Targeting the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell to reduce headache pain and light sensitivity in migraine: A randomized double-blind trial.

Approximately 80% of patients with migraine report light sensitivity during attacks and almost half report that following headache, light sensitivity is the most bothersome symptom. Light wavelengths stimulating intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (IPRGCs) exacerbate headache-associated light sensitivity; green light is most comfortable. We developed optical tints that block wavelengths exacerbating migraine pain and transmit wavelengths that are most comfortable.

Prospective evaluation of the efficacy of immunoassays in the diagnosis of rupture of the membranes.

To assess efficacy of immunoassays to diagnose spontaneous rupture of membranes (SROM). We performed a prospective, observational analysis comparing two immunoassays designed to diagnose SROM ( and ) to standard clinical assessment for SROM and 48 h follow-up. Subjects had a singleton pregnancy ≥15 weeks' and suspected SROM.

miR-221/222 Are Involved in Response to Sunitinib Treatment in Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Sunitinib is a multitargeting tyrosine kinase inhibitor used for metastatic renal cancer. There are no biomarkers that can predict sunitinib response. Such markers are needed to avoid administration of costly medication with side effects to patients who would not benefit from it.

Albumin decrease is associated with spontaneous preterm delivery within 48 h in women with threatened preterm labor.

Threatened preterm labor (TPTL) accounts for ∼30% of pregnancy-related hospital admissions. Maternal peripheral leukocytes can be used to monitor a variety of physiological processes occurring in the body. Two high-throughput mass spectrometry methodologies, SWATH and iTRAQ, were used to study differentially expressed peripheral blood leukocyte lysate proteins in symptomatic women admitted for TPTL who had a preterm birth within 48 h (n = 16) and those who did not (n = 24).

MicroRNA signature helps distinguish early from late biochemical failure in prostate cancer.

Purpose: Prostate-specific antigen testing has led to overtreatment of prostate cancer (PCa). Only a small subset of PCa patients will have an aggressive disease that requires intensive therapy, and there is currently no biomarker to predict disease aggressiveness at the time of surgery. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are reported to be involved in PCa pathogenesis.

Proteomic analyses reveal high expression of decorin and endoplasmin (HSP90B1) are associated with breast cancer metastasis and decreased survival.

Background: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women worldwide in terms of incidence and mortality. About 10% of North American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime and 20% of those will die of the disease. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease and biomarkers able to correctly classify patients into prognostic groups are needed to better tailor treatment options and improve outcomes.

Assessment of cognitive symptoms in prodromal and early huntington disease.

The Functional Rating Scale Taskforce for pre-Huntington Disease (FuRST-pHD) is a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative with the goal of developing a data-driven, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, rating scale for assessing symptoms and functional ability in prodromal and early Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion carriers. The process involves input from numerous sources to identify relevant symptom domains, including HD individuals, caregivers, and experts from a variety of fields, as well as knowledge gained from the analysis of data from ongoing large-scale studies in HD using existing clinical scales. This is an iterative process in which an ongoing series of field tests in prodromal (prHD) and early HD individuals provides the team with data on which to make decisions regarding which questions should undergo further development or testing and which should be excluded.

Assessment of Day-to-Day Functioning in Prodromal and Early Huntington Disease.

The Functional Rating Scale Taskforce for pre-Huntington Disease (FuRST-pHD) is a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative with the goal of developing a data-driven, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, rating scale for assessing symptoms and functional ability in prodromal and early Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion carriers. The process involves input from numerous sources to identify relevant symptom domains, including HD individuals, caregivers, and experts from a variety of fields, as well as knowledge gained from the analysis of data from ongoing large-scale studies in HD using existing clinical scales. This is an iterative process in which an ongoing series of field tests in prodromal (prHD) and early HD individuals provides the team with data on which to make decisions regarding which questions should undergo further development or testing and which should be excluded.

Assessing behavioural manifestations prior to clinical diagnosis of huntington disease: "anger and irritability" and "obsessions and compulsions".

The Functional Rating Scale Taskforce for pre-Huntington Disease (FuRST-pHD) is a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative with the goal of developing a data-driven, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, rating scale for assessing symptoms and functional ability in prodromal and early Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion carriers. The process involves input from numerous sources to identify relevant symptom domains, including HD individuals, caregivers, and experts from a variety of fields, as well as knowledge gained from the analysis of data from ongoing large-scale studies in HD using existing clinical scales. This is an iterative process in which an ongoing series of field tests in prodromal (prHD) and early HD individuals provides the team with data on which to make decisions regarding which questions should undergo further development or testing and which should be excluded.

