A new genus and species of isosporoid coccidium from captive green tree frogs, (Anura: Hylidae).

A new genus and a new species of isosporoid coccidium (Apicomplexa: Conoidasida: Eimeriorina) are described and illustrated from green tree frogs () (Anura: Hylidae) imported from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. The described species has disporocystic and tetrasporozoic oocysts without a Stieda body. Nine species originally belonging to the genus Schneider, 1881 in the family Eimeriidae Minchin, 1903 described from Anura are recognized as members of the new genus and new combinations of the species names are proposed.

Analysis of Modified ISTH DIC Score in Cases of Abruptio Placentae and Its Correlation with Severity of Abruptio Placentae.

Background: Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is a potentially fatal condition which is always secondary to an underlying disorder with abruption being the most common cause in obstetrics.Our study analysed the modified International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis DIC score for prediction of DIC in cases of abruptio placentae. Additionally, we correlated the score with severity of abruption to optimize its use in limited resource settings.

Role of 5-aminosalicylic acid in ulcerative colitis management in 8 Asian territories: a physician survey.

Clinical guidelines typically endorse conventional therapies such as 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) as the mainstay of ulcerative colitis management. However, the degree of adoption and application of guideline recommendations by physicians within Asia remains unclear. This study aims to understand the prescribing patterns of 5-ASA and implementation of current guideline recommendations across Asian clinical practice.

The incidence of and risk factors for axillary web syndrome with limited shoulder movement after surgery for breast cancer, and the effect of early physical therapy intervention.

Background: The aims of this cohort study were to identify (1) the incidence and risk factors for axillary web syndrome (AWS) with shoulder movement limitation within 4 weeks after axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) for Asian women with breast cancer (BC), and (2) whether early intervention with physical therapy (PT) could improve AWS, and how many PT sessions would be needed.

Methods: A cohort study of patients with BC receiving ALND was performed at Changhua Christian Hospital, Taiwan, between January 2019 and December 2020. Those patients who were diagnosed with AWS with shoulder movement limitation were referred to receive PT twice weekly at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Conquering the 'Collected Treasures' of Older Adults With Dementia: A Qualitative Study on Caregiver Strategies and Challenges.

Aim: To explore hoarding scenarios in older adults with dementia, document management strategies and assess caregiver challenges in these scenarios.

Design: This study employed interpretative phenomenological analysis to guide data collection and analysis.

Methods: Purposive sampling recruited 20 caregivers of older adults with dementia from long-term care facilities and community elderly centres in Taiwan.

Senolytic treatment attenuates immune cell infiltration without improving IAV outcomes in aged mice.

Aging is a major risk factor for poor outcomes following respiratory infections. In animal models, the most severe outcomes of respiratory infections in older hosts have been associated with an increased burden of senescent cells that accumulate over time with age and create a hyperinflammatory response. Although studies using coronavirus animal models have demonstrated that removal of senescent cells with senolytics, a class of drugs that selectively kills senescent cells, resulted in reduced lung damage and increased survival, little is known about the role that senescent cells play in the outcome of influenza A viral (IAV) infections in aged mice.

Clinicogenomic landscape of pancreatic adenocarcinoma identifies KRAS mutant dosage as prognostic of overall survival.

Nearly all pancreatic adenocarcinomas (PDAC) are genomically characterized by KRAS exon 2 mutations. Most patients with PDAC present with advanced disease and are treated with cytotoxic therapy. Genomic biomarkers prognostic of disease outcomes have been challenging to identify.

Lessons from COVID-19 in Taiwan's long-term care facilities: A narrative review.

The coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately impacted long-term care facilities (LTCFs), revealing vulnerabilities due to residents' advanced age, comorbidities, and facility infrastructures. In Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Control Center implemented a range of strategies to protect LTCF residents. These included early containment measures to allow time for preparing pharmaceutical intervention, the establishment of infection prevention and control guidelines, the implementation of comprehensive screening and testing protocols, the prioritization of vaccination for both residents and staff, and the expansion of the national stockpile of oral antiviral agents.

