Age, Race, and Income Are Associated With Lower Screening Rates at a Safety Net Hospital.

Background: While lung cancer screening improves cancer-specific mortality and is recommended for high-risk patients, barriers to screening still exist. We sought to determine our institution's (an urban safety net hospital) screening rate and to identify socioeconomic barriers to lung cancer screening.

Methods: We identified 8935 smokers 55 to 80 years of age evaluated by a primary care physician between March 2015 and March 2017 at our institution.

Prostaglandin signaling suppresses beneficial microglial function in Alzheimer's disease models.

Microglia, the innate immune cells of the CNS, perform critical inflammatory and noninflammatory functions that maintain normal neural function. For example, microglia clear misfolded proteins, elaborate trophic factors, and regulate and terminate toxic inflammation. In Alzheimer's disease (AD), however, beneficial microglial functions become impaired, accelerating synaptic and neuronal loss.

Inflammatory prostaglandin E2 signaling in a mouse model of Alzheimer disease.

Objective: There is significant evidence for a central role of inflammation in the development of Alzheimer disease (AD). Epidemiological studies indicate that chronic use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) reduces the risk of developing AD in healthy aging populations. As NSAIDs inhibit the enzymatic activity of the inflammatory cyclooxygenases COX-1 and COX-2, these findings suggest that downstream prostaglandin signaling pathways function in the preclinical development of AD.