Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies versus Vaccination Status in CAD Patients with COVID-19: A Prospective, Propensity Score-Matched Cohort Study.

Objectives: Despite the currently prevailing, milder Omicron variant, coronary artery disease (CAD) patients constitute a major risk group in COVID-19, exhibiting 2.6 times the mortality risk of non-CAD patients and representing over 22% of non-survivors. No data are currently available on the efficacy of antibody levels in CAD patients, nor on the relevance of vaccination status versus antibody levels for predicting severe courses and COVID-19 mortality.

Are bone targeted agents still useful in times of immunotherapy? The SAKK 80/19 BTA pilot study.

Background: Patients with bone metastases from solid tumors often have additional treatment with bone targeted agents (BTAs) to avoid symptomatic skeletal events (SSEs) such as clinically significant pathological fracture leading toradiation therapy or surgery to the bone, spinal cord compression, or hypercalcemia. The absolute value of BTA treatment in the era of immunotherapy (IO) is unknown.

Methods: Patients with bone metastases treated with immunotherapy within the Alpine Tumor Immunology Registry were compared based on whether they received an additional BTA such as denosumab or zoledronic acid.

Interplay of inflammatory markers and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in COVID-19 mortality: A prospective cohort study.

Objectives: Despite high global vaccination coverage, it remains unclear how vaccination and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies affect immune responses and inflammation levels in patients with COVID-19. It is further unclear whether the inflammatory response differs depending on antibody levels and whether the combination of antibody and inflammation levels in COVID-19 patients affects mortality rates.

Methods: We conducted a prospective multicenter cohort study that included 1031 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from five hospitals.

Efficacy and safety of tixagevimab/cilgavimab as passive immunisation against COVID-19 infections in patients with hematological malignancies.

Monoclonal antibodies, as tixagevimab/cilgavimab, have been introduced as prophylaxis against COVID-19 infections in high-risk populations. However, data on efficacy are limited. This study investigates efficacy and tolerability of tixagevimab/cilgavimab in hematological patients under real-life conditions.

Prognostic value of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies: a systematic review.

Objectives: Globally, over 772 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported. New variants of interest with corresponding spikes in case numbers continue to be identified. Vulnerable patients, including older adults or patients with severe comorbidities, continue to be at risk.

Stalled response near thermal equilibrium in periodically driven systems.

The question of how systems respond to perturbations is ubiquitous in physics. Predicting this response for large classes of systems becomes particularly challenging if many degrees of freedom are involved and linear response theory cannot be applied. Here, we consider isolated many-body quantum systems which either start out far from equilibrium and then thermalize, or find themselves near thermal equilibrium from the outset.

Data-Driven Prediction and Uncertainty Quantification of Process Parameters for Directed Energy Deposition.

Laser-based directed energy deposition using metal powder (DED-LB/M) offers great potential for a flexible production mainly defined by software. To exploit this potential, knowledge of the process parameters required to achieve a specific track geometry is essential. Existing analytical, numerical, and machine-learning approaches, however, are not yet able to predict the process parameters in a satisfactory way.

Cell-free circulating RAS mutation concentrations significantly impact the survival of metastatic colorectal cancer patients.

Purpose: RAS mutations are predictors of an adverse outcome in EGFR-targeted therapies and have been proposed as prognostic biomarkers of survival in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). The analysis of circulating tumor DNA from plasma samples, known as liquid biopsies, has indicated that the RAS mutation status may change over time, potentially affecting patients' prognosis. To further evaluate the clinical validity of RAS mutation retesting using liquid biopsies, we prospectively investigated the impact of the circulating quantitative RAS mutation status on the course of mCRC.

Circulating syndecan-1 and glypican-4 predict 12-month survival in metastatic colorectal cancer patients.

Cell surface syndecans and glypicans play important roles in the development and prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC). Their soluble forms from proteoglycan shedding can be detected in blood and have been proposed as new prognostic biomarkers in several cancer entities. However, studies on circulating syndecan-1 (SDC1) and glypican-4 (GPC4) in CRC are limited.

Checkpoint inhibitors in metastatic gastric and GEJ cancer: a multi-institutional retrospective analysis of real-world data in a Western cohort.

Background: Safety and efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer could be demonstrated in predominantly Asian cohorts, whereas data in Western patients outside of clinical trials are vastly missing.

