The Antimicrobial Effects of Nitric Oxide: A Narrative Review.

Nitric oxide (NO) is a versatile endogenous molecule with multiple physiological roles, including neurotransmission, vasodilation, and immune regulation. As part of the immune response, NO exerts antimicrobial effects by producing reactive nitrogen species (RNS). These RNS combat pathogens via mechanisms such as DNA deamination, S-nitrosylation of thiol groups, and lipid peroxidation, leading to disruptions in microbial cell membranes and vital protein functions.

Results of a Global Survey on the State of Interventional Radiology 2024.

Purpose: To understand the state of IR practice and education worldwide and identify factors impacting access to IR services.

Methods And Materials: A Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) approved anonymous survey was created to gather demographics, regional IR practice and education characteristics, and challenges impacting local IR development. The survey was distributed to members of global IR societies and shared on social media from 6/2022 to 9/2023.

Evaluating the Utility of Initial Exams in Retinopathy of Prematurity: Proposal of FIRST-ROP Algorithm for a Medium-Risk Cohort.

Purpose: To assess the utility of the first or second examinations for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in a medium-risk cohort of infants and to propose an optimization to the current ROP screening guidelines.

Design: Retrospective consecutive study.

Subjects: Infants screened for ROP between January 2017 and August 2023 at three different tertiary-level care neonatal intensive care units.

Design and implementation of an action plan for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion within the Clinical Genome Resource.

How might members of a large, multi-institutional research and resource consortium foster justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as central to its mission, goals, governance, and culture? These four principles, often referred to as JEDI, can be aspirational-but to be operationalized, they must be supported by concrete actions, investments, and a persistent long-term commitment to the principles themselves, which often requires self-reflection and course correction. We present here the iterative design process implemented across the Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen) that led to the development of an action plan to operationalize JEDI principles across three major domains, with specific deliverables and commitments dedicated to each. Active involvement of consortium leadership, buy-in from its members at all levels, and support from NIH program staff at pivotal stages were essential to the success of this effort.

A lightweight generative model for interpretable subject-level prediction.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in methods for predicting an unknown variable of interest, such as a subject's diagnosis, from medical images depicting its anatomical-functional effects. Methods based on discriminative modeling excel at making accurate predictions, but are challenged in their ability to explain their decisions in anatomically meaningful terms. In this paper, we propose a simple technique for single-subject prediction that is inherently interpretable.

Primary intrarenal hemangioma - A series of 39 cases.

Intrarenal hemangiomas lack concise clinicopathologic information, due to the predominance of single case reports and inclusion of other vascular neoplasms and hemangiomas of perirenal, hilar, and renal vein origin. Herein, in this multi-institutional study we evaluate clinicopathologic features of 39 intrarenal hemangiomas. The median age was 62 years (range = 27-94 years; 2:1 male to female ratio), with left-sided predominance (left = 21, right = 13; one case was bilateral).

The Impact of Blood Pressure Below Personalized Lower Cerebral Autoregulation Limit on Outcomes After Cardiac Surgery: A Retrospective Study.

Objective: The clinical importance of individualized blood pressure management in optimizing cerebral perfusion during cardiac surgery has been well established. However, consensus on blood pressure goals is lacking. The authors studied the associations between cerebral autoregulation metrics, hemodynamic parameters, and postoperative outcomes, and hypothesized that increased time of mean arterial pressure (MAP) below the lower limit of autoregulation (LLA) is associated with major morbidity and mortality (MMOM) incidence.

Substrate adaptors are flexible tethering modules that enhance substrate methylation by the arginine methyltransferase PRMT5.

Protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT) 5 is an essential arginine methyltransferase responsible for the majority of cellular symmetric dimethyl-arginine (SDMA) marks. PRMT5 uses substrate adaptors such as pICln, RIOK1, and COPR5, to recruit and methylate a wide range of substrates. Although the substrate adaptors play important roles in substrate recognition, how they direct PRMT5 activity towards specific substrates remains incompletely understood.

Calcium calmodulin kinase IV deficiency in podocytes prevents the development of lupus nephritis.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by widespread organ involvement including the kidney. Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV (CaMK4) has been shown to conrol immune cell nad podocyte function. To address the effect of genetic podocyte-specific CaMK4 deficiency on systemic autoimmunity and kidney pathology in lupus-prone mice we generated B6.

Radiosynthesis and evaluation of novel F labeled PET ligands for imaging monoacylglycerol lipase.

Monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL) is a 33 kDa cytosolic serine hydrolase that is widely distributed in the central nervous system and peripheral tissues. MAGL hydrolyzes monoacylglycerols into fatty acids and glycerol, playing a crucial role in endocannabinoid degradation. Inhibition of MAGL in the brain elevates levels of 2-arachidonoylglycerol and leads to decreased pro-inflammatory prostaglandin and thromboxane production.

Physician-dominated conversations: An analysis of illness understanding discussions among patients with advanced cancer.

