Evaluation and guide for embedding opioid use disorder education in health professions' curricula.

Background: Morbidity and mortality from Opioid Use Disorder is a health crisis in the United States. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a devastating increase of 38.4% in overdose deaths from the 12-month period leading up to June 2019 compared with the 12-month period leading up to May 2020, primarily driven by synthetic opioids.

Pilot survey of prescription opioid use patterns and engagement with harm-reduction strategies in emergency department patients.

Background: The United States is experiencing an opioid epidemic. The aim of this pilot study was to describe patterns of prescription opioid medication (POM) use, examine factors associated with opioid misuse and overdose, and assess knowledge of take-home naloxone, and other harm-reduction strategies as well as participation in medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) among emergency department (ED) patients that have been prescribed opioid medications.

Methods: This was a pilot survey of a convenience sample of adult ED patients with a past opioid prescription at one urban tertiary care hospital.

Emergency Department Initiation of Buprenorphine for Opioid Use Disorder: Current Status, and Future Potential.

Patients experiencing the consequences of opioid use often present to the emergency department (ED) at times of crisis, such as following overdose or when in withdrawal. This highlights the important role of the ED in recognizing opioid use disorder and engaging these patients into ongoing treatment. Given the limited ability of the healthcare system to provide timely addiction treatment, initiation of therapy in the ED, with referral to long-term care, is associated with improved outcomes.

Battlefield acupuncture to treat low back pain in the emergency department.

Introduction: Battlefield acupuncture (BFA) is an ear acupuncture protocol used by the military for immediate pain relief. This is a pilot feasibility study of BFA as a treatment for acute low back pain (LBP) in the emergency department (ED).

Methods: Thirty acute LBP patients that presented to ED were randomized to standard care plus BFA or standard care alone.

Risk factors for severe respiratory depression from prescription opioid overdose.

Background And Aims: Prescription opioid overdose is a leading cause of injury-related morbidity and mortality in the United States. We aimed to identify characteristics associated with clinical severity in emergency department patients with prescription opioid overdose.

Design: This was a secondary data analysis of adult prescription opioid overdoses from a large prospective cohort of acute overdoses.

Auricular Acupuncture in Emergency Department Treatment of Acute Pain.

The National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization note that acupuncture is a safe and effective treatment for pain. Nonopioid treatment options for moderate to severe acute pain in the emergency department (ED) are limited. Additional strategies for managing acute pain in the ED are needed.

The Creation of a Pediatric Hospital Medicine Dashboard: Performance Assessment for Improvement.

Background And Objectives: Leaders of pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) recommended a clinical dashboard to monitor clinical practice and make improvements. To date, however, no programs report implementing a dashboard including the proposed broad range of metrics across multiple sites. We sought to (1) develop and populate a clinical dashboard to demonstrate productivity, quality, group sustainability, and value added for an academic division of PHM across 4 inpatient sites; (2) share dashboard data with division members and administrations to improve performance and guide program development; and (3) revise the dashboard to optimize its utility.

A Comprehensive Analysis of Replicative Lifespan in 4,698 Single-Gene Deletion Strains Uncovers Conserved Mechanisms of Aging.

Many genes that affect replicative lifespan (RLS) in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae also affect aging in other organisms such as C. elegans and M. musculus.

Brain swelling and death in children with cerebral malaria.

Background: Case fatality rates among African children with cerebral malaria remain in the range of 15 to 25%. The key pathogenetic processes and causes of death are unknown, but a combination of clinical observations and pathological findings suggests that increased brain volume leading to raised intracranial pressure may play a role. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) became available in Malawi in 2009, and we used it to investigate the role of brain swelling in the pathogenesis of fatal cerebral malaria in African children.

Primary liver tumors in pediatric patients: proper imaging technique for diagnosis and staging.

Liver tumors in children are rare and comprise a diverse set of both benign and malignant lesions, most of which are not clinically detected until they are large and often difficult to resect. Technological advances in diagnostic imaging have greatly influenced the surgical planning of these lesions and ultimately the clinical outcome. The intent of this article is to present an imaging algorithm for the effective and efficient workup of liver tumors in pediatric patients.

Toxin-induced cardiovascular failure.

Adverse cardiovascular events comprise a large portion of the morbidity and mortality in drug overdose emergencies. Adverse cardiovascular events encountered by emergency physicians treating poisoned patients include myocardial injury, hemodynamic compromise with shock, tachydysrhythmias, and cardiac arrest. Early signs of toxin-induced cardiovascular failure include bradycardia, tachycardia, and specific ECG findings.

Histidine-rich protein 2 plasma levels predict progression to cerebral malaria in Malawian children with Plasmodium falciparum infection.

Some children with uncomplicated malaria progress to cerebral malaria despite appropriate treatment; identifying them in advance might improve their care. The objective of this study was to determine if plasma concentrations of a malaria protein, HRP2 (histidine-rich protein 2) would serve this purpose. Cases and controls were children presenting with uncomplicated malaria; the cases (n = 25) developed cerebral malaria, and the controls (n = 125) did not.

Plasma concentrations of parasite histidine-rich protein 2 distinguish between retinopathy-positive and retinopathy-negative cerebral malaria in Malawian children.

Background: Brain histology and ophthalmoscopy suggest that approximately 25% of children with World Health Organization-defined cerebral malaria (CM) have a nonmalarial cause of death. Misclassification complicates clinical care, confounds studies of association, and may obfuscate successes in malaria control. Retinopathy predicts intracerebral parasite sequestration with >90% sensitivity and specificity, but detecting retinopathy requires well-trained personnel and expensive equipment.

Shortest-path network analysis is a useful approach toward identifying genetic determinants of longevity.

Background: Identification of genes that modulate longevity is a major focus of aging-related research and an area of intense public interest. In addition to facilitating an improved understanding of the basic mechanisms of aging, such genes represent potential targets for therapeutic intervention in multiple age-associated diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders. To date, however, targeted efforts at identifying longevity-associated genes have been limited by a lack of predictive power, and useful algorithms for candidate gene-identification have also been lacking.

Yeast life span extension by depletion of 60s ribosomal subunits is mediated by Gcn4.

In nearly every organism studied, reduced caloric intake extends life span. In yeast, span extension from dietary restriction is thought to be mediated by the highly conserved, nutrient-responsive target of rapamycin (TOR), protein kinase A (PKA), and Sch9 kinases. These kinases coordinately regulate various cellular processes including stress responses, protein turnover, cell growth, and ribosome biogenesis.

Quantitative evidence for conserved longevity pathways between divergent eukaryotic species.

Studies in invertebrate model organisms have been a driving force in aging research, leading to the identification of many genes that influence life span. Few of these genes have been examined in the context of mammalian aging, however, and it remains an open question as to whether and to what extent the pathways that modulate longevity are conserved across different eukaryotic species. Using a comparative functional genomics approach, we have performed the first quantitative analysis of the degree to which longevity genes are conserved between two highly divergent eukaryotic species, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.

Genomic mapping of single-stranded DNA in hydroxyurea-challenged yeasts identifies origins of replication.

During DNA replication one or both strands transiently become single stranded: first at the sites where initiation of DNA synthesis occurs (known as origins of replication) and subsequently on the lagging strands of replication forks as discontinuous Okazaki fragments are generated. We report a genome-wide analysis of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) formation in the presence of hydroxyurea during DNA replication in wild-type and checkpoint-deficient rad53 Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells. In wild-type cells, ssDNA was first observed at a subset of replication origins and later 'migrated' bi-directionally, suggesting that ssDNA formation is associated with continuously moving replication forks.