Trial of alginates in throat symptoms: protocol for a pragmatic, multicentre, placebo controlled, double blind, parallel, randomised controlled trial of liquid alginate (Gaviscon Advance) for the treatment of persistent throat symptoms.

Introduction: Persistent throat symptoms (PTS) are indicators for over 60 000 new patient referrals to NHS secondary care annually. PTS have been attributed to manifestation of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) with the hypothesis that gastric refluxate damages and irritates the mucosa of the upper aerodigestive tract. Symptoms of PTS and GORD are commonly treated with proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) or alginates are often, incorrectly, advocated.

One Step Synthesis of 4,6,8-Trimethoxyazulenes - a General Building Block for 2-Functionalized Azulenes.

Here we present a simple gold-catalyzed one-pot reaction of easily available diarylbutadiynes, with trimethoxybenzene as solvent and reactant to synthesize 4,6,8-trimethoxyazulenes. The methoxy substituents, which render the azulene very electron-rich, enable a change of azulenes typical regioselectivity for electrophilic substitutions, which enables facile electrophilic 2-substitution with iodine, bromine, chlorine, selenium or sulfur. Especially the 2-haloazulenes which can usually only be obtained through lengthy multistep syntheses are valuable building blocks for the synthesis of 2-substituted azulene derivatives.

Influence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and maternal vaccination status on neonatal outcome.

SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy can adversely affect maternal and neonatal health, although risks vary depending on the variant of concern (VOC). Omicron, although highly infectious, causes fewer maternal and neonatal complications than earlier VOC, so vaccination may be considered unnecessary in planned pregnancy. Using data from the CRONOS registry, we compared pregnancy outcomes according to VOC and vaccination status.

Age-stratification reveals age-specific intestinal microbiota signatures in juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Objective: Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) comprises diverse chronic inflammatory conditions driven by malfunction of the immune system. The intestinal microbiota is considered a crucial environmental factor correlating with chronic inflammatory diseases, and for JIA certain alterations in the microbiota have already been described.

Methods: Here, we have characterized intestinal microbiota samples from 54 JIA patients and 38 pediatric healthy controls by conventional 16S rRNA sequencing and by single-cell analysis for phenotypic features by multi-parameter microbiota flow cytometry (mMFC), which complements the population-based taxonomic profiling with the characterization of individual bacterial cells.

Utilization and Evaluation of Ethics Consultation Services in Neonatal Intensive Care.

Background: The opportunities of perinatal medicine have improved, but this has also been accompanied by increasing ethical challenges. Clinical ethics consultation services (CEC) could support medical teams facing these. However, nothing is currently known about the availability, utilization and evaluation of CEC in German neonatology units.