Publications by authors named "WOOD R"

Whether metazoan diversification during the Cambrian Radiation was driven by increased marine oxygenation remains highly debated. Repeated global oceanic oxygenation events have been inferred during this interval, but the degree of shallow marine oxygenation and its relationship to biodiversification and clade appearance remain uncertain. To resolve this, we interrogate an interval from ~527 to 519 Ma, encompassing multiple proposed global oceanic oxygenation events.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The authors utilized patient-reported outcomes from a large U.S. behavioral health care system to evaluate the strength of improvements in patients' self-perceived recovery during mental health treatment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: Evaluate glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) and weight changes after 6 months of once-weekly (QW) injectable glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) therapy in UK primary care.

Materials And Methods: Retrospective, non-interventional study, using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum primary care database, identified adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D) newly initiating a QW injectable GLP-1 RA between January 2020 and November 2021. Dual primary outcomes were proportion of patients with (1) HbA1c < 7% (<53 mmol/mol) and (2) weight loss categories (from 0% to 15+%) after 6 months of continuous GLP-1 RA therapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The Heineke-Mikulicz anoplasty (HMA) is a technique for addressing skin-level postoperative strictures following posterior sagittal anorectoplasty (PSARP) and posterior sagittal anorectovaginourethroplasty (PSARVUP). We aimed to evaluate the long-term outcomes with HMA as a treatment for postoperative anal strictures.

Methods: A retrospective review was conducted for patients with a history of ARM who underwent HMA for skin-level anal strictures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: As induction of labor increases in the United States, safe, effective outpatient cervical ripening has been explored as a method to decrease the inpatient time burden. The most effective method of outpatient mechanical cervical ripening remains unclear.

Objective: To evaluate if Dilapan-S is non-inferior to cervical balloon for outpatient cervical ripening (CR) based on change in Bishop score.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A novel modification of the cutback procedure, a posterior rectal advancement anoplasty (PRAA) for select male patients with an anorectal malformation and a rectoperineal fistula was recently described which incised only within the limits of the sphincteric ellipse and eliminated an anterior rectal dissection, thus avoiding any possibility of a urethral injury. This report provides longer term postoperative outcomes after PRAA. Method A retrospective, single institution study was performed examining male patients with a rectoperineal fistula between 1/2020-12/2023.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Predicting disease-related molecular traits from histomorphology brings great opportunities for precision medicine. Despite the rich information present in histopathological images, extracting fine-grained molecular features from standard whole slide images (WSI) is non-trivial. The task is further complicated by the lack of annotations for subtyping and contextual histomorphological features that might span multiple scales.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

BACKGROUNDCow's milk (CM) allergy is the most common food allergy in young children. Treatment with oral immunotherapy (OIT) has shown efficacy, but high rates of adverse reactions. The aim of this study was to determine whether baked milk OIT (BMOIT) could reduce adverse reactions while still inducing desensitization, and to identify immunological correlates of successful BMOIT.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Persistent throat symptoms (PTS) are indicators for over 60 000 new patient referrals to NHS secondary care annually. PTS have been attributed to manifestation of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) with the hypothesis that gastric refluxate damages and irritates the mucosa of the upper aerodigestive tract. Symptoms of PTS and GORD are commonly treated with proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) or alginates are often, incorrectly, advocated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Glendonites (from the precursor of ikaite, CaCO.6HO) preferentially precipitate within sediments in cold waters (- 2 to 7°C) via either organotrophic or methanogenic sulphate reduction. Here, we report the first occurrence of possible glendonites associated with the end Permian mass extinction in the earliest Triassic (ca.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Many aquatic organisms utilize suction-based organs to adhere to diverse substrates in unpredictable environments. For multiple fish species, these adhesive discs include a softer disc margin consisting of surface structures called papillae, which stabilize and seal on variable substrates. The size, arrangement, and density of these papillae are quite diverse among different species, generating complex disc patterns produced by these structures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

It is well known that the sedimentary rock record is both incomplete and biased by spatially highly variable rates of sedimentation. Without absolute age constraints of sufficient resolution, the temporal correlation of spatially disjunct records is therefore problematic and uncertain, but these effects have rarely been analysed quantitatively using signal processing methods. Here we use a computational process model to illustrate and analyse how spatial and temporal geochemical records can be biased by the inherent, heterogenous processes of marine sedimentation and preservation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Rhinoconjunctivitis phenotypes are conventionally described on the basis of symptom severity, duration and seasonality, and aeroallergen sensitization. It is not known whether these phenotypes fully reflect the patterns of symptoms seen at a population level.

