Publications by authors named "Michelle Kim"

Asian Americans remain the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, and are anticipated to double over the next few decades. Asian Americans are the only major racial-ethnic group for whom cancer remains the leading cause of death, and multiple gastrointestinal cancers rank among the top five incident and fatal cancers. Most research to date presents Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) in aggregate, overlooking their vast heterogeneity and hindering efforts to identify and address health disparities within AANHPI origin groups.

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Using a new approach that constrains thermodynamic modeling of aerosol composition with measured gas-to-particle partitioning of inorganic nitrate, we estimate the acidity levels for aerosol sampled in the South Korean planetary boundary layer during the NASA/NIER KORUS-AQ field campaign. The pH (mean ± 1σ = 2.43±0.

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Unlabelled: Despite its immunogenic nature, bladder cancer (BCa) responds sub-optimally to FDA-approved immunotherapy.

Background/objectives: We have previously shown that natural killer (NK) cells are major contributors to overall patient survival in BCa. In our efforts to identify clinically approved agents that enhance NK cell activation, we identified eribulin, a microtubule destabilizer primarily used in breast cancer.

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As survival rates improve for patients with metastatic disease, more patients are requiring complex treatment for brain metastases. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a conformal radiotherapy technique that allows high ablative dose to be delivered to a specific target and is a standard effective local therapy for the treatment of patients with limited brain metastases. This review highlights the current landscape of SRS treatment in the context of modern therapeutic advances and identifies new research frontiers to personalize SRS and maximize the therapeutic ratio.

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Background: A multidisciplinary approach improves guideline-directed medical therapy in systolic heart failure (HF), but its efficacy in patients with HF due to cardiac sarcoidosis is unreported.

Methods And Results: In a retrospective cohort study, we reviewed 848 patients from our institutional cardiac sarcoidosis clinics, identifying those with a cardiac sarcoidosis diagnosis, HF (left ventricular ejection fraction <50%) at index evaluation, and echocardiograms within 90 days and 11 to 36 months. Patients were stratified by participation in a pharmacist-led medication therapy management (MTM) program for guideline-directed medical therapy optimization (MTM versus non-MTM [NMTM]) without randomization.

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Purpose: To determine the nationwide prevalence and geographic distribution of idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) among women in the United States.

Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study using Medicaid claims and electronic health record data from the IRIS® Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight) and Sight Outcomes Research Collaborative (SOURCE).

Participants: Female Medicaid beneficiaries 18 to 55 years of age with IIH diagnoses and prescriptions for acetazolamide or methazolamide in 2018 were identified, excluding those with other causes of intracranial hypertension.

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Constrictor agonists set arterial tone through two coupling processes, one tied to (electromechanical), the other independent (pharmacomechanical) of, membrane potential (V). This dual arrangement raises an intriguing question: is the contribution of each mechanism (1) fixed and proportionate, or (2) variable and functionally biased. Examination began in mouse mesenteric arteries with a vasomotor assessment to a classic G (phenylephrine) or G/G (U46619) agonist, in the absence and presence of nifedipine, to separate among the two coupling mechanisms.

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Pectus excavatum (PE) is a common anterior chest wall deformity that affects the heart and lungs depending on the severity of compression. The Nuss procedure, a minimally invasive repair of pectus excavatum, has evolved over the years with thoracoscopic assistance and minimal incision. Despite improved surgical techniques, pain and nausea are often the most common factors determining hospital length of stay.

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Bladder cancer (BCa) is a prevalent urogenital malignancy, characterized by a myriad of genetic and environmental risk factors that drive its progression. Approximately 75% of bladder tumors are non-muscle-invasive at diagnosis. For such cases, bladder preservation is often feasible with intravesical chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

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  • A study investigated the incidence and characteristics of traumatic iritis in Olmsted County, Minnesota, over a decade, identifying 156 cases with an adjusted rate of 10.7 per 100,000 per year.
  • The majority of affected individuals were young males, particularly from the Black community, with the average age at diagnosis being 33 years.
  • Common causes of traumatic iritis included sports injuries, assaults, scratches, and work-related incidents, with most patients experiencing unilateral symptoms and varying follow-up durations.
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Men of African descent have the highest prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates, yet the genetic basis of prostate cancer in African men has been understudied. We used genomic data from 3,963 cases and 3,509 controls from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda to infer ancestry-specific genetic architectures and fine-map disease associations. Fifteen independent associations at 8q24.

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  • Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major health concern, and understanding how genetic and environmental factors interact can help identify at-risk groups.
  • This study analyzed data from over 45,000 CRC cases to assess both multiplicative and additive interactions between genetic risk scores and various environmental factors, finding no multiplicative interactions but significant additive ones for high genetic susceptibility individuals.
  • Results suggest that individuals with high genetic risk could benefit more from lifestyle interventions like reducing alcohol intake or increasing fruit and fiber consumption, emphasizing the need for targeted prevention strategies in CRC care.
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  • * The study found that self-administering ethanol increased the expression of a particular receptor protein (GluA2) in the nucleus accumbens core (AcbC) of mice, which is important for the reinforcing effects of alcohol.
  • * Blocking the activity of GluA2 in the AcbC reduced the reinforcing effects of ethanol without affecting sugar use, indicating that targeting this receptor could be a new approach for treating AUD.
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  • Gastric cancer (GC) is a serious cancer that affects many people worldwide, but it's not very common in the U.S., making it hard to screen everyone for it.
  • Researchers created a computer program using health records to find people who are at higher risk for a specific type of gastric cancer called noncardia gastric cancer (NCGC).
  • The study showed that the program worked well by correctly identifying high-risk individuals, and they plan to keep improving it so more people can get screened if needed.
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  • Cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) can lead to heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), and the effectiveness of guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) in these patients was studied.
  • In a study of 881 CS patients, 79 met the criteria, showing significant improvements in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) after GDMT was optimized over a median follow-up of 16 months.
  • The results indicated that better GDMT scores led to improved heart function and outcomes, while the type of immunosuppressive treatment did not significantly affect these results.
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Glioma resection is associated with prolonged survival, but neuro-oncological trials have frequently refrained from quantifying the extent of resection. The Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology (RANO) resect group is an international, multidisciplinary group that aims to standardise research practice by delineating the oncological role of surgery in diffuse adult-type gliomas as defined per WHO 2021 classification. Favourable survival effects of more extensive resection unfold over months to decades depending on the molecular tumour profile.

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  • Current guidelines for using implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) in patients with cardiac sarcoidosis and low left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) are inconsistent and vary in recommendations.
  • This study aimed to assess the risk of ventricular arrhythmias in these patients and compared outcomes based on differing LVEF levels.
  • Results showed that patients with LVEF between 36%-49% and those with LVEF ≤35% had similar arrhythmic risks, but those with secondary prevention ICDs demonstrated a significantly higher risk of sustained ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation.
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Background: Sarcopenia has been associated with adverse postoperative outcomes in older age cohorts, but has not been assessed in older adults with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Further, current assessments of sarcopenia among all aged individuals with IBD have used various measures of muscle mass as well as cutoffs to define its presence, leading to heterogeneous findings.

Methods: In this single-institution, multihospital retrospective study, we identified all patients aged 60 years and older with IBD who underwent disease-related intestinal resection between 2012 and 2022.

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Background: Cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is a granulomatous disease that can manifest as conduction defects, ventricular arrhythmias, and heart failure. The diagnosis of CS is inherently difficult due to variable presentations; as such, endomyocardial biopsy is often required but lacks sensitivity due to patchy myocardial involvement. Moreover, the diagnostic criteria of CS and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy overlap, particularly in right-side dominant or biventricular presentations, which further complicates an already challenging differential diagnosis.

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Introduction/objectives: Exposure to adverse social determinants of health (SDoH) in childhood is associated with poorer long-term health outcomes. Within structurally marginalized populations, there are disproportionately high rates of developmentally vulnerable children. The RICHER (Responsive, Intersectoral, Child and Community Health, Education and Research) social pediatric model was designed to increase access to care in marginalized neighborhoods.

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Background And Aims: Gastrointestinal cancer incidence varies by race and ethnicity. In the United States (US), there are screening guidelines for esophageal cancer (EC) and colorectal cancer (CRC), but not gastric cancer (GC). We compared GC, CRC, and EC incidence among the most populous racial and ethnic groups to inform US interception strategies.

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To identify nationwide census tract‒level areas where improving colorectal cancer (CRC) screening uptake via targeted local preventive intervention may benefit Hispanic or Latino/a (H/L) groups defined by region or country of origin. Using 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention PLACES and American Community Survey data, we applied geographically weighted regression and Getis-Ord Gi* hot spot procedures to identify CRC screening priority zones for H/L groups in the United States. Priority zones can be conceptualized as census tracts with strong inverse associations between percentage of a particular H/L group in the population and CRC screening rate, after adjusting for socioeconomic deprivation and lack of insurance.

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Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate an extended self-adapting nnU-Net framework for detecting and segmenting brain metastases (BM) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Methods And Materials: Six different nnU-Net systems with adaptive data sampling, adaptive Dice loss, or different patch/batch sizes were trained and tested for detecting and segmenting intraparenchymal BM with a size ≥2 mm on 3 Dimensional (3D) post-Gd T1-weighted MRI volumes using 2092 patients from 7 institutions (1712, 195, and 185 patients for training, validation, and testing, respectively). Gross tumor volumes of BM delineated by physicians for stereotactic radiosurgery were collected retrospectively and curated at each institute.

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  • * Out of 253 patients, most were female and the average age was about 63; significant discrepancies were found in follow-up endoscopies based on race, with Hispanic patients more likely to have follow-ups compared to non-Hispanic Black patients.
  • * The research highlighted inadequate adherence to GIM risk stratification guidelines and called for targeted measures to improve healthcare practices and address the identified racial and ethnic disparities in patient care.
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