pulmonary vascular tone: implications in hypoxic pulmonary hypertension.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a chronic disease characterized by a progressive increase in vasomotor tone, narrowing of the vasculature with structural remodeling, and increase in pulmonary vascular resistance. Current treatment strategies include nitric oxide therapy and methods to increase cGMP-mediated vasodilatation. cGMP-dependent protein kinases (PKG) are known mediators of nitric oxide- and cGMP-induced vasodilatation.

Network influences on dissemination of evidence-based guidelines in state tobacco control programs.

Little is known regarding the social network relationships that influence dissemination of evidence-based public health practices and policies. In public health, it is critical that evidence-based guidelines, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs, are effectively and efficiently disseminated to intended stakeholders. To determine the organizational and network predictors of dissemination among state tobacco control programs, interviews with members of tobacco control networks across eight states were conducted between August 2009 and September 2010.

An evaluation of public school district tobacco policies in St. Louis County, Missouri.

Background: One way to address tobacco use by youth is for primary and secondary schools to adopt and implement comprehensive tobacco policies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the comprehensiveness of tobacco policies in St. Louis County, Missouri public school districts.

Smoke-free workplace ballot campaigns: case studies from Missouri and lessons for policy and media advocacy.

Purpose: To assess the key components of smoke-free campaigns that may have influenced voting outcomes in three communities.

Design: Community case studies with content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles.

Setting: Three semiurban Missouri communities.

Hypoxic regulation of pulmonary vascular smooth muscle cyclic guanosine monophosphate-dependent kinase by the ubiquitin conjugating system.

We previously reported that hypoxia attenuates nitric oxide-cyclic guanosine monophosphate (NO-cGMP)-mediated fetal pulmonary vessel relaxation by inhibiting cGMP-dependent protein kinase 1 (PKG1) activity, but not all the mechanisms by which acute hypoxia inhibits PKG1 activity have been delineated. Here we demonstrate for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that acute hypoxia induces an accumulation of ubiquitinated PKG1 in ovine fetal and newborn pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. Such a modification was not evident in ovine fetal systemic (cerebral) artery smooth muscle cells.

RNA from brush oral cytology to measure squamous cell carcinoma gene expression.

Background: RNA expression analysis of oral keratinocytes can be used to detect early stages of disease such as oral cancer or to monitor on-going treatment responses of the same or other oral diseases. A limitation is the inability to obtain high quality RNA from oral tissue without using biopsies. While oral cytology cell samples can be obtained from patients in a minimally invasive manner they have not been validated for quantitative analysis of RNA expression.

Self-awareness after acquired and traumatic brain injury.

Self-awareness deficits are common after acquired and (traumatic) brain injury (ABI), particularly in social behaviour, yet the underlying cognitive and neuroanatomical structures supporting social self-awareness are not fully understood. This paper reviews the current literature on prevalence, type and severity of self-awareness deficits in ABI. Neuropsychological and neuroanatomical models are reviewed and theoretical frameworks are examined.