INternational Soft Tissue saRcoma ConsorTium (INSTRuCT) consensus statement: Imaging recommendations for the management of rhabdomyosarcoma.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft-tissue neoplasm in the pediatric population. The survival of children with rhabdomyosarcoma has only marginally improved over the past 25 years and remains poor for those with metastatic disease. A significant challenge to advances in treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma is the relative rarity of this disease, necessitating years to complete clinical trials.

Depressive symptoms are associated with fatigue, poorer functional status and less engagement in sports in axSpA and PsA: an analysis from the RABBIT-SpA cohort.

Background: In patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) or psoriatic arthritis (PsA), concomitant depression might have a negative impact on the course of disease and treatment outcomes. The aims of this analysis are to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms in axSpA and PsA patients in a real-world cohort study and to identify sociodemographic and clinical associated factors for moderate or severe depressive symptoms in both diseases.

Methods: Patients from the RABBIT-SpA cohort with an axSpA or PsA diagnosis and a valid WHO-5 Well-Being Index score at baseline were included.

Effects of the COVID-19 early pandemic on delivery outcomes among women with and without COVID-19 at birth.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic may influence delivery outcomes through direct effects of infection or indirect effects of disruptions in prenatal care. We examined early pandemic-related changes in birth outcomes for pregnant women with and without a COVID-19 diagnosis at delivery.

Methods: We compared four delivery outcomes-preterm delivery (PTD), severe maternal morbidity (SMM), stillbirth, and cesarean birth-between 2017 and 2019 (prepandemic) and between April and December 2020 (early-pandemic) using interrupted time series models on 11.

A cost-effective and enhanced mesenchymal stem cell expansion platform with internal plasma-activated biofunctional interfaces.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) used for clinical applications require expansion to achieve therapeutically relevant numbers. However, conventional planar cell expansion approaches using tissue culture vessels are inefficient, costly, and can trigger MSC phenotypic and functional decline. Here we present a one-step dry plasma process to modify the internal surfaces of three-dimensional (3D) printed, high surface area to volume ratio (high-SA:V) porous scaffolds as platforms for stem cell expansion.

pH-Responsive Dynaplexes as Potent Apoptosis Inductors by Intracellular Delivery of Survivin siRNA.

Gene knockdown by siRNA offers an unrestricted choice of targets and specificity based on the principle of complementary Watson-Crick base pairing with mRNA. However, the negative charge, large molecular size, and susceptibility to enzymatic degradation of siRNA impede its successful transfection, hence limiting its potential for therapeutic use. The development of efficient and safe siRNA transfection agents is, therefore, critical for siRNA-based therapy.

Outcomes After Preoperative Chemoradiation With or Without Pazopanib in Non-Rhabdomyosarcoma Soft Tissue Sarcoma: A Report From Children's Oncology Group and NRG Oncology.

JCO ARST1321 was a phase II study designed to compare the near complete pathologic response rate after preoperative chemoradiation with/without pazopanib in children and adults with intermediate-/high-risk chemotherapy-sensitive body wall/extremity non-Rhabdomyosarcoma Soft Tissue Sarcoma (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02180867). Enrollment was stopped early following a predetermined interim analysis that found the rate of near complete pathologic response to be significantly greater with the addition of pazopanib.

Single-dose pharmacokinetics and lung function of nebulized niclosamide ethanolamine in sheep.

Purpose: Niclosamide is approved as an oral anthelminthic, but its low oral bioavailability hinders its medical use requiring high drug exposure outside the gastrointestinal tract. An optimized solution of niclosamide for nebulization and intranasal administration using the ethanolamine salt has been developed and tested in a Phase 1 trial. In this study we investigate the pulmonary exposure of niclosamide following administration via intravenous injection, oral administration or nebulization.

Endocrine Therapy for Surgeons: Practical Pearls for Managing Menopausal, Bone Loss and Sexual Adverse Effects.

Breast cancer patients are living longer than ever before and as such the population of breast cancer survivors continues to grow. Approximately 80% of breast cancers are hormone receptor-positive (HR+) and most patients will receive neoadjuvant or adjuvant estrogen blockade, referred to as endocrine therapy. Although endocrine therapy reduces HR+ breast cancer recurrence by 30-50%, significant adverse effects pose a threat to treatment adherence.

Phenotypic Profiling of Human Stem Cell-Derived Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is linked to a range of cell biological processes that cause midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neuron loss. Many current in vitro PD cellular models lack complexity and do not take multiple phenotypes into account. Phenotypic profiling in human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived mDA neurons can address these shortcomings by simultaneously measuring a range of neuronal phenotypes in a PD-relevant cell type in parallel.

Incidence, Prevalence, and Racial and Ethnic Distribution of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in the United States.

Background & Aims: We sought to estimate the incidence, prevalence, and racial-ethnic distribution of physician-diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in the United States.

Methods: The study used 4 administrative claims data sets: a 20% random sample of national fee-for-service Medicare data (2007 to 2017); Medicaid data from Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and California (1999 to 2012); and commercial health insurance data from Anthem beneficiaries (2006 to 2018) and Optum's deidentified Clinformatics Data Mart (2000 to 2017). We used validated combinations of medical diagnoses, diagnostic procedures, and prescription medications to identify incident and prevalent diagnoses.

Autologous breast reconstruction with latissimus dorsi flap in obese patients: Time-to-event analysis.

Background: Obesity is a multisystem disease process that confers increased surgical risk. In patients who are not surgical candidates for breast reconstruction with implants/tissue expanders or abdomen-based flaps, the latissimus dorsi flap (LDF) remains a versatile alternative due to its safety profile. We conducted an analysis of patients who underwent reconstruction with LDFs and compared outcomes between two groups: obese and nonobese patients.