Assessment of motor symptoms and functional impact in prodromal and early huntington disease.

The Functional Rating Scale Taskforce for pre-Huntington Disease (FuRST-pHD) is a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative with the goal of developing a data-driven, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, rating scale for assessing symptoms and functional ability in prodromal and early Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion carriers. The process involves input from numerous sources to identify relevant symptom domains, including HD individuals, caregivers, and experts from a variety of fields, as well as knowledge gained from the analysis of data from ongoing large-scale studies in HD using existing clinical scales. This is an iterative process in which an ongoing series of field tests in prodromal (prHD) and early HD individuals provides the team with data on which to make decisions regarding which questions should undergo further development or testing and which should be excluded.

Assessment of depression, anxiety and apathy in prodromal and early huntington disease.

The Functional Rating Scale Taskforce for pre-Huntington Disease (FuRST-pHD) is a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative with the goal of developing a data-driven, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, rating scale for assessing symptoms and functional ability in prodromal and early Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion carriers. The process involves input from numerous sources to identify relevant symptom domains, including HD individuals, caregivers, and experts from a variety of fields, as well as knowledge gained from the analysis of data from ongoing large-scale studies in HD using existing clinical scales. This is an iterative process in which an ongoing series of field tests in prodromal (prHD) and early HD individuals provides the team with data on which to make decisions regarding which questions should undergo further development or testing and which should be excluded.

Influence of imprecision on ROC curve analysis for cardiac markers.

Background: There has been considerable debate regarding the impact of assay imprecision on the performance of cardiac biomarkers for diagnosis of acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and risk stratification for future adverse cardiac events.

Methods: Using existing data from 2 published clinical trials, we used a resampling method to statistically introduce 5%, 10%, and 20% imprecision to results for B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and examined its impact on ROC curve analysis.

Results: Superimposition of artificial imprecision produced no significant difference in the area under the ROC curve observed for BNP for diagnosis of heart failure or for cTnI for 30-day risk stratification of patients with ACS.

A direct comparison of the natriuretic peptides and their relationship to survival in chronic heart failure of a presumed non-ischaemic origin.

The natriuretic peptides have been validated as sensitive and specific markers of left ventricular dysfunction; brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), N-terminal atrial natriuretic peptide (NT-proANP) and N-terminal brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) elevations have been associated with New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class I-IV heart failure. We directly compared the association of each of these markers with 1-year survival in 173 patients with chronic heart failure of a presumed nonischaemic origin entering the PRAISE-2 Trial, a clinical study which assessed the therapeutic effect of Amlodipine in patients with NYHA Class III and IV heart failure and a left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) <30%. BNP, NT-proBNP, and NT-proANP levels were all correlated with 1-year mortality by univariate Cox proportional hazards analyses.

Mining biomarkers in human sera using proteomic tools.

One of the major difficulties in mining low abundance biomarkers from serum or plasma is due to the fact that a small number of proteins such as albumin, alpha2-macroglobulin, transferrin, and immunoglobulins, may represent as much as 80% of the total serum protein. The large quantity of these proteins makes it difficult to identify low abundance proteins in serum using traditional 2-dimensional electrophoresis. We recently used a combination of multidimensional liquid chromatography and gel electrophoresis coupled to matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-quadrupole-time of flight and Ion Trap liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to identify protein markers in sera of Alzheimer's disease (AD), insulin resistance/type-2 diabetes (IR/D2), and congestive heart failure (CHF) patients.

Processing of serum proteins underlies the mass spectral fingerprinting of myocardial infarction.

The MALDI-TOF spectra of peptides from the sera of normal and myocardial infarction patients produced patterns that provided an accurate diagnostic of MI. In myocardial infarction, the spectral pattern originated from the cleavage of complement C3 alpha chain to release the C3f peptide and cleavage of fibrinogen to release peptide A. The fibrinogen peptide A and complement C3f peptide were in turn progressively truncated by aminopeptidases to produce two families of fragments that formed the characteristic spectral pattern of MI.