Global epidemiology of acute kidney injury in hospitalised patients with decompensated cirrhosis: the International Club of Ascites GLOBAL AKI prospective, multicentre, cohort study.

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a serious complication of cirrhosis. A systematic, global characterisation of AKI occurring in patients with cirrhosis is lacking. We therefore aimed to assess global differences in the characteristics, management, and outcomes of AKI in hospitalised patients with cirrhosis.

Awareness of genomic testing among patients with breast cancer in Europe.

Purpose: Genomic testing, involving expression profiling of tumour tissue, is a powerful tool for determining appropriate treatments for certain cancer patients. This study aimed to evaluate awareness of genomic testing in breast cancer patients in five European countries.

Methods: The survey was initiated by Cancer Patients Europe and developed with patient associations, oncologists, and a psycho-oncologist.

A synthesis of meta-analyses of immersive virtual reality interventions in pain.

The severity and impact of pain can vary greatly, even in individuals with the same physical injury. This variation underscores the need for a variety of treatment strategies in effective pain management. Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that has been used as a treatment in diverse pain populations and for diverse indications.

Preserving potential: Surgeons as key partners in establishing a living sarcoma biobank for translational research purposes.

Background: Sarcoma is a rare type of cancer, of which over 70 distinct molecular subtypes are known. Because these tumours are so rare and complex, treatment outcomes have remained similar over the past decades and research is progressing slowly. For these rare cancers, personalised medicine and patient-derived models might pose solutions for therapeutic problems, but researchers depend on clinicians to access fresh, viable tumour tissue.

High-uniformity, low-cost, ultra-dense arrays of Au-capped plastic nanopillars fabricated via nanoimprint lithography as reliable SERS substrates.

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is gradually becoming a powerful tool for the fabrication of periodic nanostructures. This method can offer a more cost-effective solution for large-scale manufacturing compared to methods that only rely on deep ultraviolet (DUV) immersion, since the product of DUV immersion can be utilized as a Si mold to fabricate a reusable plastic stamp mold. In this work, arrays of plastic nanopillars coated with nanostructured gold film exhibiting ultra density prepared through NIL and Au sputtering are successfully developed.

The influence of self-experienced iconic finger-postures on numerical processing: Hemispheric asymmetries in semantic integration.

Embodied cognition theories suggest that abstract concepts, like numbers, are understood through the sensory-motor system. Iconic finger gestures have been shown to facilitate number processing, implying a shared semantic code between finger and Arabic numeral representations. This study used the Divided Visual Field paradigm to investigate where this cross-modal priming occurs in the brain.

Anthropogenic increase in organic carbon production and burial in two tropical Mexican crater lakes.

Lakes bury significant amounts of organic carbon (OC) in their sediments contributing to the removal of carbon from the short-term carbon cycle. Mounting evidence points to broadscale increases in lake OC burial rates under growing human perturbation; however, the extent and mechanisms giving rise to this trend are not well understood in the context of tropical regions. We sought to expand knowledge of natural and anthropogenic controls of lake carbon cycling at lower latitudes by investigating four centuries of changes in the carbon sink of two tropical lakes in Central Mexico.

Percutaneous Coronary Treatment With Bioadaptor Implant vs Drug-Eluting Stent: 2-Year Outcomes From BIOADAPTOR RCT.

Background: The sirolimus-eluting bioadaptor is a novel coronary implant that unlocks, separates, and maintains dynamic support of the vessel at the lesion site 6 months after percutaneous coronary intervention when the polymer coating covering the helical strands resorbs. This enables the bioadaptor to maintain the established flow lumen and to restore hemodynamic modulation of the artery, including cyclic pulsatility, vasomotion, and adaptive remodeling.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to report the first randomized clinical evidence of the DynamX bioadaptor implant through 2 years compared with the Resolute Onyx contemporary drug-eluting stent.

Phosphate Flame Retardants and Plasticizers and Their Association with Reproductive and Steroid Hormone Levels among Peripubertal-Aged Children: The Hokkaido Birth Cohort Study.

This cross-sectional study investigated associations between exposure to organophosphate flame retardants and plasticizers (PFRs) and reproductive and steroid hormones in peripubertal children from the Hokkaido Birth Cohort (429 children aged 9-12 years; between September 2017 and March 2020). Thirteen urinary PFR metabolites and 14 plasma steroid hormones were investigated using LC-MS/MS and four reproductive hormones were investigated using immunoassays. Linear regression for single PFR, quantile g-computation, and Bayesian machine kernel regression (BKMR) models for the PFR mixtures were used to examine the association between hormones and PFRs.

Improving lung cancer pathological hyperspectral diagnosis through cell-level annotation refinement.

Lung cancer remains a major global health challenge, and accurate pathological examination is crucial for early detection. This study aims to enhance hyperspectral pathological image analysis by refining annotations at the cell level and creating a high-quality hyperspectral dataset of lung tumors. We address the challenge of coarse manual annotations in hyperspectral lung cancer datasets, which limit the effectiveness of deep learning models requiring precise labels for training.

Paracentric inversion disrupting the SHANK2 gene.

In this study, we employed a multifaceted approach combining short-read whole genome sequencing (WGS) analyzed using Delly, cytogenomics using Bionano technology, and Sanger sequencing to identify the breakpoints of a balanced de novo paracentric inversion on chromosome 11, spanning approximately 64 Mb (inv11q13.3; q25). This inversion was discovered in a girl who presented with mild intellectual disability (ID), speech and language delays, a delay in motor development and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Variability of antimicrobial susceptibility of commensal Neisseria species supports its use as a marker of excessive antimicrobial consumption - reflections from the results of a four-country study.

