Endometriosis and risk of depression among oral contraceptive users: a pooled analysis of cohort studies from 13 countries.

Study Question: Does endometriosis affect the mental health of women using oral contraceptives?

Summary Answer: Among oral contraceptive users, women with endometriosis have a higher risk of depression compared to those without endometriosis, although the absolute risk increase is small.

What Is Known Already: Previous studies have suggested a potential link between endometriosis and mental health issues, but the impact of endometriosis on depression among oral contraceptive users remains unclear.

Study Design, Size, Duration: A secondary pooled cohort study utilizing data from two longitudinal patient-centric studies (INAS-VIPOS and PRO-E2) was conducted across 11 European countries, Colombia and Australia.

Active Components in Internet-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: A Randomized Full Factorial Trial.

Introduction: Many studies have demonstrated that social anxiety disorder (SAD) can be effectively treated with psychotherapy, particularly cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), including internet-based CBT (ICBT). Despite evidence-based treatments, many individuals do not sufficiently benefit from them. Identifying the active components could help improve the effectiveness of SAD treatment.

Low-grade infections in nonunion of the femur and tibia without clinical suspicion of infection - Incidence, microbiology, treatment, and outcome.

Treatment algorithms for fracture nonunion depend on the presence or absence of bacterial infection. However, it is often impossible to identify infection preoperatively. While some infections may present with clinical signs of infection, low-grade infections lack infection signs and have a clinical presentation similar to aseptic nonunion.

Perfusion-MRI for differentiating cerebral metastatic lesions and gliomas: An evidence-based review.

Background: Lesions affecting the brain are variable and have multiple pathologies. Brain metastasis is a common entity of lesions that can be misleading in diagnosis. Brain metastasis affects the patient's life and survival in about 40% of cases; all patients with metastatic brain lesions are indicated for surgery, so proper diagnosis is crucial for each patient.

Asian Thoracic Oncology Research Group expert consensus statement on the peri-operative management of non-small cell lung cancer.

The peri-operative management of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in earlier stage disease has seen significant advances in recent years with the incorporation of immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapy. However, many unanswered questions and challenges remain, including the application of clinical trial data to routine clinical practice. Recognising the unique demographic profile of Asian patients with NSCLC and heterogeneous healthcare systems, the Asian Thoracic Oncology Research Group (ATORG) convened a consensus meeting in Singapore on 26 April 2024 to discuss relevant issues spanning diagnostic testing to post-neoadjuvant treatment considerations and future directions.

Land carbon sink function variation across bedrock types in Southwest China.

Terrestrial ecosystem carbon sinks are a natural deposit that absorbs carbon from the atmosphere. A stable land carbon sink facilitates more reliable predictions of carbon sequestration under changing climate conditions. In contrast, a highly variable land carbon sink will introduce significant uncertainty into model predictions.

Seasonal variation in myasthenia gravis incidence.

Introduction: Environmental factors may contribute to myasthenia gravis (MG) development, sometimes with seasonal patterns of exposure. However, whether seasonality has an impact on MG incidence remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the association between seasonality and MG onset.

Are horned cows in loose housing more stressed than hornless cows? a cross-sectional study in organic dairy farms.

In commercial dairy farming, the majority of cows are dehorned or genetically hornless. It is argued that this reduces the risk of injurious and stressful social conflicts. On the other hand, in horned herds, management and housing may be better adapted to the cows, e.

Gender Gap? A Survey among Plastic Surgeons in Germany.

Introduction: There is an ongoing increase in the percentage of females in the field of Plastic Surgery in Germany. Currently, 29,1% of fellows and 46% of residents in Germany are female. Several studies have pointed out the various obstacles that female doctors, especially female plastic surgeons, are confronted with in their professional life.

Utilizing natural language processing to identify pediatric patients experiencing status epilepticus.

Purpose: Compare the identification of patients with established status epilepticus (ESE) and refractory status epilepticus (RSE) in electronic health records (EHR) using human review versus natural language processing (NLP) assisted review.

Methods: We reviewed EHRs of patients aged 1 month to 21 years from Boston Children's Hospital (BCH). We included all patients with convulsive ESE or RSE during admission.

Evaluation of therapy support through a standardized nursing consultation for patients undergoing oral tumor therapy in gynecological oncology within the prospective CAMPA initiative.

Purpose: The increase of oral tumor therapies (OTT) poses new challenges in patient care. Within CAMPA (Care improvement for advanced or metastatic breast and ovarian cancer patients treated with PARP-inhibitors), additional nursing support for patients treated with PARP-inhibitors was developed.

Methods: Additional nursing support (1 year) was evaluated in breast and gynecooncological cancer patients at an academic and a non-academic outreach center.

Acceptance of online therapy for children and adolescents with digital media use disorders: perspectives from child and adolescent psychiatrists and psychotherapists in Germany.

Online therapies have the potential to improve access to psychological services for individuals in need while alleviating the burden on healthcare systems. However, child and adolescent psychiatrists and psychotherapists (CAPPs) rarely integrate these services into their daily practice. This exploratory study investigates CAPPs' acceptance of online therapy, with a focus on treating children and adolescents with digital media use disorders (DMUD).

