Quantifying Knee-Adjacent Subcutaneous Fat in the Entire OAI Baseline Dataset - Associations with Cartilage MRI T, Thickness and Pain, Independent of BMI.

Objective: Knee-adjacent subcutaneous fat (kaSCF) has emerged as a potential biomarker and risk factor for OA progression. This study aims to develop an AI-based tool for the automatic segmentation of kaSCF thickness and evaluate the cross-sectional associations between kaSCF, cartilage thickness, MRI-based cartilage T relaxation time, knee pain, and muscle strength independent of BMI.

Design: Baseline 3.

Ultraviolet radiation vs air filtration to mitigate virus laden aerosol in an occupied clinical room.

Mitigation measures against infectious aerosols are desperately needed. We aimed to: 1) compare germicidal ultraviolet radiation (GUV) at 254 nm (254-GUV) and 222 nm (222-GUV) with portable high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters to inactivate/remove airborne bacteriophage ϕX174, 2) measure the effect of air mixing on the effectiveness of 254-GUV, and 3) determine the relative susceptibility of ϕX174, SARS-CoV-2, and Influenza A(H3N2) to GUV (254 nm, 222 nm). A nebulizer generated ϕX174 laden aerosols in an occupied clinical room (sealed-low flow).

Relationships Between the Infrapatellar Fat Pad and Patellofemoral Joint Osteoarthritis Differ With Body Mass Index and Sex.

The role of the infrapatellar fat pad (IPFP) in knee osteoarthritis is not understood. This study aimed to identify relationships between MRI-based signal abnormalities in the IPFP and measures of structural pathology and symptom severity in PFJOA, as well as investigate the influence of obesity and sex on these relationships. Seventy participants (ages 28-80) with isolated PFJOA underwent bilateral knee MRI scan acquisitions and completed the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS).

Advances in the structural understanding of opioid allostery.

Activation of the μ opioid receptor (MOR) can give analgesia, but also has dangerous side effects. Drugs that target MOR through an allosteric site, meaning they bind outside of the usual pocket, present a novel mode of receptor activation with different pharmacology relative to orthosteric drugs. Recent structural studies give valuable new information on how allosteric modulators interact with MOR.