Comprehensive Non-invasive Versus Invasive Approach to Evaluate Cardiac Allograft Vasculopathy in Heart Transplantation: The CCTA-HTx Study.

Background: Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is emerging as a valuable tool for noninvasive surveillance of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) in patients with heart transplant (HTx). We assessed the diagnostic performance of a comprehensive CCTA-based approach compared with the invasive reference, which includes invasive coronary angiography, intravascular ultrasound, and fractional flow reserve, for detecting CAV.

Methods: This was a multicenter prospective study including 37 patients with HTx who underwent CCTA, invasive coronary angiography, intravascular ultrasound, and fractional flow reserve.

Genomic Prediction of Individual Inbreeding Levels for the Management of Genetic Diversity in Populations With Small Effective Size.

In populations of small effective size (N), such as those in conservation programmes, companion animals or livestock species, inbreeding control is essential. Homozygosity-by-descent (HBD) segments provide relevant information in that context, as they allow accurate estimation of the inbreeding coefficient, provide locus-specific information and their length is informative about the "age" of inbreeding. Our objective was to evaluate tools for predicting HBD in future offspring based on parental genotypes, a problem equivalent to identifying segments identical-by-descent (IBD) among the four parental chromosomes.

Eugene Hertoghe (1860-1928): Pioneer in endocrinology and the treatment of hypothyroidism.

Eugène Hertoghe (1860-1928), a Belgian internist and former vice-president of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, made significant contributions to the understanding and treatment of chronic hypothyroidism. He provided a detailed clinical description of the condition, emphasizing its multisystemic manifestations and hereditary aspects. Hertoghe also documented the therapeutic use of thyroid extract, reporting its effectiveness in alleviating symptoms of hypothyroidism.

Donor-derived cell-free DNA in chronic lung allograft dysfunction phenotypes: a pilot study.

Long-term survival after lung transplantation is limited due to chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD), which encompasses two main phenotypes: bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) and restrictive allograft syndrome (RAS). Donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) is a biomarker for (sub)clinical allograft injury and could be a tool for monitoring of lung allograft health across the (pre)clinical spectrum of CLAD. In this proof-of-concept study, we therefore assessed post-transplant plasma dd-cfDNA levels in 20 CLAD patients (11 BOS and 9 RAS) at three consecutive time points free from concurrent infection or acute rejection, during stable condition, preclinical CLAD, and established CLAD ( = 3 × 20 samples).

Deciphering community-level knowledge of obstetric fistula and determinants: perspectives elucidated by ordinal logistic regression.

Background: Obstetric fistula is a significant cause of maternal morbidity in resource-limited settings, where women often suffer due to a lack of prompt access to skilled obstetric services. It is imperative to comprehend and identify the factors that shape community knowledge about obstetric fistula to enhance prevention strategies, enable early detection, and provide support and treatment to affected women. However, there is a substantial gap in the available evidence concerning the level of community knowledge regarding obstetric fistula and its influencing factors within the Ethiopian context.

Solvometallurgical recovery of antimony from waste polyvinyl chloride plastic and co-extraction of organic additives.

Antimony is a critical raw material in Europe wherein for 43% of its market share it is applied in the form of antimony trioxide as a fire retardant in plastics. Currently, antimony recycling from waste plastics does not take place and has been scarcely studied. In this work, a process was developed to extract antimony from a soft PVC material and recover it as SbClO.

'We need to be part of the solution': lessons from the 2024 PPRI Conference on ensuring access to affordable medicines through innovative policies.

On 25-26 April 2024, the 5th PPRI (Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Information) Conference on ensuring equitable access to affordable medicines took place in Vienna (Austria). Twenty-four accepted contributions were presented either as oral presentations or posters, adding to invited keynote lectures, stakeholder debates and workshops. The global multi-stakeholder audience discussed a range of approaches in pharmaceutical policies, which have the potential to successfully and sustainably address current and future challenges in ensuring patient access to affordable medicines globally.

Designing for medication adherence in inflammatory bowel disease: multi-disciplinary approaches for self-administrable biotherapeutics.

Biotherapeutics are among the therapeutics that have revolutionized standard inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) treatment, which was previously limited to mesalamine, 5-aminosalicylic acid, corticosteroids, and classical immunosuppressants. Self-administrable biotherapeutics for IBD would enable home-based treatment and reduce the burden on medical infrastructure. Self-administration is made possible through subcutaneous injectable, oral, and rectal dosage forms.

Normal tissue complication probability modeling for late rectal bleeding after conventional or hypofractionated radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

Purpose: To develop a single NTCP model for grade ≥ 2 late rectal bleeding (G2 LRB) after conventional or hypofractionated radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

Methods And Materials: The development dataset consisted of prostate cancer patients (n = 656) previously randomized to conventional (39 x 2 Gy) or hypofractionated (19 x 3.4 Gy) external beam radiotherapy with N = 89 G2 LRB cases.

Immunotherapy in Penile Cancer: A Systematic Review.

Penile cancer (PeCa) ranks as the 30th most prevalent cancer globally, predominantly affecting populations in developing countries. Phimosis and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection are recognized as the primary risk factors. Early-stage diagnosis typically warrants limited excision or non-invasive therapies.

Clinical pharmacology and pharmaceutical medicine - creation of a new specialist title for physicians in Belgium.

Belgium has a vibrant health eco-system, with world-class universities and hospitals, and a strong presence of pharmaceutical companies, resulting in a substantial contribution to drug development and a high number of clinical trials. Talent development is pivotal for further growth of this eco-system and to attract future professionals. Although physicians play an important role in this complex eco-system, with an estimated 400-450 Belgian physicians presently active in the field of the drug life cycle, Pharmaceutical Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology were not recognized as a speciality in Belgium until recently.

Characterisation of new sources of acrylamide in food marketed in Belgium.

This study provides occurrence data for acrylamide in various foodstuffs, including those covered by Recommendation (EU) 2019/1888, from 210 samples purchased on the Belgian market. Detection frequencies exceeded 84% in potato-based products other than fries, vegetable crisps, black olives, cocoa powders, coffee substitutes and cereals and snacks. Large variations in acrylamide levels were found in cereals and snacks, with no correlation between cereal type or processing.

Micronutrient Seed Coatings of Layered Double Hydroxides Overcome Seedling Toxicity and Improve Micronutrient Uptake in Comparison with Soluble Micronutrient Coatings.

Zinc (Zn), boron (B), and molybdenum (Mo) are micronutrients, essential to crops, which can be efficiently applied to crops via seed coatings. However, fast micronutrient release from soluble seed coatings brings seedling toxicity risks. Hence, this study developed novel Zn-B-Mo slow-release seed coating compounds, i.

Developmental beta-cell death orchestrates the islet's inflammatory milieu by regulating immune system crosstalk.

While pancreatic beta-cell proliferation has been extensively studied, the role of cell death during islet development remains incompletely understood. Using a genetic model of caspase inhibition in beta cells coupled with mathematical modeling, we here discover an onset of beta-cell death in juvenile zebrafish, which regulates beta-cell mass. Histologically, this beta-cell death is underestimated due to phagocytosis by resident macrophages.

Joint EANM/EANO/RANO/SNMMI practice guideline/procedure standard for PET imaging of brain metastases: version 1.0.

This joint practice guideline/procedure standard was collaboratively developed by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM), the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), the European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO), and the PET task force of the Response Assessment in Neurooncology Working Group (PET/RANO). Brain metastases are the most common malignant central nervous system (CNS) tumors. PET imaging with radiolabeled amino acids and to lesser extent [F]FDG has gained considerable importance in the assessment of brain metastases, especially for the differential diagnosis between recurrent metastases and treatment-related changes which remains a limitation using conventional MRI.

Errors in the Spontaneous Language of Survivors of Pediatric Cerebellar Tumors.

Pediatric cerebellar tumor survivors may present with spontaneous language impairments following treatment, but the nature of these impairments is still largely unclear. A recent study by Svaldi et al. (Cerebellum.

Obstacles and drivers in the adoption of Standardized Structured Reporting (SSR): insights from pathologists.

The adoption of Standardized Structured Reporting (SSR) in pathology offers significant potential to improve data consistency, completeness, and interoperability. This study combines quantitative data from an online survey of Belgian pathologists with qualitative insights from focus group interviews to identify key factors influencing SSR implementation. Survey results demonstrate strong support for SSR, particularly in enhancing report uniformity, completeness, and efficiency, especially in multidisciplinary teams and for secondary data use.

Association of real life postural transitions kinematics with fatigue in neurodegenerative and immune diseases.

Fatigue is prevalent in immune-mediated inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, yet its assessment relies largely on patient-reported outcomes, which capture perception but not fluctuations over time. Wearable sensors, like inertial measurement units (IMUs), offer a way to monitor daily activities and evaluate functional capacity. This study investigates the relationship between sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit transitions and self-reported physical and mental fatigue in participants with Parkinson's, Huntington's, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, primary Sjögren's syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease.

Autogene cevumeran with or without atezolizumab in advanced solid tumors: a phase 1 trial.

Effective targeting of somatic cancer mutations to enhance the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy requires an individualized approach. Autogene cevumeran is a uridine messenger RNA lipoplex-based individualized neoantigen-specific immunotherapy designed from tumor-specific somatic mutation data obtained from tumor tissue of each individual patient to stimulate T cell responses against up to 20 neoantigens. This ongoing phase 1 study evaluated autogene cevumeran as monotherapy (n = 30) and in combination with atezolizumab (n = 183) in pretreated patients with advanced solid tumors.

The fastest nonprofessional age group IRONMAN triathletes in the world originate from Europe.

It is well known that elite athletes of specific ethnicities and/or nationalities dominate certain sports disciplines (e.g., East Africans in marathon running).

Energy yield framework to simulate thin film CIGS solar cells and analyze limitations of the technology.

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) solar technology, benchmarked against crystalline silicon (c-Si) PERC PV technology. Utilizing a newly developed energy yield model, we analyzed the performance of CIGS in various environmental scenarios, emphasizing its behavior in low-light conditions and under different temperature regimes. The model demonstrated high accuracy with improved error metrics of normalized mean bias error (nMBE) ~ 1% and normalized root mean square error (nRMSE) of  ~ 8%-20% in simulating rack mounted setup and integrated PV systems.

Reference intervals of work ability and productivity loss and their use in patients with inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases.

Objectives: To establish reference intervals (RIs) for work ability, at-work productivity loss and overall productivity loss in the general working population and to compare work ability and at-work productivity loss of patients with inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease (iRMD) with this population.

Methods: Cross-sectional analysis among patients with iRMDs and population controls without iRMDs having paid work and participating in a Dutch cohort study. They reported on three work outcomes: work ability (0-10), at-work productivity loss and overall productivity loss (0%-100%).

Relationship between vaginal and gut microbiome and pregnancy outcomes in eastern Ethiopia: a protocol for a longitudinal maternal-infant cohort study (the EthiOMICS study).

Introduction: Although evidence exists on the impact of microbiota on pregnancy outcomes in many high-resource settings, there is a lack of research in many low-resource settings like Ethiopia. This study aims to fill this gap by studying the gut and vaginal microbiota changes throughout pregnancy and assess how these changes relate to pregnancy outcomes among a cohort of pregnant women in eastern Ethiopia.

Methods And Analysis: Vaginal and stool samples will be collected using DNA/RNA Shield Collection kits three times starting at 12-22 weeks, 28-36 weeks and at birth (within 7 days).