Updating an HIV Knowledge Questionnaire With Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Through Expert Opinions in the United States Using Delphi Methodology: A Qualitative Study.

Our study was designed to update the HIV Knowledge Questionnaire by incorporating pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) knowledge questions, as previous HIV knowledge tools lack this focus. Four rounds of Delphi surveys were conducted with 47 expert participants, each with extensive HIV-related expertise (mean experience: 18.94 years).

Hospital Dermatology: Review of Research in 2023-2024.

Inpatient consultative dermatologists play a critical role in the care of hospitalized patients with skin disease. Our review of the 2023-2024 dermatology literature identified several areas of active investigation relevant to inpatient dermatology. In this article, we highlight advances in the understanding of severe cutaneous adverse drug reactions, diagnosis and prevention of skin and soft tissue infections, and management of autoimmune blistering diseases (AIBDs).

A Qualitative Assessment of Barriers, Facilitators, and Outcomes in a Simulation-Based Collaborative Quality Improvement Program: The ImPACTS Project.

Objectives: ImPACTS (Improving Acute Care Through Simulation) is a collaborative simulation-based program partnering pediatric specialty centers ("hubs") with general emergency departments (GEDs) to improve pediatric acute care. Objective measurements of ImPACTS, such as evaluating Pediatric Readiness Score (PRS) and simulation-based outcome improvements, have been reported previously. Barriers to and facilitators of program involvement and the downstream effects of the program have not been previously described.

CryoEM structure of an MHC-I/TAPBPR peptide-bound intermediate reveals the mechanism of antigen proofreading.

Class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I) proteins play a pivotal role in adaptive immunity by displaying epitopic peptides to CD8+ T cells. The chaperones tapasin and TAPBPR promote the selection of immunogenic antigens from a large pool of intracellular peptides. Interactions of chaperoned MHC-I molecules with incoming peptides are transient in nature, and as a result, the precise antigen proofreading mechanism remains elusive.

Survey of Urogynecology Fellows on the Care of Patients with Differences in Sex Development/Intersex Traits.

Introduction And Hypothesis: Patients with differences in sex development or intersex traits (DSD/I) struggle to find clinically competent care in adulthood. We sought to describe the surgical exposure of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery (URPS) fellows who had previously trained in ObGyn (URPS-Gyn) to patients with DSD/I and their interest in performing 18 relevant procedures. We hypothesized that most graduating fellows would not have had exposure to many of the surgeries.

Pain Coping Skills Training for Patients Receiving Hemodialysis: The HOPE Consortium Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Chronic pain is common among individuals with dialysis-dependent kidney failure.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of pain coping skills training (PCST), a cognitive behavioral intervention, on pain interference.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This multicenter randomized clinical trial of PCST vs usual care was conducted across 16 academic centers and 103 outpatient dialysis facilities in the US.

Utilization of Palliative Care in Cardiogenic Shock Patients: A Retrospective Analysis of the National Inpatient Sample Database, 2020.

Cardiogenic shock (CS) is one of the leading causes of death in patients with myocardial infarction, myocarditis, and congestive heart failure. The utilization patterns of specialist palliative care (PC) consultation in these patients are currently unknown. To determine the utilization of PC in patients with CS and the overall comorbidities of that population.

Biomarkers.

Background: There is a strong link between tau and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD), necessitating an understanding of tau spreading mechanisms. Prior research, predominantly in typical AD, suggested that tau propagates from epicenters (regions with earliest tau) to functionally connected regions. However, given the constrained spatial heterogeneity of tau in typical AD, validating this connectivity-based tau spreading model in AD variants with distinct tau deposition patterns is crucial.

Biomarkers.

Background: As new anti-amyloid immunotherapies emerge for Alzheimer's disease (AD), it is clear that early diagnosis of AD pathology is crucial for treatment success. This can be challenging in atypical presentations of AD and, together with our reliance on CSF or PET scans, can, at times, lead to delayed diagnosis. Here, we further explore the possible role of plasma tau phosphorylated at threonine 217 (P-tau217) for the detection of primary AD or AD co-pathology when frontotemporal dementia spectrum disorders are the main clinical presentation.

Biomarkers.

Background: A key characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is cerebral aggregation of tau. These aggregates can be quantified and localized with positron emission tomography (PET), which improves the diagnostic and prognostic work-up of AD. However, tau-PET is expensive and not available in clinical settings globally.

Biomarkers.

Background: Structural and functional heterogeneity in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) leads to diagnostic and prognostic uncertainty and confounds clinical treatment planning. Normative modelling, where individual-level deviations in brain measures from a reference sample are computed to infer personalized effects of disease, allows parsing of disease heterogeneity. In this study, GAN based normative modelling technique quantifies individual level neuroanatomical abnormality thereby facilitating measurement of personalized disease related effects in AD patients.

