Digital Health Tools for Miscarriage Support: A Survey of Canadian Women Facing Early Pregnancy Loss.

Objectives: Early pregnancy loss (EPL) affects 1 in 4 recognised pregnancies, yet often lacks patient-centred supportive care. This study assesses the feasibility and acceptance of a digital health tool to support those affected by EPL. The objectives are to (1) understand the experiences of those who have miscarried, (2) explore their methods of accessing health information, and (3) determine their preferences regarding digital tool content and design.

Aya Contigo: evaluation of a digital intervention to support self-managed medication abortion in Venezuela.

Background: Venezuela continues to face a humanitarian crisis, where healthcare is difficult to access and abortion is legally restricted. In response to a growing need for life-saving abortion and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, a digital application called Aya Contigo was co-developed with local partners to support self-managed medication abortion. We sought to evaluate this digital health tool among pregnant people seeking abortion in Venezuela.

Tracking clonal evolution of drug resistance in ovarian cancer patients by exploiting structural variants in cfDNA.

Drug resistance is the major cause of therapeutic failure in high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). Yet, the mechanisms by which tumors evolve to drug resistant states remains largely unknown. To address this, we aimed to exploit clone-specific genomic structural variations by combining scaled single-cell whole genome sequencing with longitudinally collected cell-free DNA (cfDNA), enabling clonal tracking before, during and after treatment.

Natural history of shedding and household transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 using intensive high-resolution sampling.

Importance: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to 775 million documented cases and over 7 million deaths worldwide as of March 2024 and is an ongoing health crisis. To limit viral spread within households and in the community, public health officials have recommended self-isolation, self-quarantine of exposed household contacts, and mask use. Yet, risk of household transmission (HHT) may be underestimated due to low frequency of sampling, and risk factors for HHT are not well understood.

Intratumoral Escherichia Is Associated With Improved Survival to Single-Agent Immune Checkpoint Inhibition in Patients With Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.

PURPOSEThe impact of the intratumoral microbiome on immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) efficacy in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is unknown. Preclinically, intratumoral Escherichia is associated with a proinflammatory tumor microenvironment and decreased metastases. We sought to determine whether intratumoral Escherichia is associated with outcome to ICI in patients with NSCLC.

Burnout syndrome in a single cohort of chiropractic students: A longitudinal study.

Objective: Physician well-being impacts all areas of health care. There is, however, a paucity of evidence regarding burnout among chiropractic students. The purpose of this project is to evaluate burnout among a single cohort of chiropractic students as they progress through their clinical rotation.

Point Cloud Completion: A Survey.

Point cloud completion is the task of producing a complete 3D shape given an input of a partial point cloud. It has become a vital process in 3D computer graphics, vision and applications such as autonomous driving, robotics, and augmented reality. These applications often rely on the presence of a complete 3D representation of the environment.

Contraception and abortion in times of crisis: results from an online survey of Venezuelan women.

Introduction: In the last decade, Venezuela has experienced a complex humanitarian crisis that has limited access to healthcare. We set out to describe Venezuelan women's experiences accessing sexual and reproductive health services, including abortion, which is heavily restricted by law.

Methods: We fielded an online survey in July of 2020 among Venezuelan women recruited through social media advertisements.

OCT4 induces long-lived dedifferentiated kidney progenitors poised to redifferentiate in 3D kidney spheroids.

Upscaling of kidney epithelial cells is crucial for renal regenerative medicine. Nonetheless, the adult kidney lacks a distinct stem cell hierarchy, limiting the ability to long-term propagate clonal populations of primary cells that retain renal identity. Toward this goal, we tested the paradigm of shifting the balance between differentiation and stemness in the kidney by introducing a single pluripotency factor, OCT4.

Synergistic Coronary Artery Calcium Modification With Combined Atherectomy and Intravascular Lithotripsy.

Background: Severe coronary artery calcification (CAC) remains challenging during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and often requires 1 or more advanced calcium modification tools.

Objectives: We describe the combination use of rotational (RA) or orbital atherectomy (OA), with intravascular lithotripsy (IVL), termed rotatripsy and orbital-tripsy, respectively, for modifying CAC prior to stent implantation during PCI.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of patients treated with rotatripsy or orbital-tripsy at our center between July 2019 and March 2022.

Serial surveys of Hong Kong medical students regarding attitudes towards HIV/AIDS from 2007 to 2017.