Objective: We sought to identify phenotypes of rhinoconjunctivitis on the basis of symptom intensity and seasonality using an unbiased approach and to compare their characteristics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Tongue swab (TS) sampling combined with quantitative PCR (qPCR) shows promise as an alternative to sputum testing for tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis, although previous studies indicated lower sensitivity.
  • Two strategies were evaluated to enhance sensitivity: one involved centrifugation to concentrate MTB DNA, achieving 83% sensitivity and 100% specificity, while the other utilized sequence-specific magnetic capture, resulting in 90% sensitivity and 97% specificity.
  • These findings suggest that with further development, these methods could lead to more accessible and effective TB testing options.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Large-scale studies are essential to investigate the gut microbiota's complex relationships with health and disease, and tissue preservation methods need evaluation for feasibility in such research.
  • Biopsies from 20 adults with inflammatory bowel disease were preserved using three methods: flash freezing, nucleic acid preservative reagents, and formalin fixation with paraffin embedding (FFPE), with microbiota analyzed using sequencing.
  • Results showed that while preservative reagents can serve as viable alternatives to flash freezing, FFPE samples exhibited distinct community structures, highlighting the potential utility of historical samples despite differences in microbial profiles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Refractory constipation (RC) in children is a unique condition that significantly affects the quality of life for both patients and their families.
  • Effective treatment for RC necessitates specialized diagnostic assessments and management strategies, often requiring a team of experts including pediatric neurogastroenterologists and potentially surgeons.
  • This document marks the first official position by the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition addressing RC, outlining its definition, evaluation processes, and management approaches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Appendicular central osteosarcoma (OSA) is a common and highly aggressive tumour in dogs. Metastatic disease to the lungs is common and even with chemotherapy the prognosis is generally poor. However, few cases survive well beyond reported median survival times.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNA molecules that are present in all cell types and bodily fluids and are commonly dysregulated in cancer. miRNAs in cancer have been studied by measuring levels in cell lines, tumour tissues, and in circulation; however, no study has specifically investigated miRNA expression in patient-matched samples across all three sample types. Canine osteosarcoma is a well-established spontaneously occurring model of human osteosarcoma for which matched samples are available.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Optimizing mechanical adhesion to specific human tissue types is a field of research that has gained increasing attention over the past two decades due to its utility for diagnostics, therapeutics, and surgical device design. This is especially relevent for medical devices, which could benefit from the presence of attachment mechanisms in order to better target-specific regions of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract or other soft tissues for sensing, sample collection, and drug release. In this work, and inspired by the tissue anchoring adaptations found in diverse parasitic taxa, we present a design and manufacturing platform for the production of a nonintuitive bioinspired millimeter-scale articulated attachment mechanism using laminate fabrication techniques.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: We aimed to study the impact of anorectal malformation (ARM) type and sacral ratio on continence outcomes in children. We secondarily aimed to compare continence outcomes by age group and determine quality of life (QoL) with different bowel regimens.

Summary Background Data: Children with ARM experience dysfunctional stooling into adulthood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: With declining HIV-related mortality, over 20% of people with HIV (PWH) in South Africa are now over age 50 years, and tobacco-related non-communicable disease burden is increasing. We quantified the impact of smoking and smoking cessation on lung cancer and stroke incidence among PWH in South Africa.

Methods: Using a microsimulation model, we simulated 18 cohorts of initially virologically suppressed PWH over their lifetime, categorised by sex, initial age (35 years/45 years/55 years) and smoking status (current/former/never).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Peanut allergy is a common, life-threatening food allergy in children. We evaluated whether dupilumab, which blocks the activity of interleukin (IL)-4/IL-13, enhances the efficacy of oral immunotherapy (OIT) AR101 in pediatric patients with peanut allergy.

Methods: A Phase II, multicenter, randomized, double-blind study was conducted in the USA (NCT03682770) in pediatric patients (6-≤ 17 years old) with confirmed peanut allergy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Hirschsprung associated enterocolitis (HAEC) is a challenging problem in a subset of children with Hirschsprung disease (HD). In refractory cases, fecal diversion may be required. The aim of this study was to characterize patients who require fecal diversion for HAEC management and examine their long-term outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Colonic manometry catheter placement can be performed by colonoscopy or fluoroscopy. Our objective was to compare outcomes of colonoscopic to fluoroscopic catheter placement in children based on the extent of colon study and the likelihood of catheter displacement.

Methods: Colonic manometry studies performed between May 2015 and May 2022 were reviewed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF