Publications by authors named "Smits H"

Background: SARS-CoV-2 has been associated with a higher proportion of asymptomatic infections and lower mortality in sub-Saharan Africa than high-income countries. However, there is currently a lack of data on cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 in people living in Africa compared with people in high-income regions of the world. We aimed to assess geographical variation in peripheral and mucosal immune responses.

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Article Synopsis
  • Preterm-born babies, especially those born a little early, often get more sick with lung infections and wheezing than babies born on time.
  • It's really important to help these babies stay healthy to improve their lives now and reduce problems like asthma later.
  • The review talks about ways to help these babies by looking at things like how their immune system develops, what they eat, and their living environment, and suggests strategies like using good bacteria and helping their immune system work better.
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Background: This study aimed to determine the prognostic value of radiological magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) variables and dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE)-MRI for local control (LC), disease control (DC), and overall survival (OS) in laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer patients after radiotherapy.

Methods: 320 patients treated with radiotherapy were retrospectively included. Pretreatment MRIs were evaluated for the following anatomical tumor characteristics: cartilage invasion, extralaryngeal spread, and involvement of the anterior commissure, pre-epiglottic space, and paralaryngeal space.

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Chronic infection with Schistosoma mansoni parasites is associated with reduced allergic sensitization in humans, while schistosome eggs protects against allergic airway inflammation (AAI) in mice. One of the main secretory/excretory molecules from schistosome eggs is the glycosylated T2-RNAse Omega-1 (ω1). We hypothesized that ω1 induces protection against AAI during infection.

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  • B-cells are essential for immune responses, acting as antigen presenters, modulating immunity, and creating immune memory and antibodies.
  • The study examined B-cell distributions in people from Indonesia and Ghana, comparing them to those in the Netherlands using advanced mass cytometry.
  • Results showed that individuals from rural tropical areas have higher levels of certain memory B-cells and lower naïve B-cells, especially in children, suggesting that greater exposure to microbes enhances the development of memory B-cells which tends to stabilize as they age.
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In this study, we present a method that enables voxel-by-voxel comparison of in vivo imaging to immunohistochemistry (IHC) biomarkers. As a proof of concept, we investigated the spatial correlation between dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE-)CT parameters and IHC biomarkers Ki-67 (proliferation), HIF-1α (hypoxia), and CD45 (immune cells). 54 whole-mount tumor slices of 15 laryngeal and hypopharyngeal carcinomas were immunohistochemically stained and digitized.

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Respiratory viral infections frequently lead to severe respiratory disease, particularly in vulnerable populations such as young children, individuals with chronic lung conditions and older adults, resulting in hospitalisation and, in some cases, fatalities. The innate immune system plays a crucial role in monitoring for, and initiating responses to, viruses, maintaining a state of preparedness through the constant expression of antimicrobial defence molecules. Throughout the course of infection, innate immunity remains actively involved, contributing to viral clearance and damage control, with pivotal contributions from airway epithelial cells and resident and newly recruited immune cells.

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Objective: This study aims to determine the added value of a geometrically accurate diffusion-weighted (DW-) MRI sequence on the accuracy of gross tumor volume (GTV) delineations, using pathological tumor delineations as a ground truth.

Methods: Sixteen patients with laryngeal or hypopharyngeal carcinoma were included. After total laryngectomy, the specimen was cut into slices.

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Background: Mesenteric artery stenting with a bare-metal stent is the current treatment for atherosclerotic chronic mesenteric ischaemia. Long-term patency of bare-metal stents is unsatisfactory due to in-stent intimal hyperplasia. Use of covered stents might improve long-term patency.

