Regional Variation in Urinary Resistance Among Outpatients in Washington State, 2013-2019.

() is a predominant pathogen of urinary tract infections (UTIs) in the United States. We analyzed resistance patterns by geographic location in Washington State to assess the need for regional antibiograms. The study included urinary antibiotic susceptibility tests performed by Quest Diagnostics on Washington outpatient isolates from 2013 to 2019.

Harm to a child caused by the off-label use of prochlorperazine maleate tablets due to the discontinuation of licensed prochlorperazine mesilate liquid in the UK.

Prochlorperazine is a commonly used medicine to treat nausea and vomiting. The only liquid formulation in the UK was discontinued in November 2022 due to safety concerns. One alternative option available is to use crushed tablets instead.

Burden and frequency of viral testing of kidney and non-kidney transplant recipients.

Transplant patients are at risk of infections due to long-term immunosuppression contributing to morbidity and mortality in this population. Post-transplant testing guidelines were established to monitor and guide therapeutic interventions in transplant recipients. We hypothesize that there are gaps in adherence to the recommended frequency of laboratory testing in post-transplant patients.

Clinical evaluation of synthetic computed tomography methods in adaptive proton therapy of lung cancer patients.

Background And Purpose: Efficient workflows for adaptive proton therapy are of high importance. This study evaluated the possibility to replace repeat-CTs (reCTs) with synthetic CTs (sCTs), created based on cone-beam CTs (CBCTs), for flagging the need of plan adaptations in intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) treatment of lung cancer patients.

Materials And Methods: Forty-two IMPT patients were retrospectively included.

Risk Estimation of Severe COVID-19 Based on Initial Biomarker Assessment Across Racial and Ethnic Groups.

Context.—: Disease courses in COVID-19 patients vary widely. Prediction of disease severity on initial diagnosis would aid appropriate therapy, but few studies include data from initial diagnosis.

Outpatient Antibiotic Resistance Patterns of Escherichia coli Urinary Isolates Differ by Specialty Type.

Antibiotic-resistant E. coli infections represent a major cause of morbidity and mortality and pose a challenge to antibiotic stewardship. We analyzed a large outpatient data set of E.

Retrospective Performance Analyses of over Two Million U.S. QuantiFERON Blood Sample Results.

Both the QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus) and the QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) tests are interferon gamma (IFN-γ) release assays (IGRAs) intended to detect cell-mediated immune responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed performance data for both the QFT-GIT and QFT-Plus test systems from over 2 million samples. QFT-Plus and QFT-GIT testing was performed as specified in the respective package inserts at 23 Quest Diagnostics sites.

Phylobioactive hotspots in plant resources used to treat Chagas disease.

Globally, more than six million people are infected with , the causative protozoan parasite of the vector-borne Chagas disease (CD). We conducted a cross-sectional ethnopharmacological field study in Bolivia among different ethnic groups where CD is hyperendemic. A total of 775 extracts of botanical drugs used in Bolivia in the context of CD and botanical drugs from unrelated indications from the Mediterranean a compiled by Dioscorides two thousand years ago were profiled in a multidimensional assay uncovering different antichagasic natural product classes.

Antimicrobial Resistance Patterns of Urinary Escherichia coli Among Outpatients in Washington State, 2013-2017: Associations With Age and Sex.

Background: Management of acute, uncomplicated cystitis in outpatients benefits from knowledge of drug resistance patterns in the population. However, antibiograms are often not available for the outpatient setting, and the role of host factors such as sex and age in assessing the likelihood of resistance are not well understood. We investigated whether antibiotic resistance patterns of outpatient urinary Escherichia coli isolates vary by age group and sex in a large database of antibiotic susceptibility test (AST) results from Washington State.

Increased Dementia Mortality in West Virginia Counties with Mountaintop Removal Mining?

Atmospheric particulate matter (PM) is elevated in areas of mountaintop removal mining (MTM), a practice that has been ongoing in some counties of West Virginia (WV) USA since the 1970s. PM inhalation has been linked to central nervous system pathophysiology, including cognitive decline and dementia. Here we compared county dementia mortality statistics in MTM vs.

Cultural perception of triatomine bugs and Chagas disease in Bolivia: a cross-sectional field study.

Background: Chagas disease remains a major public health risk in Bolivia, particularly among rural indigenous communities. Here we studied the cultural perception of the triatomine vectors and Chagas disease among selected rural and urban ethnic groups from different socio-economic and geographical milieus. We focused on the indigenous communities in the Bolivian Chaco where the disease is hyperendemic.

New cycloartane-type ester triterpenes from Euphorbia pterococca and biological evaluation.

From acetonic extract of the whole plant Euphorbia pterococca Brot. (Euphorbiaceae), four new cycloartane-type ester triterpenes named cycloartenyl-2'E,4'E-decadienoate (1), cycloartenyl-2'E,4'Z-decadienoate (2), 24-methylenecycloartanyl-2'E,4'Z-tetradecadienoate (3), and 24-oxo-29-norcycloartanyl-2'E,4'Z-hexadecadienoate (4) were obtained along with nine known tetracyclic triterpenes (5-13). Their structures were established mainly by extensive use of spectroscopic techniques, including 1D (H and C) and 2D homo- and heteronuclear NMR experiments (COSY, HSQC, HMBC and NOESY), and mass spectrometry (HRESIMS), and by comparison with data reported in the literature.

