Artificial intelligence (AI) is addressing many expectations for healthcare practitioners and patients in oncology. It has the potential to deeply transform medical practices as we know them today: improving early diagnosis by analysing large quantities of medical data, refining personalised treatment plans and optimising patient follow-up. AI also makes it easier to identify new biomarkers and predict responses to therapies, reducing margins of error and speeding up clinical decisions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this Personal View, we address the latest advancements in automatic text analysis with artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine, with a focus on its implications in aiding treatment decisions in medical oncology. Acknowledging that a majority of hospital medical content is embedded in narrative format, natural language processing has become one of the most dynamic research fields for developing clinical decision support tools. In addition, large language models have recently reached unprecedented performance, notably when answering medical questions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The benefits of liquid-based cytology (LBC) in routine cervical cancer screening are often associated with the availability of instrumented platforms and economic considerations. A low-cost alternative to LBC in low-volume settings remains an unmet need.
Methods: A multisite evaluation of the BD SurePath (SurePath) LBC Direct to Slide (DTS) method was conducted.
Stable flies, , stand as formidable pests with a global impact, inflicting significant economic losses on the livestock sector. Larval development occurs in diverse substrates, including decomposing plant material and manure, while emerged adults pose a threat through blood-feeding on both animals and humans. Conventional chemical control methods, predominantly reliant on insecticides, not only pose environmental risks but also face challenges of resistance among stable fly populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF. Severe radiation-induced lymphopenia occurs in 40% of patients treated for primary brain tumors and is an independent risk factor of poor survival outcomes. We developed anframework that estimates the radiation doses received by lymphocytes during volumetric modulated arc therapy brain irradiation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo mitigate the risk of radioactive isotope dissemination, the development of preventative and curative measures is of particular interest. For mass treatment, the developed solution must be easily administered, preferably orally, with effective, nontoxic decorporating properties against a wide range of radioactive isotopes. Currently, most orally administered chelation therapy products are quickly absorbed into the blood circulation, where chelation of the radioactive isotope is a race against time due to the short circulation half-life of the therapeutic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe virulence of methicillin-resistant (MRSA) and its potentially fatal outcome necessitate rapid and accurate detection of patients colonized with MRSA in healthcare settings. Using the BD Kiestra Total Lab Automation (TLA) System in conjunction with the MRSA Application (MRSA App), an imaging application that uses artificial intelligence to interpret colorimetric information (mauve-colored colonies) indicative of MRSA pathogen presence on CHROMagar chromogenic media, anterior nares specimens from three sites were evaluated for the presence of mauve-colored colonies. Results obtained with the MRSA App were compared to manual reading of agar plate images by proficient laboratory technologists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIonizing radiation can have a wide range of impacts on tumor-immune interactions, which are being studied with the greatest interest and at an accelerating pace by the medical community. Despite its undeniable immunostimulatory potential, it clearly appears that radiotherapy as it is prescribed and delivered nowadays often alters the host's immunity toward a suboptimal state. This may impair the full recovery of a sustained and efficient antitumor immunosurveillance posttreatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext: Obesity prevalence is persistently increasing worldwide. Among surgical therapeutic procedures, bypass surgery and sleeve gastrectomy have shown the best results regarding weight loss, prevention, and treatment of secondary complications. However, these surgeries are associated with an increased risk of malabsorption and metabolic changes that could further affect the pharmacokinetics of drugs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChanarin-Dorfman syndrome is an autosomal recessively inherited disorder characterized by ichthyosis, sensorineural hearing loss, and hepatic dysfunction. We report on a 60-year-old female of Venezuelan descent who presented with congenital ichthyosis, progressive sensorineural hearing loss, and liver cirrhosis. We identify a heterozygous copy number deletion involving exon 1 and another heterozygous deletion involving exon 3 of the ABHD5 gene.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: KRAS activating mutations are considered the most frequent oncogenic drivers and are correlated with radio-resistance in multiple cancers including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer. Although KRAS was considered undruggable until recently, several KRAS inhibitors have recently reached clinical development. Among them, MRTX849 (Mirati Therapeutics) showed encouraging clinical outcomes for the treatment of selected patients with KRAS mutated NSCLC and colorectal cancers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells have demonstrated significant improvements in the treatment of refractory B-cell malignancies that previously showed limited survival. In contrast, early-phase clinical studies targeting solid tumors have been disappointing. This may be due to both a lack of specific and homogeneously expressed targets at the surface of tumor cells, as well as intrinsic properties of the solid tumor microenvironment that limit homing and activation of adoptive T cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To evaluate the Canadian Syncope Risk Score (CSRS) in syncope patients presenting to the ED from an economic perspective, using very-low and low-risk patients (CSRS -3 to 0) as a threshold for avoiding hospital admissions.