Photodynamic antimicrobial therapy with Erythrosin B, Eosin Y, and Rose Bengal for the inhibition of fungal keratitis isolates: An in vitro study.

Introduction: Fungal keratitis is a leading cause of corneal blindness, with current antifungal treatments having limited efficacy. One promising treatment modality is Rose Bengal (RB) photodynamic antimicrobial therapy (PDAT) that has shown mixed success against fungal keratitis. Therefore, there is a need to explore the antimicrobial efficacy of other green-light activated photosensitizers that have deep penetration in the cornea to combat the deep fungal infections, such as Erythrosin B (EB) and Eosin Y (EY).

Cost-effectiveness analysis of pembrolizumab with chemotherapy for metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer in Taiwan.

This study was aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of pembrolizumab with chemotherapy (pembrolizumab combination therapy) and compare it with standard-of-care platinum-based chemotherapy (chemotherapy alone) as a first-line treatment for metastatic nonsquamous NSCLC from the perspective of Taiwan's third-party-payer public health-care system. We used a partitioned survival model with an estimated time horizon of 10 years. The partitioned survival model uses Kaplan-Meier estimates of progression-free and overall survival from the KEYNOTE-189 clinical trial.

Determination and validation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH4) in katsuobushi, plant-based food supplements, and cocoa bean shells using GC-MS/MS.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are primarily generated through the incomplete combustion or pyrolysis of organic materials in various industrial processes. Foods may become contaminated with environmental PAHs found in air, soil, or water, or through industrial food processing methods such as smoking, roasting, drying, and grilling. The Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taiwan has established maximum levels for benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) and indicative values for BaP as well as PAH4 (the sum of benz[a]anthracene, chrysene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, and benzo[a]pyrene) in foods as operational guidelines.

Disentangling Sources of Momentum Fluctuations in Xe+Xe and Pb+Pb Collisions with the ATLAS Detector.

High-energy nuclear collisions create a quark-gluon plasma, whose initial condition and subsequent expansion vary from event to event, impacting the distribution of the eventwise average transverse momentum [P([p_{T}])]. Disentangling the contributions from fluctuations in the nuclear overlap size (geometrical component) and other sources at a fixed size (intrinsic component) remains a challenge. This problem is addressed by measuring the mean, variance, and skewness of P([p_{T}]) in ^{208}Pb+^{208}Pb and ^{129}Xe+^{129}Xe collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.

A mutant ASXL1-BAP1-EHMT complex contributes to heterochromatin dysfunction in clonal hematopoiesis and chronic monomyelocytic leukemia.

is one of the three most frequently mutated genes in age-related clonal hematopoiesis (CH), alongside and (. CH can progress to myeloid malignancies including chronic monomyelocytic leukemia (CMML) and is also strongly associated with inflammatory cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality in humans. DNMT3A and TET2 regulate DNA methylation and demethylation pathways, respectively, and loss-of-function mutations in these genes reduce DNA methylation in heterochromatin, allowing derepression of silenced elements in heterochromatin.

Downregulation of PAX1 in OSCC Enhances Stemness and Immunosuppression via IFIT1 and PD-L1 Pathways.

Objective: Our study investigated how arecoline-induced extracellular vesicle (EV) secretion suppresses PAX1 protein production through DNA hypermethylation and examined whether PAX1 downregulation enhances cancer stemness and immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment.

Materials And Methods: EVs were isolated from SAS/TW2.6 cancer cell lines using ultracentrifugation and identified using transmission electron microscopy.

Circulating resistin levels and mutation burden of the RETN gene variants predict long-term mortality in a Taiwanese population.

Human resistin is a proinflammatory cytokine involving the development and progression of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. However, prediction of long-term outcome using circulating resistin level and its genetic determinants in a population-based study remain to be explored. After genome-wide association study (GWAS), DNA methylation (DNAm) analysis and functional assays of a RETN rs370006313 variant, we tested whether resistin level and its genetic determinants can be used to determine the long-term outcomes of 5678 Taiwan Biobank (TWB) participants.