Actual target coverage after setup verification using surgical clips compared with external skin markers in postoperative breast cancer radiation therapy.

Purpose: After changing from offline setup verification to online setup verification using external skin markers in breast cancer patients, we noticed an increase in localized acute skin toxicity beneath the markers. Also, in vivo 3-dimensional dose measurements showed deviations between the delivered and the planned dose distributions; therefore, we investigated the accuracy of setup verification using surgical clips in the tumor bed, with a focus on target coverage of whole breast and tumor bed.

Methods And Materials: Orthogonal kilovoltage images were acquired before every fraction in 35 breast cancer patients, deriving an online 3-dimensional setup error by matching on external skin markers.

Manual mobilization of the wrist: a pilot study in rehabilitation of patients with a chronic hemiplegic hand post-stroke.

Study Design: Prospective pilot cohort study, quasi-experimental design.

Introduction: Restricted hand mobility, limitation in activities and participation, due to relative immobilization of the hemiplegic hand are frequently reported after stroke.

Purpose Of The Study: To establish whether manual mobilization of the wrist has an additional value in the treatment of the hemiplegic hand.

The PET-boost randomised phase II dose-escalation trial in non-small cell lung cancer.

Purpose: The local site of relapse in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is primarily located in the high FDG uptake region of the primary tumour prior to treatment. A phase II PET-boost trial (NCT01024829) randomises patients between dose-escalation of the entire primary tumour (arm A) or to the high FDG uptake region inside the primary tumour (>50% SUV(max)) (arm B), whilst giving 66 Gy in 24 fractions to involved lymph nodes. We analysed the planning results of the first 20 patients for which both arms A and B were planned.

Effects of prenatal stress on lever-press acquisition with delayed reinforcement in male and female rats.

The prenatally stressed (PS) rat shows enhanced conditioned fear and increased behavioral inhibition in response to footshock compared to control (CON) rats. It is unclear whether this facilitated learning will occur only with aversive stimulation, or if it will also be observed in the context of positive reinforcement. There are limited and inconsistent data regarding sex differences and the impact of prenatal stress on learning.

Peripheral immune challenge with viral mimic during early postnatal period robustly enhances anxiety-like behavior in young adult rats.

Inflammatory factors associated with immune challenge during early brain development are now firmly implicated in the etiologies of schizophrenia, autism and mood disorders later in life. In rodent models, maternal injections of inflammagens have been used to induce behavioral, anatomical and biochemical changes in offspring that are congruent with those found in human diseases. Here, we studied whether inflammatory challenge during the early postnatal period can also elicit behavioral alterations in adults.

Dysphonia at 12 months corrected age in very low-birth-weight-born children.

Preterm newborn infants may suffer laryngeal injuries after multiple intubations and long-term mechanical ventilation. Former studies have focused on acute laryngeal injuries diagnosed by endoscopy, performed within the neonatal period. This retrospective case-control study aims to investigate the prevalence and clinical risk factors for voice disorders in former very low-birth-weight (< 1,500 g) infants (VLBW) at 1-year follow-up examinations.

Use of skin markers and electronic portal imaging to improve verification of tangential breast irradiation.

We investigated the added value of skin markers in 566 electronic portal images (EPIs) in 48 breast cancer patients treated with tangential fields. EPIs were matched to the corresponding DRRs using skin markers, anatomy, or a combination of both. Skin markers improved determination of setup errors in cranio-caudal direction.

Blunted amygdalar anti-inflammatory cytokine effector response to postnatal stress in prenatally stressed rats.

Smad1 is the downstream effector for bone morphogenetic protein, part of the anti-inflammatory cytokine family. Glucocorticoids (GCs) increase the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines to oppose the actions of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Here we used the prenatally stressed (PS) rat to see if chronic GC activation affects this protective mechanism in the amygdala.

Prenatal stress affects the developmental trajectory of the rat amygdala.

The amygdala plays a critical role in generating the emotion of fear, and alterations in amygdala fear processing are thought to underlie the acquisition and maintenance of anxiety disorders. The prenatally stressed (PS) rat displays hormonal, behavioral and brain anatomical similarities to anxious humans and is useful to study the neurobiological underpinnings of pathological anxiety. We studied PS and control male rats at postnatal days 7 (P7), P25, P45 and P60.

Morphological plasticity in the neural circuitry responsible for seasonal breeding in the ewe.

An increase in the response of GnRH neurons to estrogen negative feedback is responsible for seasonal anestrus in the ewe, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain largely unknown. Neural plasticity may play an important role because the density of synaptic input to GnRH neurons changes with seasons. Moreover, the transition from breeding to anestrous season requires thyroid hormones, which are also required for neuronal development.

Low-frequency hearing loss in prenatally stressed rats.

We investigated the possibility that hearing thresholds are altered in prenatally stressed rats raised in a normal auditory environment. Pregnant dams were assigned randomly to prenatally stressed and control groups. Half of the dams were subjected to the mild stressors of handling, exposure to a novel cage and saline injection at random times during lights-on daily.

Comparison of electric stimulation methods for reduction of triceps surae spasticity in spinal cord injury.

Objectives: To compare the effect of 3 methods of electric stimulation to reduce spasticity of the triceps surae in patients with complete spinal cord injury (SCI) and to investigate the carryover effect.

Design: Placebo-controlled study with repeated measurements after the interventions.

Setting: Research department affiliated with a rehabilitation hospital in the Netherlands.