Methods: A decision-analytic model, specifically a decision-tree, was developed to evaluate application of the CSRS. A hypothetical cohort of 1000 patients was modelled based on characteristics and outcome of patients enrolled in a clinical validation study performed alongside this evaluation.
Cancer Treat Res Commun
September 2022
PD-L1 and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes play a key role in the immune escape of cancer, although their prognostic value remains unknown in patients with refractory solid cancer compared to other known prognostic estimation methods. In this ancillary study, we assessed the prognostic value of previously-defined prognostic scores (such as the Royal Marsden Hospital (RMH) score) and of PD-L1, CD3, CD8 and FOXP3 expressions based on immunohistochemistry (IHC) and RNA sequencing (RNAseq) of tumor samples from patients included in the personalized-medicine MOSCATO-02 trial. We collected biopsies with successful IHC analysis from 266 patients treated between April 2016 and September 2017, among whom 170 (63.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Although the role of epigenetic alterations in oncogenesis has been well studied, their prevalence in metastatic solid tumours is still poorly described. We therefore aimed at: (i) describing the presence of epigenetic gene alterations (EGA) - defined by an alteration in a gene encoding an epigenetic regulator; and (ii) evaluating their relationship with clinical characteristics and outcome in patients (pts) included in prospective molecular profiling trials.
Materials And Methods: On-purpose tumour biopsies from pts with metastatic solid tumours enrolled in the Gustave Roussy-sponsored MOSCATO (NCT01566019) and MATCHR (NCT02517892) trials were molecularly profiled using whole exome sequencing (WES).
Introduction: Oncology treatments are constantly and rapidly evolving. We aimed at highlighting the latest radiation therapy practice changing trials and emerging concepts, through an overview of recent randomised clinical trials (RCTs).
Materials And Methods: Requests were performed in the Medline database to identify all publications reporting radiation therapy RCTs from 2018 to 2021.
Objective: To inform local, state and national strategies intended to reduce demand for ED care, the present study aimed to identify key factors influencing the current provision of acute care within primary healthcare (PHC) and explore the policy and system changes potentially required.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed through content and thematic approaches incorporating the Walt and Gilson health policy framework.
Results: Eleven interviews were conducted.
A prototype reusable large-volume (2 mL) autoinjector (LVAI) was designed to compare injection performance of a novel 27 gauge ultra-thin wall (UTW) pre-filled syringe (PFS) cannula (8 mm external cannula length, 14.4 mm total needle length) against an existing 27 gauge special thin wall (STW) PFS cannula (12.7 mm external cannula length, 19 mm total needle length) across a range of injectate viscosities (2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Demand for ED care is increasing at a rate higher than population growth. Strategies to attenuate ED demands include diverting low-acuity general practice-type ED attendees to alternate primary healthcare settings. The present study assessed the ED attendees' receptiveness to accept triage nurse's face-to-face advice to explore alternate options for medical care and what factors influence the level of acceptance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective.—: To propose an insurance product called special needs insurance. The insurance will pay parents a lump sum up to $100,000 if they have a child that is born with or develops a special needs condition such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy or autism.
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