Methods: In this multi-institutional retrospective analysis conducted at nine oncologic centers in Austria, we tried to assess feasibility of checkpoint inhibitors in advanced gastric/GEJ cancer in a real-world Western cohort.

Results: In total, data from 50 patients with metastatic gastric/GEJ cancer who received nivolumab or pembrolizumab in a palliative setting between November 2015 and April 2020 have been evaluated.

Efficacy and safety of heterologous booster vaccination with Ad26.COV2.S after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in haemato-oncological patients with no antibody response.

Patients with haemato-oncological malignancies are one of the high-risk groups for a severe course in case of COVID-19 infections. Furthermore, vaccination results in significantly lower response rates in haematological malignancies and lower antibody levels in patients with solid cancer. We investigated efficacy and safety of a heterologous booster vaccination with Ad26.

Comparison of Long-Term Outcomes for Responders Versus Non-Responders Following Renal Denervation in Resistant Hypertension.

Background Recent trial results support the efficacy of renal sympathetic denervation in lowering blood pressure (BP). While BP reduction in general is associated with a clinically meaningful reduction in cardiovascular events and mortality, such a relationship has not been described for patients undergoing renal sympathetic denervation. Methods and Results Clinical events were assessed in patients who underwent renal sympathetic denervation at our center using telephone- and clinical follow-up, interviews with general practitioners, as well as review of hospital databases.

Exploring complexities in the reform of assessment practice: a critical realist perspective.

Although the principles behind assessment for and as learning are well-established, there can be a struggle when reforming traditional assessment of learning to a program which encompasses assessment for and as learning. When introducing and reporting reforms, tensions in faculty may arise because of differing beliefs about the relationship between assessment and learning and the rules for the validity of assessments. Traditional systems of assessment of learning privilege objective, structured quantification of learners' performances, and are done to the students.

Serological SARS-CoV-2 antibody response, potential predictive markers and safety of BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in haematological and oncological patients.

Haemato-oncological patients are at risk in case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Currently, vaccination is the best-evaluated preventive strategy. In the present study, we aimed to assess serological response, predictive markers, and safety of BNT162b2 in haemato-oncological patients.

Refining Deutsch's approach to thermalization.

The groundbreaking investigation by Deutsch [Phys. Rev. A 43, 2046 (1991)PLRAAN1050-294710.

Relaxation Theory for Perturbed Many-Body Quantum Systems versus Numerics and Experiment.

An analytical prediction is established of how an isolated many-body quantum system relaxes towards its thermal longtime limit under the action of a time-independent perturbation, but still remaining sufficiently close to a reference case whose temporal relaxation is known. This is achieved within the conceptual framework of a typicality approach by showing and exploiting that the time-dependent expectation values behave very similarly for most members of a suitably chosen ensemble of perturbations. The predictions are validated by comparison with various numerical and experimental results from the literature.

Patient satisfaction - A comparison between patient-specific implants and conventional total knee arthroplasty.

Background: Despite recent innovations in total knee arthroplasty, 20% of the patients are not completely satisfied with the clinical results. Regarding patient-specific implants (PSI), the study aims to compare individual and off-the-shelf implant (OSI) total knee arthroplasty (TKA) concerning the postoperative outcome like function and global patient satisfaction.

Methods: In 2013/14 228 patients received a TKA due to primary osteoarthritis with an indication for a bicondylar, cruciate retaining prosthesis.

Typicality of Prethermalization.

Prethermalization refers to the remarkable relaxation behavior which an integrable many-body system in the presence of a weak integrability-breaking perturbation may exhibit: After initial transients have died out, it stays for a long time close to some nonthermal steady state, but on even much larger time scales, it ultimately switches over to the proper thermal equilibrium behavior. By extending Deutsch's conceptual framework from Phys. Rev.

Full expectation-value statistics for randomly sampled pure states in high-dimensional quantum systems.

We explore how the expectation values 〈ψ|A|ψ〉 of a largely arbitrary observable A are distributed when normalized vectors |ψ〉 are randomly sampled from a high-dimensional Hilbert space. Our analytical results predict that the distribution exhibits a very narrow peak of approximately Gaussian shape, while the tails significantly deviate from a Gaussian behavior. In the important special case that the eigenvalues of A satisfy Wigner's semicircle law, the expectation-value distribution for asymptotically large dimensions is explicitly obtained in terms of a large deviation function, which exhibits two symmetric nonanalyticities akin to critical points in thermodynamics.