The In-depth Comparative Analysis of Four Large Language AI Models for Risk Assessment and Information Retrieval from Multi-Modality Prostate Cancer Work-up Reports.

Purpose: Information retrieval (IR) and risk assessment (RA) from multi-modality imaging and pathology reports are critical to prostate cancer (PC) treatment. This study aims to evaluate the performance of four general-purpose large language model (LLMs) in IR and RA tasks.

Materials And Methods: We conducted a study using simulated text reports from computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, bone scans, and biopsy pathology on stage IV PC patients.

Should an Interval Appendicectomy Be Performed by a Minimally Invasive Gynaecologist?

Objective: We aimed to explore the abnormal pathology findings in appendix specimens removed based on intraoperative abnormal appearance during elective surgery for benign gynaecological conditions by a minimally invasive gynaecologist, as well as the associated complication rate.

Materials And Methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted in a tertiary referral surgical centre for benign gynaecological conditions between the years 2004-2023. It included patients who underwent appendicectomy by a trained minimally invasive gynaecologist based on observations during surgery for benign gynaecological conditions.

Effectiveness of Neighborhood Care Volunteer Training Programs: A Mixed-Methods Study.

Objective: To develop and implement a tiered training model for neighborhood caregiving volunteers and to evaluate its impact on participants' knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes toward caregiving services.

Design And Methods: We employed a mixed-methods research design. Participants included 32 neighborhood care volunteers and six seed volunteers.

Identification of a Potent CDK8 Inhibitor Using Structure-Based Virtual Screening.

Pulmonary fibrosis is excessive scarring of the lung tissues. Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) has been implicated in pulmonary fibrosis due to its ability to induce the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and promote epithelial cell migration. Cyclin-dependent kinase 8 (CDK8) can mediate the TGF-β signaling pathways and could function as an alternative therapeutic target for treating pulmonary fibrosis.

RBM4-mediated intron excision of Hsf1 induces BDNF for cerebellar foliation.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays important roles in brain development and neural function. Constitutive knockout of the splicing regulator RBM4 reduces BDNF expression in the developing brain and causes cerebellar hypoplasia, an autism-like feature. Here, we show that Rbm4 knockout induced intron 6 retention of Hsf1, leading to downregulation of HSF1 protein and its downstream target BDNF.

HOPX as a tumour-suppressive protein in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

The homeodomain protein homeobox (HOPX), a multifaceted regulator of cellular functions and developmental processes, is predominantly expressed in stem cells across diverse tissues; it has also emerged as a tumour suppressor in various solid cancers. However, its role in haematological malignancies still remains undefined. This study aimed to elucidate its significance in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL).

Treatment with mannose oligosaccharides reverses the intestinal injury in the acetylsalicylic acid-treated rat model.

Mannose oligosaccharide (MOS) has been shown to promote animal growth, maintain intestinal health, and activate the intestinal immune system. However, the question of whether MOS can stimulate the immune system and alleviate acetylsalicylic acid (ASA)-induced gut damage remains unresolved. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of MOS pretreatment on the immunological and anti-inflammatory capabilities of rats with ASA-induced intestinal injury.

Audiological performance and subjective satisfaction of the ADHEAR system in experienced pediatric users with unilateral microtia and aural atresia.

Introduction: Despite the reported auditory deficits and developmental challenges in children with unilateral microtia and aural atresia (UMAA), there remains a lack of consensus on early intervention with bone conduction hearing aids (BCHAs) to restore binaural hearing due to the uncertain clinical benefits and intolerability of the conventional devices. Previous studies investigating the auditory benefits under binaural hearing condition were limited and demonstrated controversial opinions in heterogenous patient groups with various devices. Our study aimed to evaluate the audiological performance, including monoaural and binaural hearing, and subjective satisfaction of the ADHEAR system, a novel adhesive BCHA, in experienced pediatric users with UMAA.