Prognostic value of hyperlactatemia and lactate clearance in septic patients with hematological malignancies.

Background: The coexistence of sepsis and hematological malignancies increases patient vulnerability, revealing the need for precise prognostic markers. This study explores the prognostic significance of lactate levels and clearance in septic patients with hematological malignancies.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective cohort study from January 2016 to December 2019 in a tertiary hematological intensive care unit (ICU) included 167 adults with hematological malignancies and sepsis.

Risk factors for ICU mortality in patients with hematological malignancies: a singlecenter, retrospective cohort study from Turkey.

Background: Patients with hematological malignancies (HM) often require admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to organ failure, disease progression or treatment-related complications, and they generally have a poor prognosis. Therefore, understanding the factors affecting ICU mortality in HM patients is important. In this study, we aimed to identify the risk factors for ICU mortality in our critically ill HM patients.

Electro-actuated valves and self-vented channels enable programmable flow control and monitoring in capillary-driven microfluidics.

Microfluidics are essential for many lab-on-a-chip applications, but it is still challenging to implement a portable and programmable device that can perform an assay protocol autonomously when used by a person with minimal training. Here, we present a versatile concept toward this goal by realizing programmable liquid circuits where liquids in capillary-driven microfluidic channels can be controlled and monitored from a smartphone to perform various advanced tasks of liquid manipulation. We achieve this by combining electro-actuated valves (e-gates) with passive capillary valves and self-vented channels.

The evaluation of the tendon and muscle changes of lower extremity in patients with acromegaly.

Purpose: Although it is well known that acromegaly causes enlargement in the extremities, studies investigating the effects of acromegaly on tendons, muscles and soft tissue are limited. The aims of our study were to investigate tendons, the presence of enthesitis, soft tissue, muscle groups in terms of thickness and pennation angle (PA) which is an indicator of microstructure and strength of the muscle, of the lower extremities.

Methods: Thirty-nine patients with acromegaly and thirty-nine healthy control subjects similar for age, sex and body mass index were enrolled.

Transposing Lateral Flow Immunoassays to Capillary-Driven Microfluidics Using Self-Coalescence Modules and Capillary-Assembled Receptor Carriers.

Point-of-care (POC) immunodiagnostic tests play a crucial role in enabling rapid and correct diagnosis of diseases in prehospital care, emergency, and remote settings. In this work, we present a silicon-based, capillary-driven microfluidic chip integrating two microfluidic modules for the implementation of highly miniaturized immunoassays. Specifically, we apply state-of-the-art microfluidic technology to demonstrate a one-step immunoassay for the detection of the cardiac marker troponin I in human serum using sample volumes of ∼1 μL and with a limit of detection (LOD) of ∼4 ng mL within 25 min.

Self-coalescing flows in microfluidics for pulse-shaped delivery of reagents.

Microfluidic systems can deliver portable point-of-care diagnostics without the need for external equipment or specialist operators, by integrating all reagents and manipulations required for a particular assay in one device. A key approach is to deposit picogram quantities of dried reagents in microchannels with micrometre precision using specialized inkjet plotters. This means that reagents can be stored for long periods of time and reconstituted spontaneously when adding a liquid sample.

High-Content Optical Codes for Protecting Rapid Diagnostic Tests from Counterfeiting.

Warnings and reports on counterfeit diagnostic devices are released several times a year by regulators and public health agencies. Unfortunately, mishandling, altering, and counterfeiting point-of-care diagnostics (POCDs) and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) is lucrative, relatively simple and can lead to devastating consequences. Here, we demonstrate how to implement optical security codes in silicon- and nitrocellulose-based flow paths for device authentication using a smartphone.

Evaluation of serum procollagen C-proteinase enhancer 1 level as a fibrosis marker in patients with chronic hepatitis B.

Aim: Although liver biopsy has long been considered the gold standard for staging fibrosis, because of the disadvantages and risks of biopsy, several noninvasive processes such as serum biomarkers have been introduced for the assessment of liver fibrosis. The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of serum procollagen C-proteinase enhancer 1 (PCPE-1) as a noninvasive fibrosis marker in treatment-naive chronic hepatitis B patients.

Patients And Methods: This study included 126 patients with biopsy-proven hepatitis B and 50 healthy controls.

Clusters of synaptic inputs on dendrites of layer 5 pyramidal cells in mouse visual cortex.

The spatial organization of synaptic inputs on the dendritic tree of cortical neurons plays a major role for dendritic integration and neural computations, yet, remarkably little is known about it. We mapped the spatial organization of glutamatergic synapses between layer 5 pyramidal cells by combining optogenetics and 2-photon calcium imaging in mouse neocortical slices. To mathematically characterize the organization of inputs we developed an approach based on combinatorial analysis of the likelihoods of specific synapse arrangements.