Context: Effective communication between patients and oncologists is crucial, particularly around illness understanding. When this communication is asymmetric or imbalanced, it can hinder shared decision-making and lead to suboptimal clinical outcomes.

Objectives: We sought to describe physician-patient speech imbalances ("asymmetry") in illness understanding portions of discussions between oncologists and advanced cancer patients and explore potential trends related to patient characteristics.

The Availability of Paternity Leave in US Surgical Residencies: A Study of Program Websites.

Introduction: As family dynamics evolve, an increasing number of male residents are embracing parenthood during their training. Consequently, paternity leave has emerged as a crucial consideration. The aim of this study was to determine the gap in public availability of paternity leave policies in surgical residency programs across the United States.

Oncogenic IDH1 drives robust loss of histone acetylation and increases chromatin heterogeneity.

Malignant gliomas are heterogeneous tumors, mostly incurable, arising in the central nervous system (CNS) driven by genetic, epigenetic, and metabolic aberrations. Mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH1/2) enzymes are predominantly found in low-grade gliomas and secondary high-grade gliomas, with IDH1 mutations being more prevalent. Mutant-IDH1/2 confers a gain-of-function activity that favors the conversion of a-ketoglutarate (α-KG) to the oncometabolite 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG), resulting in an aberrant hypermethylation phenotype.

A detailed spatiotemporal atlas of the white matter tracts for the fetal brain.

This study presents the construction of a comprehensive spatiotemporal atlas of white matter tracts in the fetal brain for every gestational week between 23 and 36 wk using diffusion MRI (dMRI). Our research leverages data collected from fetal MRI scans, capturing the dynamic changes in the brain's architecture and microstructure during this critical period. The atlas includes 60 distinct white matter tracts, including commissural, projection, and association fibers.

Barriers to Research for Academic Otologists/Neurotologists in the United States.

Objective: The physician-scientist workforce is shrinking in the United States. Academic otologists/neurotologists face a diverse set of barriers to successful careers. We aimed to characterize the factors affecting contemporary otology/neurotology surgeon-scientists.

Angiotensin-Receptor Blockers Prevent Vestibular Schwannoma-Associated Hearing Loss.

Background Introduction: Vestibular schwannoma (VS) tumors typically present with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Losartan has recently demonstrated prevention of tumor-associated SNHL in a mouse model of VS through suppression of inflammatory and pro-fibrotic factors, and the current study investigates this association in humans.

Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients with unilateral VS and hypertension followed with sequential audiometry at a tertiary referral hospital from January 1994 to June 2023.

Voices of Nanomedicine: Blueprint Guidelines for Collaboration in Addressing Global Unmet Medical Needs.

The "" under this Perspective underline the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and partnerships across several disciplines, such as medical science and technology, medicine, bioengineering, and computational approaches, in bridging the gap between research, manufacturing, and clinical applications. Effective communication is key to bridging team gaps, enhancing trust, and resolving conflicts, thereby fostering teamwork and individual growth toward shared goals. Drawing from the success of the COVID-19 vaccine development, we advocate the application of similar collaborative models in other complex health areas such as nanomedicine and biomedical engineering.

Use of Financial Hardship as a Metric for Assessing Financial Toxicity in Surgical Trauma Patients.

Background: Financial toxicity is the detrimental impact of health care costs that must be mitigated to achieve universal health coverage. Catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) is widely used to measure financial toxicity but does not capture patient perspectives of unaffordable health care costs. Financial hardship (FH), a patient-reported outcome measure, is currently underutilized but may be an important adjunct metric.

Glaucoma Screening and Referral Risk Factors in a High-Risk Population: Follow-up Study of the Manhattan Vision Screening Study (NYC-SIGHT).

Prcis: Community-based eye health screenings that incorporated fundus photography and optometric exams in a high-risk NYC population effectively identified a higher than average number of participants that required an in-office glaucoma evaluation.

Purpose: To report glaucoma screening rates and risk factors associated with referral for in-office glaucoma evaluation in the Manhattan Vision Screening and Follow-up Study (NYC-SIGHT).

Methods: In this 5-year, cluster-randomized clinical trial, eligible individuals aged 40 and older were recruited from affordable housing developments and senior centers.

Ultrasensitive detection of intact SARS-CoV-2 particles in complex biofluids using microfluidic affinity capture.

Measuring virus in biofluids is complicated by confounding biomolecules coisolated with viral nucleic acids. To address this, we developed an affinity-based microfluidic device for specific capture of intact severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Our approach used an engineered angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 to capture intact virus from plasma and other complex biofluids.

Tunneled Pleural Catheters: An Effective Nonsurgical Alternative for Nonexpandable Lung in Chronic Pleural Infection.

Background: Open window thoracostomy (OTW) is the standard of care for debilitated patients with chronic pleural infection and nonexpandable lungs (NEL) who are not candidates for major surgical intervention. Tunneled pleural catheters (TPC) offer tremendous treatment potential in this setting based on their efficacy in malignant pleural effusion and NEL. We aim to assess the efficacy, safety, and health care utilization of TPC in this setting.