The Bacterial and pathogenic landscape of African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) whole blood and serum from Kenya.

Background: African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is a significant reservoir host for many zoonotic and parasitic infections in Africa. These include a range of viruses and pathogenic bacteria, such as tick-borne rickettsial organisms. Despite the considerations of mammalian blood as a sterile environment, blood microbiome sequencing could become crucial for agnostic biosurveillance.

Functional resting state connectivity is differentially associated with IL-6 and TNF-α in depression and in healthy controls.

Inflammatory processes have been implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. In human studies, inflammation has been shown to act as a critical disease modifier, promoting susceptibility to depression and modulating specific endophenotypes of depression. However, there is scant documentation of how inflammatory processes are associated with neural activity in patients with depression.

A Low-Symmetry Copper Benzenehexathiol Coordination Polymer with In-Plane Electrical Anisotropy.

Electrically conductive coordination polymers (ECCPs), particularly those incorporating benzenehexathiol (BHT) ligands, are emerging as a distinctive class of electronic materials with tunable semiconducting and metallic properties. However, the exploration of novel ECCPs with low-symmetry structures and electrical anisotropy remains under development. Here, we report the on-water surface synthesis of a novel ECCP, namely Cu5BHT, which exhibits a low-symmetry structure and unique in-plane electrical anisotropy that differs from the well-known Cu3BHT phase.

The (re)emergence of aerosol delivery: Treatment of pulmonary diseases and its clinical challenges.

Aerosol delivery represents a rapid and non-invasive way to directly reach the lungs while escaping the hepatic first-pass effect. The development of pulmonary drugs for respiratory diseases such as cystic fibrosis, lung infections, pulmonary fibrosis or lung cancer requires an enhanced understanding of the relationships between the natural physiology of the respiratory system and the pathophysiology of these conditions. This knowledge is crucial to better predict and thereby control drug deposition.

The brain interactome of a permissive prion replication substrate.

Bank voles are susceptible to prion strains from many different species, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying the ability of bank vole prion protein (BVPrP) to function as a universal prion acceptor remain unclear. Potential differences in molecular environments and protein interaction networks on the cell surface of brain cells may contribute to BVPrP's unusual behavior. To test this hypothesis, we generated knock-in mice that express physiological levels of BVPrP (M109 isoform) and employed mass spectrometry to compare the interactomes of mouse (Mo) PrP and BVPrP following mild in vivo crosslinking of brain tissue.

John the Baptist in Leonardo Da Vinci's Painting - What's in a Smile?

The smile is a complex human facial expression, most commonly associated with joy. We present a detailed view on Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of Saint John the Baptist, between 1516 to 1516, which illustrates a smiling saint, which has evoked multiple explanations and theories. Discussing Da Vinci's concept of painting as science media and the two merely contradictory painting techniques chiaroscuro and sfumato, we attempt to approach this picture.

Impact of smoking on biological treatment response in patients from the German Severe Asthma (GAN) Registry.

Background: Clinical studies of biologics in severe asthma exclude smokers or ex-smokers (ExS) with over 10 pack-years (py). Thus, the effectiveness of this therapy in ex-smokers with severe asthma is not well understood.

Objectives: To assess the impact of smoking on clinical efficiency of biologics in patients with severe asthma from the German Asthma Net (GAN), a comprehensive international registry.

Compartment model of strategy-dependent time delays in replicator dynamics.

Real-world processes often exhibit temporal separation between actions and reactions - a characteristic frequently ignored in many modelling frameworks. Adding temporal aspects, like time delays, introduces a higher complexity of problems and leads to models that are challenging to analyse and computationally expensive to solve. In this work, we propose an intermediate solution to resolve the issue in the framework of evolutionary game theory.

The UBR domain of plant Ubr1 homolog PRT6 accommodates basic and hydrophobic amino termini for substrate recognition.

N-degrons are amino-terminal degradation signals. Non-acetylated first residues with bulky side chains were the first discovered N-degrons. In yeast, their ability to destabilize a protein depends on ubiquitin ligase Ubr1, which has a binding site for basic first residues, the UBR box, and one for hydrophobic first residues, the N domain.

Improving the bioactivity of cellulose acetate hemodialysis membranes through nanosilver modification.

The effectiveness and safety of hemodialysis can be hindered by protein accumulation, mechanical instability of membranes and bacterial infection during the dialytic therapy. Herein, we show that cellulose acetate membranes modified with the low-fouling polymers (namely polyvinylpyrrolidone and polyethylene glycol), followed by the in situ reduction of different densities of silver oxide(I) nanoparticles, can effectively address these limitations. These improvements comprise the enhanced resistance to the protein fouling, improved antimicrobial capabilities against S.

Molecular dynamics simulations to decipher the hotspots at the allosteric site of human 5-lipoxygenase.

Human 5-lipoxygenase (LOX) is a non-heme, Fe-containing LOX which catalyses the conversion of arachidonic acid (AA) to leukotriene A (LTA). LTA is subsequently converted to cysteinyl-LTs and LTB that cause bronchoconstriction and act as chemotactic and chemokinetic agent on human leukocytes, respectively. Leukotrienes play significant roles in inflammation in asthma, cardiovascular diseases, allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and many more.