Introduction: With widespread adoption of antiretroviral therapy, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemiology has changed since the late 2000s. Accordingly, attitudes towards the disease may also have changed. Because medical students are future physicians, their attitudes have important implications in access to care among patients with HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Feasibility of Specimen Self-collection in Young Children Undergoing SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance for In-Person Learning.

Importance: There is an urgent need to assess the feasibility of COVID-19 surveillance measures in educational settings.

Objective: To assess whether young children can feasibly self-collect SARS-CoV-2 samples for surveillance testing over the course of an academic year.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prospective pilot cohort study was conducted from September 10, 2020, to June 10, 2021, at a K-8 school in San Mateo County, California.

Performance evaluation and optimized reporting workflow for HIV diagnostic screening and confirmatory tests in a low prevalence setting.

Background: Our institution utilizes an antigen/antibody screening test followed by a confirmatory antibody assay for preliminary positive results. Given the low prevalence for HIV infections in our institution's county, we suspect that a substantial portion of the reactive screens are false positives.

Objectives: We aimed to characterize the false positivity rate of the HIV screening test performed at Stanford Health Care.

Neuro-ophthalmologic outcomes of standard versus hypo-fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy of AVPM.

Background: Most anterior visual pathway meningiomas (AVPM) are benign and slow-growing, but these tumors may affect visual functions, including visual acuity (VA) and visual field (VF). Due to location, most are treated non-surgically by fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSRT), aiming to prevent tumor progression and visual functions deterioration. Unfortunately, FSRT in itself may affect visual functions.

Analysing human population movement data for malaria control and elimination.

Background: Human population movement poses a major obstacle to malaria control and elimination. With recent technological advances, a wide variety of data sources and analytical methods have been used to quantify human population movement (HPM) relevant to control and elimination of malaria.

Methods: The relevant literature and selected studies that had policy implications that could help to design or target malaria control and elimination interventions were reviewed.

A Cross-Sectional Study Comparing Two Opt-Out HIV Testing Strategies in the Out-Patient Setting.

HIV infections are generally asymptomatic, leading to undetected infections and late-stage diagnoses. There are a lack of acceptable testing strategies for routine opt-out HIV screening. Our aim was to evaluate and compare the diagnostic yield of routine opt-out HIV testing strategies in two out-patient settings in a low HIV prevalence country: The public primary care and specialist out-patient care setting A cross-sectional study was conducted in a primary care clinic over a four-week period in 2016 to 2017 and in a specialist out-patient clinic over a concurrent 11-month period.

The Effect of Body Posture on Resting-State Functional Connectivity.

An important but under-investigated confound of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is body posture. Although it is well established that body position changes cerebral blood flow, the amount of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, intracranial pressure, and even the firing rate of certain cell types, there is currently no study that directly examines its effect on fMRI measurements. Moreover, fMRI is typically done in a supine position, which often does not correspond to how these processes are performed in everyday settings.

Biomarkers for the diagnosis and post-Kasai portoenterostomy prognosis of biliary atresia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

To evaluate the accuracy of biomarkers for the early diagnosis of biliary atresia (BA) and prognostic stratification after Kasai portoenterostomy (KPE). We conducted a systematic review of PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus and OVID for English literature reporting BA biomarkers published before August 2020. Screening, data extraction, and quality assessment were performed in duplicate.

Bridging scales: From cell biology to physiology using in situ single-cell technologies.

Biological organization crosses multiple spatial scales: from molecular, cellular, to tissues and organs. The proliferation of molecular profiling technologies enables increasingly detailed cataloging of the components at each scale. However, the scarcity of spatial profiling has made it challenging to bridge across these scales.

A survey of the involvement of primary care doctors in HIV prevention and care in a low-prevalence, high-income setting.

Background: In high-income countries with a low HIV prevalence, primary care doctors are likely the first point of medical contact for people at high risk of HIV. One of the key factors for successful implementation of preventive measures is the cooperation of primary healthcare providers. Hong Kong's population mostly seek primary care in the private sectors.

The social ecology of childhood and early life adversity.

An increasing prevalence of early childhood adversity has reached epidemic proportions, creating a public health crisis. Rather than focusing only on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as the main lens for understanding early childhood experiences, detailed assessments of a child's social ecology are required to assess "early life adversity." These should also include the role of positive experiences, social relationships, and resilience-promoting factors.