A Shared Care Model between community and transplant centers facilitates access to allogeneic and autologous transplantation.

Access to allogeneic and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (SCT) remains inadequate despite its curative potential across hematologic malignancies. In 2015, Hartford HealthCare (HHC) and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) established the Shared Care Model (SCM) with a primary aim of enhancing SCT access for HHC patients. The SCM comprises several components: an SCT-dedicated nurse-navigator, a health-information exchange for record sharing, telemedicine, and ongoing training of HHC clinicians in transplant patient selection and management.

Aging is associated with an insufficient early inflammatory response of lung endothelial cells in SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Advanced age is associated with an increased susceptibility to Coronavirus Disease (COVID)-19 and more severe outcomes, although the underlying mechanisms are understudied. The lung endothelium is located next to infected epithelial cells and bystander inflammation may contribute to thromboinflammation and COVID-19-associated coagulopathy. Here, we investigated age-associated SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and endothelial inflammatory responses using humanized K18-hACE2 mice.

Immune Signatures of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Resolution in Human Lung Tissues.

While human autopsy samples have provided insights into pulmonary immune mechanisms associated with severe viral respiratory diseases, the mechanisms that contribute to a clinically favorable resolution of viral respiratory infections remain unclear due to the lack of proper experimental systems. Using mice co-engrafted with a genetically matched human immune system and fetal lung xenograft (fLX), we mapped the immunological events defining successful resolution of SARS-CoV-2 infection in human lung tissues. Viral infection is rapidly cleared from fLX following a peak of viral replication, histopathological manifestations of lung disease and loss of AT2 program, as reported in human COVID-19 patients.

Humanized mice reveal a macrophage-enriched gene signature defining human lung tissue protection during SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The human immunological mechanisms defining the clinical outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection remain elusive. This knowledge gap is mostly driven by the lack of appropriate experimental platforms recapitulating human immune responses in a controlled human lung environment. Here, we report a mouse model (i.

Prediction of Neutropenic Events in Chemotherapy Patients: A Machine Learning Approach.

Purpose: Severe and febrile neutropenia present serious hazards to patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy. We seek to develop a machine learning-based neutropenia prediction model that can be used to assess risk at the initiation of a chemotherapy cycle.

Materials And Methods: We leverage rich electronic medical records (EMRs) data from a large health care system and apply machine learning methods to predict severe and febrile neutropenic events.

Association of vaping with decreased vascular endothelial growth factor expression and decreased microvessel density in cutaneous wound healing tissue in rats.

Vaping is suggested to be a risk factor for poor wound healing akin to smoking. However, the molecular and histologic mechanisms underlying this postulation remain unknown. Our study sought to compare molecular and histologic changes in cutaneous flap and non-flap tissue between vaping, smoking and control cohorts.

Fatal neuroinvasion and SARS-CoV-2 tropism in K18-hACE2 mice is partially independent on hACE2 expression.

Animal models recapitulating distinctive features of severe COVID-19 are critical to enhance our understanding of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. Transgenic mice expressing human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) under the cytokeratin 18 promoter (K18-hACE2) represent a lethal model of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The precise mechanisms of lethality in this mouse model remain unclear.

Draft Genome Sequence of Type Strain CAMPA 1040, Isolated from Hospital Settings in Córdoba, Argentina.

We report here the draft genome sequence of type strain CAMPA 1040, a member of the complex. This strain, isolated from a hemodialysis water reservoir, harbors several stress tolerance genes, such as the systems for low oxygen survival, for copper tolerance, and for osmotic stress resistance.

Burkholderia puraquae sp. nov., a novel species of the Burkholderia cepacia complex isolated from hospital settings and agricultural soils.

Bacteria from the Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) are capable of causing severe infections in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). These opportunistic pathogens are also widely distributed in natural and man-made environments. After a 12-year epidemiological surveillance involving Bcc bacteria from respiratory secretions of Argentinean patients with CF and from hospital settings, we found six isolates of the Bcc with a concatenated species-specific allele sequence that differed by more than 3 % from those of the Bcc with validly published names.

[Cystic Fibrosis Cloud database: An information system for storage and management of clinical and microbiological data of cystic fibrosis patients].

The epidemiological and clinical management of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients suffering from acute pulmonary exacerbations or chronic lung infections demands continuous updating of medical and microbiological processes associated with the constant evolution of pathogens during host colonization. In order to monitor the dynamics of these processes, it is essential to have expert systems capable of storing and subsequently extracting the information generated from different studies of the patients and microorganisms isolated from them. In this work we have designed and developed an on-line database based on an information system that allows to store, manage and visualize data from clinical studies and microbiological analysis of bacteria obtained from the respiratory tract of patients suffering from cystic fibrosis.

First Case of Fungemia Due to Pseudozyma aphidis in a Pediatric Patient with Osteosarcoma in Latin America.

We report the first case of blood infection due to Pseudozyma aphidis in Latin America. We contribute evidence showing this organism to be a potential human pathogen, and we provide new data about its identification, drug susceptibility, and treatment outcome.

[Pertussis predictors in hospitalized infants with acute lower respiratory tract infection].

Background: Pertussis, or whooping cough, caused by Bordetella pertussis (BP) is a re-emerging problem in our environment. Although generally considered that the disease is relatively easy to identify infections respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can present with similar symptoms in infants remains difficult discrimination.

Objective: Compare clinical symptoms at admission and complementary studies in infants hospitalized with acute respiratory infection (ARI) and RSV by BP to establish markers that enable their early clinical prediction.

Genetic diversity of Burkholderia contaminans isolates from cystic fibrosis patients in Argentina.

A total of 120 Burkholderia cepacia complex isolates collected during 2004-2010 from 66 patients in two cystic fibrosis reference centers in Argentina were analyzed. Burkholderia contaminans was the species most frequently recovered (57.6%), followed by Burkholderia cenocepacia (15%), a species distribution not reported so far.

Long-term biochemical control of prostate cancer after standard or hyper-fractionation: evidence for different outcomes between low-intermediate and high risk patients.

Background And Purpose: To report the long-term biochemical control of a non-randomized trial comparing standard (STD) and hyper-fractionated (HFX) radiation schedules for prostate cancer treatment.

Materials And Methods: Between 1993 and 2003, 370 patients entered the study; 330/370 (STD: 179; HFX: 151) were evaluable for current analysis. Median doses were 79.

Mucoidy, quorum sensing, mismatch repair and antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa from cystic fibrosis chronic airways infections.

Survival of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis (CF) chronic infections is based on a genetic adaptation process consisting of mutations in specific genes, which can produce advantageous phenotypic switches and ensure its persistence in the lung. Among these, mutations inactivating the regulators MucA (alginate biosynthesis), LasR (quorum sensing) and MexZ (multidrug-efflux pump MexXY) are the most frequently observed, with those inactivating the DNA mismatch repair system (MRS) being also highly prevalent in P. aeruginosa CF isolates, leading to hypermutator phenotypes that could contribute to this adaptive mutagenesis by virtue of an increased mutation rate.

Adaptive Lévy walks in foraging fallow deer.

Background: Lévy flights are random walks, the step lengths of which come from probability distributions with heavy power-law tails, such that clusters of short steps are connected by rare long steps. Lévy walks maximise search efficiency of mobile foragers. Recently, several studies raised some concerns about the reliability of the statistical analysis used in previous analyses.

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for rapid identification of nonfermenting gram-negative bacteria isolated from sputum samples from cystic fibrosis patients.

The accurate and rapid identification of bacteria isolated from the respiratory tract of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) is critical in epidemiological studies, during intrahospital outbreaks, for patient treatment, and for determination of therapeutic options. While the most common organisms isolated from sputum samples are Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Haemophilus influenzae, in recent decades an increasing fraction of CF patients has been colonized by other nonfermenting (NF) gram-negative rods, such as Burkholderia cepacia complex (BCC) bacteria, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Ralstonia pickettii, Acinetobacter spp., and Achromobacter spp.

Is the alpha-beta ratio of prostate cancer really low? A prospective, non-randomized trial comparing standard and hyperfractionated conformal radiation therapy.

Background And Purpose: The objectives of the current study were to compare genito-urinary (GU) and gastro-intestinal (GI) toxicities as well as biochemical control (bRFS) in prostate cancer, utilizing conventional (2.0 Gy daily) (STD) or hyperfractionated (HFX) conformal irradiation (CRT). HFX (1.

Acute otitis media: bacteriology and bacterial resistance in 205 pediatric patients.

Acute otitis media (AOM) is one of the most frequent diagnoses in children below the age of 2 years. Treatment is usually based on information included in the literature concerning bacteriology. The purpose of this work was to define the most frequent germs in the etiology of AOM within our community, in order to optimize therapeutics for this pathology.

Quality control by portal film analysis in radiotherapy for prostate cancer: a comparison between two different institutions and treatment techniques.

Aims And Background: Accuracy and reproducibility of patient setup during radiotherapy for prostate cancer were investigated in two different Institutions (A and B), within their Quality Assurance programs. The purpose of the study was to evaluate and compare setup accuracy and reproducibility in Institutions A and B, which adopt different patient positioning and treatment techniques for prostate irradiation.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective analysis of portal localization films taken during the treatment course was performed: 30 and 21 patients in Institutes A and B, respectively, entered the study.

Clinical target volume localization using conventional methods (anatomy and palpation) and ultrasonography in early breast cancer post-operative external irradiation.

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy of three methods, anatomy (A), palpation (P) and ultrasounds (US) in localizing the clinical target volume (CTV) in patients (pts) with early breast cancer (EBC) undergoing breast external irradiation as part of conservation therapy.

Material And Methods: One hundred consecutive pts with EBC (T(is) 1%, T1 78%, T2 21%, N- 68%, N+ 32%), treated with conservation surgery and breast irradiation with opposed tangential portals, were prospectively analyzed. Anatomically, palpatory or ultrasound defined field borders for CTV localizations were determined in the same position thanks to the utilization of a vacuum-formed cellulose acetate immobilization cast, removed during CTV definitions.

[Clinical and methodological aspects of quality assurance in external radiotherapy: optimization of radiotherapy in early cancer of the breast].

Since 1988, a specific physical and clinical quality assurance program for external whole breast irradiation has been activated in our department. Three areas of clinical investigation and related audit loops are analyzed to show our policy to improve the quality of patient care. Quality control procedures deal with (a) the evaluation of the adequacy of conventional methods of clinical target volume (CTV) localization, (b) the evaluation of the adequacy of the conventional method of determining the planning target volume (PTV) and (c) the systematic and objective assessment of acute and late side-effects.

Hyperfractionated radiotherapy and concomitant cisplatin in stage III non-small cell lung cancer: a phase II study by the AIRO-Lombardia Cooperative Group.

A multicenter Phase II study was performed by the AIRO-Lombardia Cooperative Group on 36 patients with Stage III non-small cell lung cancer. The treatment schedule included hyperfractionated radiotherapy, 1.2 Gy twice daily (5 days/week) up to a total dose of 69.