This perspective explores the utility of commensal Neisseria species as an early warning sign of excessive antimicrobial consumption. Little is known as to how the prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility of various commensal Neisseria species varies between populations around the world. We compared the prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibilities of oral commensal Neisseria species in the general population and cohorts of men who have sex with men (MSM) in four countries with available data - Belgium, Italy, Japan and Vietnam.

The value of spray drying as stabilization process for proteins.

Protein stability in solution state is often poor due to the intrinsic instability of proteins. A solution is to solidify them by using techniques like freeze or spray drying (SD). To shield therapeutic proteins from stress (e.

Adapting radiation therapy to immunotherapy: Delineation and treatment planning of pre-operative immune-modulating breast iSBRT in 151 patients treated in the randomized phase II Neo-CheckRay trial.

Background And Purpose: The randomized multicentric phase II Neo-CheckRay trial investigated preoperative immune-modulating stereotactic body radiation therapy (iSBRT) 8 Gy x 3 fractions in combination with chemotherapy with or without the anti PD-L1 durvalumab and the anti-CD73 oleclumab in early-stage, high-risk, luminal B breast cancer. iSBRT was solely delivered to the primary breast cancer leveraging on its immune modulating potential to sustain an anti-tumour response. To avoid immunosuppression induced by radiation therapy (RT), the tumour draining lymph nodes (TDLN) were spared.

Points to consider for revising the ICH S7A guideline on safety and secondary pharmacology.

Although the ICH S7A guideline on safety pharmacology largely achieved its objective, a proportion of remaining adverse drug reactions and attrition can be attributed in part to gaps in safety and secondary pharmacology assessments. Advances in science, technology, drug development paradigm and regulatory practices necessitate revisiting and evolving ICH S7A to address these limitations. The anticipated completion of the ICH S7B Q&As by end of 2025 provides an opportunity to integrate its outcomes with ICH S7A into a comprehensive, modality-agnostic sustainable over time framework.

The impact of systemic blockade of dopamine receptors on the acquisition of two-way active avoidance in male rats.

Active threat avoidance is a core aspect of adaptive and maladaptive behavior, yet its underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Prior studies concluded that pharmacologically blocking dopaminergic receptors (DRs) disrupted avoidance acquisition, but it remains unclear whether such effects on learning persist during a drug-free follow-up test. To assess the involvement of D1R and D2R in avoidance acquisition, we conducted two experiments.

Discrepancy between parallel anti-Xa and APTT is related to mortality in patients with Impella™ supported cardiogenic shock.

Background: Managing unfractionated heparin (UFH) during percutaneous mechanical circulatory support (PMCS) for cardiogenic shock (CS) is challenging due potential discrepancies between coagulation tests.

Objectives: To study the causes and consequences of discrepancies between anti-Xa and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) for UFH-monitoring during micro-axial flow pump support (Impella™) for CS.

Patients/methods: We assessed patients in CS supported with Impella™ in two tertiary care centres over 62 months.

Interrater reliability of the SPARK36, a novel instrument to guide preventive nurse-led consultations with parents of three-year olds.

Introduction: We aimed to evaluate the interrater reliability of the Structured Problem Analysis of Raising Kids aged 36 months (SPARK36). The instrument guides Youth Health Care nurses during a parent-child consultation in assessing the risk for child developmental and parenting problems.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Flemish School Health Services using a convenience sample of parents and their three-year-olds from January until June 2022.

Biometry combining Scheimpflug imaging and partial coherence interferometry versus standard partial coherence interferometry biometry.

Purpose: To compare measurements of mean keratometry (K), axial length (AL), Jackson first and second astigmatism vector (J0 and J45), astigmatism magnitude, white-to-white (WTW) diameter and anterior chamber depth (ACD) values between two biometers, the Pentacam® AXL and the IOL Master 500.

Setting: Public hospital in Belgium.

Design: Retrospective instrument reliability analysis.

Identification of health-related needs: The needs examination, evaluation and dissemination (NEED) assessment framework.

Innovation in healthcare is highly supply-driven, leading to underinvestment in less profitable health areas, unmet needs and inefficient use of public resources. This study proposes a framework to structure the identification of health-related patient and societal needs across different health conditions, supporting the evolution towards needs-driven healthcare policy and innovation. The Needs Examination, Evaluation and Dissemination (NEED) assessment framework was based on the results of two systematic literature reviews and stakeholder and expert consultation.

Multiple job holding and its influencing factors among Belgian nurses: A cross-sectional study.

Multiple job holding (MJH), historically referred to as moonlighting, is increasingly recognized among healthcare workers, yet it remains underexplored among nurses. This study investigates the prevalence and motivations for MJH among nurses in Belgium. Using a cross-sectional survey, data were collected in 924 nurses between November 2022 and March 2023.

Long-term survival for myeloid neoplasms and national health expenditure: A EUROCARE-6 retrospective, population-based study.

Background: EUROCARE, a European population-based cancer project, has shown geographical survival disparities for myeloid neoplasms (MN) suggesting healthcare inequalities. Total National Health Expenditure (TNHE) might influence population-based MN survival. We studied the long-term survival of 15 MN and the TNHE impact on prognosis between European countries.

Data Interoperability in COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Methodological Approach in the VACCELERATE Project.

Background: Data standards are not only key to making data processing efficient but also fundamental to ensuring data interoperability. When clinical trial data are structured according to international standards, they become significantly easier to analyze, reducing the efforts required for data cleaning, preprocessing, and secondary use. A common language and a shared set of expectations facilitate interoperability between systems and devices.