Biomarkers.

Background: Highly specific ATN plasma biomarker assays for neurodegenerative diseases have been developed, but their associations with cognition vary in different populations. Kidney disease, common in diabetes, may decrease the predictive precision of those biomarkers. The aim of this study was to characterize for the first time the relationships between plasma ATN biomarkers and cognitive function in adults with T1D.

Biomarkers.

Background: Cognitive dysfunction is more common in individuals with type 1 diabetes (T1D) compared to the general population. Blood-based biomarkers are accurate in identifying early signs of neurodegeneration. However, studies using these biomarkers in T1D are lacking.

Biomarkers.

Background: The amygdala is a hotspot for neuropathologies; however, it is unclear 1) which neuropathologies lead to amygdala neurodegeneration, 2) what specific amygdala subnuclei are affected, and 3) if the neuropathologies related to amygdala volume are local (inside the amygdala), or distal (in other regions). We investigate the relationships between different neuropathologies (tau, amyloid-β [Aβ], α-synuclein [α-syn], and transactive response DNA-binding protein 43 [TDP-43]) and amygdala volumes.

Method: We analyzed postmortem data from 73 individuals with and without neurodegenerative diseases (age: 77±11 [45-101] years; 26 [36%] females; 51 [70%] cognitively impaired).

Biomarkers.

Background: Studying brain reserve - the brain's resilience to age-related changes or damage - is crucial for understanding protective mechanisms against cognitive decline. The cerebellum may be a key region in brain reserve, but it has been historically understudied. This investigation delves into this critical area within the largest aging multi-cohort to date.

Targeting WDR5/ATAD2 signaling by the CK2/Ikaros axis demonstrates therapeutic efficacy in T-ALL.

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematological malignancy with a poor prognosis and limited options for targeted therapies. Identifying new molecular targets to develop novel therapeutic strategies is the pressing immediate issue in T-ALL. Here, we observed high expression of WD Repeat-Containing Protein 5 (WDR5) in T-ALL; with in vitro and in vivo models we demonstrated the oncogenic role of WDR5 in T-ALL by activating cell cycle signaling through its new downstream effector, ATPase family AAA domain-containing 2 (ATAD2).

Genetic Concordance of Staphylococcus aureus From Oropharyngeal and Sputum Cultures in People With Cystic Fibrosis.

Background: People with cystic fibrosis (CF) may not expectorate sputum at young ages or after they receive CFTR modulators. While oropharyngeal swabs are commonly used to test for lower airway pathogens, it is unknown whether Staphylococcus aureus from the oropharynx matches the strain(s) infecting the lungs. Our goal was to determine whether oropharyngeal and sputum isolates of S.

Public Health.

Background: Acute stroke may increase dementia risk. Previous work has not accounted for time-varying covariates that could increase risk of stroke and dementia over time, and there has been very limited evidence on the effect in Asian Americans. We aimed to estimate the effect of incident stroke on dementia risk over 10 years of follow-up among Asian American and White older adults in Northern California considering time-varying covariates.

Public Health.

Background: Long-term exposure to ambient air pollution-including fine particulate matter <2.5µm in diameter (PM)-has previously been associated with incident dementia. As climate change drives longer and more intense wildfire seasons, exposure to PM produced by wildfires may be a unique and increasingly important risk factor for dementia.

Public Health.

Background: Asian Americans and Asian Canadians (ASACs) are the fastest growing minority group in the US and Canada. However, ASACs are under-sampled in Alzheimer's disease (AD) research. To address the need of culturally appropriate clinical protocols and community-based recruitment approaches for ASACs, the Asian Cohort for Alzheimer's Disease (ACAD), the first large dementia genetics cohort focusing on Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese, launched in 2021 to examine genetic and non-genetic risk factors for AD among ASACs.

Public Health.

Background: Existing studies on the health care utilization and costs associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have treated individuals with AD as a homogeneous group, though recent evidence suggests individuals with AD may be classified into biologically distinct subgroups with differing genetic and clinical profiles. The objective of our study is to examine differences in healthcare utilization and costs across cognitively defined AD subgroups.

Method: We utilize data from the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study (1994 - 2020), a population-based longitudinal study of aging and the incidence of and risk factors for dementia.

Biomarkers.

Background: The hippocampus is a key site of atrophy in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and MRI derived estimates of hippocampal volume have been shown to be a robust biomarker of AD-related neurodegeneration. However, its application at the individual level is limited by the lack of reference standards from large normative datasets that can be applied across a wide range of settings. We aimed to investigate the utility of hippocampal volume centile scores adjusted for age, sex and total intracranial volume (TIV) derived from a normative data from 101,457 participants across the life course, as a biomarker of neurodegeneration in AD.