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In sporadic idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (sIPF) and pulmonary fibrosis caused by a mutation in telomere (TRG-PF) or surfactant related genes (SRG-PF), there are a number of aberrant cellular processes known that can lead to fibrogenesis. We investigated whether RNA expression of genes involved in these processes differed between sIPF, TRG-PF, and SRG-PF and whether expression levels were associated with survival. RNA expression of 28 genes was measured in lung biopsies of 26 sIPF, 17 TRG-PF, and 6 SRG-PF patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • - A new controlled human infection model for schistosomiasis (CHI-S) using female-only Schistosoma mansoni cercariae was developed to improve vaccine research and understand early immune responses.
  • - Thirteen healthy participants were exposed to either 10 or 20 female cercariae, resulting in most experiencing rash or mild symptoms, with some showing detectable infection despite receiving praziquantel treatment.
  • - The study found that female infections display similar symptoms and immune responses as male infections but show greater resistance to praziquantel, suggesting challenges for future research and disease control efforts.
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Vaccination is one of medicine's greatest achievements; however, its full potential is hampered by considerable variation in efficacy across populations and geographical regions. For example, attenuated malaria vaccines in high-income countries confer almost 100% protection, whereas in low-income regions these same vaccines achieve only 20-50% protection. This trend is also observed for other vaccines, such as bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), rotavirus and yellow fever vaccines, in terms of either immunogenicity or efficacy.

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Innate mononuclear phagocytic system (MPS) cells preserve mucosal immune homeostasis. We investigated their role at nasal mucosa following allergen challenge with house dust mite. We combined single-cell proteome and transcriptome profiling on nasal immune cells from nasal biopsies cells from 30 allergic rhinitis and 27 non-allergic subjects before and after repeated nasal allergen challenge.

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During chronic schistosome infections, a complex regulatory network is induced to regulate the host immune system, in which IL-10-producing regulatory B (Breg) cells play a significant role. Schistosoma mansoni soluble egg antigens (SEA) are bound and internalized by B cells and induce both human and mouse IL-10 producing Breg cells. To identify Breg-inducing proteins in SEA, we fractionated SEA by size exclusion chromatography and found 6 fractions able to induce IL-10 production by B cells (out of 18) in the high, medium and low molecular weight (MW) range.

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Oedema disease (OD) in piglets is one of the most important pathologies, as it causes significant losses due to the high mortality because of the Shiga toxin family, which produces (STEC) strains. The main toxin responsible for the characteristic pathologies in pigs is Shiga toxin 2 subtype e (Stx2e). Moreover, there is growing evidence that Stx's family of toxins also targets immune cells.

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Haralick texture features are used to quantify the spatial distribution of signal intensities within an image. In this study, the heterogeneity of proliferation (Ki-67 expression) and immune cells (CD45 expression) within tumors was quantified and used to classify histologic characteristics of larynx and hypopharynx carcinomas. Of 21 laryngectomy specimens, 74 whole-mount tumor slides were scored on histologic characteristics.

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Article Synopsis
  • Schistosomes can live for years in mammalian hosts by releasing products that alter the host's immune response, with these products largely being glycosylated molecules that engage specific host cell receptors called C-type lectin receptors (CLRs).
  • The study focused on extracellular vesicles (EVs) from adult schistosomes, revealing that their main glycan type is LacDiNAc, while EVs from the juvenile stage (schistosomula) are highly fucosylated and primarily interact with the DC-SIGN receptor.
  • The research highlights that adult worm EVs primarily bind to macrophage galactose-type lectin (MGL), indicating different glycosylation profiles and suggesting that each life stage of
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Purpose: Early-stage glottic cancer can be treated with radiotherapy only. Modern radiotherapy solutions allow for individualized dose distributions, hypofractionation and sparing of organs at risk. The target volume used to be the entire voice box.

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Objectives: This study aimed to validate a digital image analysis (DIA) workflow for automatic positive cell detection and positive region delineation for immunohistochemical hypoxia markers with a nuclear (hypoxia-inducible factor 1α [HIF-1α]) and a cytoplasmic (pimonidazole [PIMO]) staining pattern.

Materials And Methods: 101 tissue fragments from 44 laryngeal tumor biopsies were immunohistochemically stained for HIF-1α and PIMO. QuPath was used to determine the percentage of positive cells and to delineate positive regions automatically.

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