Background: Current literature highlights a gap in precise stroke cost data for Latin America. This study measures the real costs associated with acute ischemic stroke care in Latin America using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC). The findings aim to lay a solid foundation for adopting value-based healthcare (VBHC) strategies in the region.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElevated free fatty acids and oxidative stress may function as pathogenic factors in endothelial dysfunction that is associated with various cardiovascular complications. In recent work, Feng and colleagues report that activation of a lysosomal Ca channel may be a viable option to alleviate oxidative damage by boosting lysosome biogenesis and mitophagy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobial pathogenesis is mediated by the expression of virulence genes. However, as microbes with identical virulence gene content can differ in their pathogenic potential, other virulence determinants must be involved. Here, by combining comparative genomics and transcriptomics of a large collection of isolates of the model pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, time-lapse microscopy, in vitro evolution and in vivo experiments, we show that the individual stress responsiveness of L.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConjugative plasmids are important drivers of bacterial evolution. Most plasmids lack genes for conjugation and characterized origins of transfer (oriT), which has hampered our understanding of plasmid mobility. Here we used bioinformatic analyses to characterize occurrences of known oriT families across 38,057 plasmids, confirming that most conjugative and mobilizable plasmids lack identifiable oriTs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Limited research exists on women's challenges as specialized healthcare professionals in Latin America's stroke field. This survey-based study addresses the potential gender disparities in these professionals' work environments.
Methods: This exploratory study used an online survey to investigate the work environment of women healthcare professionals in stroke across several Latin American countries.
Patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) often exhibit an impaired cellular immune response, which may contribute to an increased susceptibility to infections and other complications. Th1 cells, a subset of T-helper cells, play a crucial role in cellular immunity. However, the modulation of Th1 cells by HD treatment remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the availability of new drugs on the clinics in recent years, drug-resistant epilepsy remains an unresolved challenge for healthcare, and one-third of epilepsy patients remain refractory to anti-seizure medications. Gene therapy in experimental models has emerged as effective treatment targeting specific neuronal populations in the epileptogenic focus. When combined with an external chemical activator using chemogenetics, it also becomes an "on-demand" treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTexas Medicaid improved infant well-child visit rates by participating in a national learning collaborative. The two-year program encouraged creativity and innovation in care for Medicaid recipients through partnerships with managed care organizations (MCOs). The MCO projects discovered valuable practices in member outreach and were disseminated in shared learning experiences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFish are exposed to increased water temperatures and aquatic pollutants, including endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs). Although each stressor can disturb fish liver metabolism independently, combined effects may exist. To unveil the molecular mechanisms behind the effects of EDCs and temperature, fish liver cell lines are potential models needing better characterisation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Chagas disease (CD) is a serious public health problem in Latin America. Benznidazole (BNZ) is used for the treatment of CD and, despite its wide use, little information is available about its toxicity and mechanisms of adverse drug reactions (ADR).
Objectives: To identify and classify clinical and laboratory adverse reactions caused by BNZ in terms of causality and severity.
The opportunistic pathogen , carries variants of resistance islands (AbaR)-type genomic islands conferring multidrug resistance. Their pervasiveness in the species has remained enigmatic. The dissemination of AbaRs is intricately linked to their horizontal transfer via natural transformation, a process through which bacteria can import and recombine exogenous DNA, effecting allelic recombination, genetic acquisition, and deletion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCM) is increasingly prevalent in developed countries due to migration from endemic areas. Accurate risk stratification is crucial due to the variable clinical course of CCM.
Objective: To analyze the association between Rassi score progression and electrophysiology study (EPS) changes in CCM patients.
The genus Haemagogus (Diptera: Culicidae) includes species that are important vectors of pathogens such as the yellow fever virus. The accurate identification of these species is essential for the control of zoonoses. Females of Hg.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeven seawater polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were measured in water (DAP), suspended particulate matter (SPM), and blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) collected from four beaches in northwest Portugal. PCBs were extracted using solid-phase-extraction, ultrasound-extraction and QuEChERS before GC-MS analysis. The two-year annual average concentrations of PCBs in DAP, SPM and the four-year analysis in mussels were ∼ 4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany bacterial immune systems recognize phage structural components to activate antiviral responses, without inhibiting the function of the phage component. These systems can be encoded in specific chromosomal loci, known as defense islands, and in mobile genetic elements such as prophages and phage-inducible chromosomal islands (PICIs). Here, we identify a family of bacterial immune systems, named Tai (for 'tail assembly inhibition'), that is prevalent in PICIs, prophages and P4-like phage satellites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMobile genetic elements shape microbial gene repertoires and populations. Recent results reveal that many, possibly most, microbial mobile genetic elements require helpers to transfer between genomes, which we refer to as Hitcher Genetic Elements (hitchers or HGEs). They may be a large fraction of pathogenicity and resistance genomic islands, whose mechanisms of transfer have remained enigmatic for decades.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree-dimensional (3D) fish hepatocyte cultures are promising alternative models for replicating in vivo data. Few studies have attempted to characterise the structure and function of fish 3D liver models and illustrate their applicability. This study aimed to further characterise a previously established spheroid model obtained from juvenile brown trout () primary hepatocytes under estrogenic stimulation.
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