Publications by authors named "W E Stephens"
is a genus of anaerobic, gram-positive bacteria commonly found in mammalian gastrointestinal tracts. Yet, how variations among different strains can impact host health is poorly understood. We present a sp.
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- Cachexia, a condition linked to cancer and associated with a poor prognosis, accounts for about 20% of cancer-related deaths, yet the connection between Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn) and cachexia in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unclear.
- In a study involving 87 CRC patients, researchers found that high levels of Fn in pre-surgical stool samples significantly increased the risk of developing cachexia six months after surgery.
- These results are the first to connect Fn abundance with cachexia in CRC, highlighting potential biological mechanisms and treatment avenues; however, the study's small sample size calls for more research to confirm these findings.
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- The study aimed to evaluate whether a standardized root cause analysis (RCA2) selection algorithm by the Veterans Affairs would effectively identify high-risk events for further investigation.
- Researchers analyzed a year's worth of physician-reported incident data to assess potential harm and frequency, applying specific scoring systems to classify the events.
- Results showed that the RCA2 algorithm recommended investigating 56.7% of safety events, significantly more than the current process which only identified 17.3%, indicating that the standardized approach could improve patient safety evaluations.
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- Self-reactive T cells in autoimmune diseases can persist and function well without showing typical exhaustion symptoms, despite being exposed to the same antigens over time.
- Research showed that these autoimmune CD4 T cells maintain TCF1 expression even in the absence of infectious signals, which is crucial for their continued function.
- The study also indicated that the Tcf7 gene undergoes specific epigenetic changes during the early stages of autoimmune T cell differentiation, helping to explain why these cells can survive and remain active for longer periods.
Objectives Incident reporting is vital to a culture of safety; however, physicians report at an alarmingly low rate. This study aimed to identify barriers to incident reporting among surgeons at a quaternary care center. Methods A survey was created utilizing components of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) validated survey on patient safety culture.
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