Publications by authors named "Spivak A"

Article Synopsis
  • Tidal wetlands can absorb greenhouse gases, but methane emissions can vary due to environmental factors and human activities.
  • Land managers require detailed maps of methane properties in these wetlands for effective restoration and greenhouse gas inventories, yet current sampling methods don't align well with broader mapping products.
  • Research involved sampling 27 tidal wetlands, revealing that sulfate concentration is the strongest predictor of methane levels, while salinity also plays a significant role; future studies should focus on understanding local environmental influences on methane variation.
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Introduction: Patients with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease may experience pelvic floor dysfunction and constipation which can affect ileoanal pouch emptying. This can lead to complications such as pouchitis, pouch dysfunction, and failure. We hypothesized that patients with neurological diseases have a higher rate of pouch failure and complications than healthy controls.

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Article Synopsis
  • - HIV-1 infection persists due to long-term viral reservoirs in latently infected CD4 T cells, prompting the need for strategies to stimulate cytotoxic immunity, including the "Shock and Kill" approach.
  • - Ponatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor used for chronic myeloid leukemia, has shown effectiveness against HIV-1 and may enhance the immune response against both cancer and viral infections.
  • - In a study of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia who switched from imatinib to ponatinib, results indicated that ponatinib treatment significantly reduced HIV-1 infection rates and increased the cytotoxic response from peripheral blood mononuclear cells, with effects lasting at least 12 months post-treatment.
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Background: Resection rectopexy and ventral mesh rectopexy are widely accepted surgical options for the treatment of rectal prolapse; however, reports on long-term recurrence rates and functional outcomes are lacking.

Objective: We compared quality of life, long-term functional outcomes, and prolapse recurrence after resection rectopexy versus ventral mesh rectopexy.

Design: We retrospectively reviewed our prospectively collected rectal prolapse surgery database.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Dasatinib, a medication used for chronic myeloid leukemia, shows promise against HIV-1 by preserving the antiviral activity of the SAMHD1 protein in CD4+ T cells and reducing the phosphorylation that inactivates it, inhibiting HIV-1 infection in macrophages.
  • * Short-term dasatinib treatment lowers inflammatory cytokines in macrophages while maintaining some antiviral responses, suggesting that combining dasatinib with ART could effectively target HIV-1 reservoirs and reduce inflammation in people living with HIV.
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Background: Perineal proctosigmoidectomy (Altemeier) is a surgical procedure that is commonly used for the treatment of rectal prolapse. However, there is a diverse range of recurrence rates after Altemeier procedure repair that has been reported in the literature.

Objective: To identify primary and subsequent recurrence rates after perineal proctosigmoidectomy and to define potential risk factors for recurrence.

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The cytotoxic profile and antiproliferative and mitochondrial effects of triterpene acid conjugates with mitochondriotropic lipophilic triphenylphosphonium (TPP) and F16 cations were evaluated. Maslinic and corosolic acids chosen as the investigation objects were synthesized from commercially available oleanolic and ursolic acids. Study of the cytotoxic activity of TPP and F16 triterpenoid derivatives against six tumor cell lines demonstrated a comparable synergistic effect in the anticancer activity, which was most pronounced in the case of MCF-7 mammary adenocarcinoma cells and Jurkat and THP-1 leukemia cells.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study aimed to create a standardized operative report for rectal prolapse surgery by gathering consensus from pelvic floor surgeons, focusing on key descriptors necessary for comprehensive reporting.
  • The research involved a Delphi process where 176 surgeons from various regions voted on descriptors in multiple rounds, ultimately selecting 16 that achieved over 70% agreement.
  • The final agreed-upon descriptors included details about the surgery type, dissection methods, and the use of mesh and sutures, ensuring thorough documentation of the surgical procedure.
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Background: Approximately 38,000 scoliosis surgery correction operations are performed annually in the United States; these operations are associated with considerable postoperative pain which can be difficult to manage. This is largely attributed to an incision spanning multiple vertebral segments with paraspinal muscle dissection and retraction to facilitate the implantation of segmental hardware and rods. Frequently utilized analgesic modalities include intravenous patient-controlled analgesia and epidural analgesia, often in combination.

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Transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) people, individuals whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth, face unique challenges in accessing gender-affirming care and often experience disparities in a variety of health outcomes. Clinical research on TGD health is limited by a lack of standardization on how to best identify these individuals. The objective of this retrospective cohort analysis was to accurately identify and describe TGD adults and their use of gender-affirming care from 2003-2023 in a healthcare system in Utah, United States.