A review of wear debris in thumb base joint implants.

Aim: Polymers and metals, such as polyethylene (PE) and cobalt chrome (CoCr), are common materials used in thumb-based joint implants, also known as CMC (Carpometacarpal) arthroplasty. The purpose of this review was to investigate the reported failure modes related to wear debris from these type of materials in CMC implants. The impact of wear debris on clinical outcomes of CMC implants was also examined.

Children's Oncology Group 2023 blueprint for research: Adolescent and young adult oncology.

Over the past few decades, 5-year cancer survival has steadily improved for all adolescents and young adults (AYA, 15-39 years at diagnosis) combined. While encouraging, this progress simultaneously highlights a compelling need for improving survival in higher risk AYA subsets and for addressing health outcomes and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among long-term survivors. The Children's Oncology Group (COG), in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the adult network groups within the NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), has developed a large and growing portfolio of therapeutic AYA cancer clinical trials to identify optimal treatment approaches for common AYA cancers.

Intraoperative Pathology Assessment May Lead to Overtreatment of the Axilla in Clinically Node-Negative Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Upfront Mastectomy.

Background: Randomized trials have established the safety of observation or axillary radiation (AxRT) as an alternative to axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in patients with limited nodal disease who undergo upfront surgery. Variability remains in axillary management strategies in cN0 patients undergoing mastectomy found to have one to two positive sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs). We examined the impact of intraoperative pathology assessment in axillary management in a national cohort of AMAROS-eligible mastectomy patients.

Children's Oncology Group's 2023 blueprint for research: Soft tissue sarcomas.

In the United States, approximately 850-900 children and adolescents each year are diagnosed with soft tissue sarcomas (STS). STS are divided into rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) and non-rhabdomyosarcoma STS (NRSTS). RMS and NRSTS are risk stratified into low-, intermediate-, and high-risk categories, with 5-year survival rates of approximately 90%, 50%-70%, and 20%, respectively.

Machine learning using institution-specific multi-modal electronic health records improves mortality risk prediction for cardiac surgery patients.

Background: The Society of Thoracic Surgeons risk scores are widely used to assess risk of morbidity and mortality in specific cardiac surgeries but may not perform optimally in all patients. In a cohort of patients undergoing cardiac surgery, we developed a data-driven, institution-specific machine learning-based model inferred from multi-modal electronic health records and compared the performance with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons models.

Methods: All adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery between 2011 and 2016 were included.

Alterations of fractional anisotropy throughout cortico-basal ganglia gray matter in a macaque model of Huntington's Disease.

We recently generated a nonhuman primate (NHP) model of the neurodegenerative disorder Huntington's disease (HD) using adeno-associated viral vectors to express a fragment of mutant HTT protein (mHTT) throughout the cortico-basal ganglia circuit. Previous work by our group established that mHTT-treated NHPs exhibit progressive motor and cognitive phenotypes which are accompanied by mild volumetric reductions of cortical-basal ganglia structures and reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) in the white matter fiber pathways interconnecting these regions, mirroring findings observed in early-stage HD patients. Given the mild structural atrophy observed in cortical and sub-cortical gray matter regions characterized in this model using tensor-based morphometry, the current study sought to query potential microstructural alterations in the same gray matter regions using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), to define early biomarkers of neurodegenerative processes in this model.

Association between one abnormal value on 3-hour oral glucose tolerance test and adverse perinatal outcomes in twin gestation.

Aim: To investigate whether women with twin gestation and one abnormal value on the diagnostic 3-hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) are at an increased risk of adverse perinatal outcomes.

Methods: This was a retrospective multicenter study of women with twin gestation, comparing four groups: (1) normal 50-g screening, (2) normal 100-g 3-hour OGTT, (3) one abnormal value on the 3-hour OGTT, and (4) GDM. Multivariable logistic regressions adjusted for maternal age, gravidity, parity, previous CDs, fertility treatments, smoking, obesity and chorionicity were used.

Cyberbullying and the Faculty Victim Experience: Perceptions and Outcomes.

Cyberbullying affects US youth, adolescents, and adults and can occur in various settings. Among the academic literature exploring cyberbullying, most discuss cyberbullying of youth and adolescents within the K-12 academic setting. While some studies address cyberbullying targeting adults, a limited amount of research has been conducted on the topic of cyberbullying among adults within the higher education context.

Prescribing electroconvulsive therapy for depression: Not as simple as it used to be.

In the last century, prescribing electroconvulsive therapy usually involved considering the relative merits of unilateral versus bilateral electroconvulsive therapy, with most other parameters fixed. However, research over the last 30 years has discovered that several parameters of the electroconvulsive therapy stimulus can have a significant impact on efficacy and cognitive side effects. The stimulus dose relative to seizure threshold was shown to significantly affect efficacy, especially for right unilateral electroconvulsive therapy, where suprathreshold doses in the vicinity of 5-6 times seizure threshold were far more efficacious than doses closer to threshold.

Polyglycerol sebacate-based elastomeric materials for arterial regeneration.

Synthetic vascular grafts are commonly used in patients with severe occlusive arterial disease when autologous grafts are not an option. Commercially available synthetic grafts are confronted with challenging outcomes: they have a lower patency rate than autologous grafts and are currently unable to promote arterial regeneration. Polyglycerol sebacate (PGS), a non-toxic polymer with a tunable degradation profile, has shown promising results as a small-diameter vascular graft component that can support the formation of neoarteries.