Publications by authors named "Samantha Dean"
Background: Bronchiectasis is a pulmonary disease characterized by irreversible dilation of the bronchi and recurring respiratory infections. Few studies have described the microbiology and prevalence of infections in large patient populations outside of specialized tertiary care centers.
Methods: We used the Cerner HealthFacts Electronic Health Record database to characterize the nature, burden, and frequency of pulmonary infections among persons with bronchiectasis.
Article Synopsis
- * This case report follows a patient with MEN 1 who had various disease manifestations, including thymic carcinoid, which was treated through surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy.
- * Despite initial treatments, the tumor progressed slowly over the years, leading to the patient undergoing chemotherapy, but ultimately, there is insufficient evidence for effective medical treatments for thymic carcinoid.
Background: Increasing numbers of pregnant women are being treated with buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD), which can interfere with effectiveness of other opioids used for pain relief, making perioperative guidance for patients requiring cesarean delivery unclear.
Methods: Using a retrospective cohort design, we abstracted 8 years of medical records (2013-2020) from a hospital in rural Michigan. We compared analgesic use (as a proxy for pain) and hospital length of stay (LOS) between groups of women with OUD whose buprenorphine treatment was (1) discontinued before cesarean delivery (discontinuation) versus (2) continued throughout the perioperative period (maintenance).
Background: There are limited real world data on the IMpower150 regimen in oncogene driven tumors and central nervous system metastases; this study aims to address this gap.
Materials And Methods: Retrospective analysis of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated with the IMpower150 regimen across 12 Australian sites between July 2018 and April 2021. Clinicopathologic and treatment parameters were correlated with efficacy and toxicity.
To further clarify differences in the risk for nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary infection (NTM-PI) among ethnic populations in Hawaii, USA, we conducted a retrospective cohort study among beneficiaries of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii (KPH). We abstracted demographic, socioeconomic, clinical, and microbiological data from KPH electronic health records for 2005-2019. An NTM-PI case-patient was defined as a person from whom >1 NTM pulmonary isolate was obtained.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To explore reasons for survival disparities for patients with prostate cancer in the Barwon South West area of Victoria.
Design, Setting And Participants: We have described incidence, diagnostics, treatment pathways, and survival for four regions of the Barwon South Western Victoria. Analysis included all newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients from 2009 to 2015 in the Evaluation of Cancer Outcomes Barwon South West Registry.
Close contact between people is the primary route for transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We quantified interpersonal contact at the population level using mobile device geolocation data. We computed the frequency of contact (within 6 feet) between people in Connecticut during February 2020 to January 2021 and aggregated counts of contact events by area of residence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Close contact between people is the primary route for transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We sought to quantify interpersonal contact at the population-level by using anonymized mobile device geolocation data. We computed the frequency of contact (within six feet) between people in Connecticut during February 2020 - January 2021.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe studied 31 US healthcare facilities to characterize trends in mycobacterial testing. During 2009-2015, testing for acid-fast bacilli increased 3.2% annually, and prevalence of pathogenic nontuberculous mycobacteria increased 4.
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- Inorganic arsenic (iAs) is a known carcinogen affecting over 100 million people globally, especially in Bangladesh, where exposure is primarily through contaminated food and water.
- A study of 1,660 Bangladeshi individuals revealed that a specific genetic variant (rs61735836) in the FTCD gene influences arsenic metabolism, leading to higher levels of urine iAs and MMA while lowering DMA, impacting toxicity levels.
- The research also found that individuals with a low-efficiency variant of FTCD have an increased risk of arsenic-induced skin lesions, indicating a genetic component to susceptibility and suggesting the relevance of both FTCD and AS3MT genes in arsenic metabolism efficiency and toxicity.
Article Synopsis
- Telomeres protect chromosome ends and shorten with age, which has been linked to higher mortality rates, but this link hasn't been studied much in non-European populations.
- In a study involving over 27,000 participants from Bangladesh, researchers examined the relationship between telomere length (TL) and mortality using data from 744 mortality cases and 761 controls.
- The findings indicated that shorter TL was associated with increased overall mortality and specific causes of death like chronic and circulatory diseases, marking the first evidence of this association in a non-European group.
Herbivorous vertebrates rely on complex communities of mutualistic gut bacteria to facilitate the digestion of celluloses and hemicelluloses. Gut microbes are often convergent based on diet and gut morphology across a phylogenetically diverse group of mammals. However, little is known about microbial communities of herbivorous hindgut-fermenting reptiles.
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