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HIV-1 eradication strategies require complete reactivation of HIV-1 latent cells by Latency Reversing Agents (LRA). Current methods lack effectiveness due to incomplete proviral reactivation. We employed a single-molecule RNA-FISH (smRNA-FISH) and FISH-Quant analysis and found that proviral reactivation is highly variable from cell-to-cell, stochastic, and occurs in bursts and waves, with different kinetics in response to diverse LRAs.

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Background: A colosplenic fistula (CsF) is an extremely rare complication. Its diagnosis and management remain poorly understood, owing to its infrequent incidence. Our objective was to systematically review the etiology, clinical features, diagnosis, management, and prognosis to help clinicians gain a better understanding of this unusual complication and provide aid if it is to be encountered.

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Background: Cancer-related deaths for people with human immunodeficiency virus (PWH) are increasing due to longer life expectancies and disparately poor cancer-related outcomes. We hypothesize that advanced biological aging contributes to cancer-related morbidity and mortality for PWH and cancer. We sought to determine the impact of clonal hematopoiesis (CH) on cancer disparities in PWH.

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Purpose: Recurrence of rectal prolapse following the Altemeier procedure is reported with rates up to 40%. The optimal surgical management of recurrences has limited data available. Ventral mesh rectopexy (VMR) is a favored procedure for primary rectal prolapse, but its role in managing recurrences after Altemeier is unclear.

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Quantifying carbon fluxes into and out of coastal soils is critical to meeting greenhouse gas reduction and coastal resiliency goals. Numerous 'blue carbon' studies have generated, or benefitted from, synthetic datasets. However, the community those efforts inspired does not have a centralized, standardized database of disaggregated data used to estimate carbon stocks and fluxes.

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Introduction: The clinical manifestations of acute severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) suggest a dysregulation of the host immune response that leads to inflammation, thrombosis, and organ dysfunction. It is less clear whether these dysregulated processes persist during the convalescent phase of disease or during long COVID. We sought to examine the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the proportions of classical, intermediate, and nonclassical monocytes, their activation status, and their functional properties in convalescent COVID-19 patients.

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The clinical manifestations of acute severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and COVID-19 suggest a dysregulation of the host immune response that leads to inflammation, thrombosis, and organ dysfunction. It is less clear whether these dysregulated processes persist during the convalescent phase of disease or during long COVID. We investigated the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the proportions of classical, intermediate, and non-classical monocytes, their activation status, and their functional properties in convalescent COVID-19 patients and uninfected control subjects.

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Salt marshes sit at the terrestrial-aquatic interface of oceans around the world. Unique features of salt marshes that differentiate them from their upland or offshore counterparts include high rates of primary production from vascular plants and saturated saline soils that lead to sharp redox gradients and a diversity of electron acceptors and donors. Moreover, the dynamic nature of root oxygen loss and tidal forcing leads to unique biogeochemical conditions that promote nitrogen cycling.

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Background: Prior randomized clinical trials have reported benefit of fluvoxamine ≥200 mg/d vs placebo for patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Methods: This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, fully remote multisite clinical trial evaluated whether fluvoxamine prevents clinical deterioration in higher-risk outpatients with acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Between December 2020 and May 2021, nonhospitalized US and Canadian participants with confirmed symptomatic infection received fluvoxamine (50 mg on day 1, 100 mg twice daily thereafter) or placebo for 15 days.

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Objective: People with HIV (PWH) are living longer and experiencing higher numbers of non-AIDS-defining cancers (NADC). Epigenetic aging biomarkers have been linked to cancer risk, and cancer is now a leading cause of death in PWH, but these biomarkers have not been investigated in PWH and cancer.

Design: In order to compare epigenetic age by HIV status, HIV-uninfected participants were matched to PWH by reported age, tumor site, tumor sequence number, and cancer treatment status.

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The present work shows the cytotoxic effects of novel conjugates of ursolic, oleanolic, maslinic, and corosolic acids with the penetrating cation F16 on cancer cells (lung adenocarcinoma A549 and H1299, breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and BT474) and non-tumor human fibroblasts. It has been established that the conjugates have a significantly enhanced toxicity against tumor-derived cells compared to native acids and also demonstrate selectivity to some cancer cells. The toxic effect of the conjugates is shown to be due to ROS hyperproduction in cells, induced by the effect on mitochondria.

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