A community-based approach to address lung cancer screening disparities in the black community using the Witness Project framework: development and pilot trial.

Background: Disparities in lung cancer outcomes persist among Black Americans, necessitating targeted interventions to address screening inequities. This paper reports the development and refinement of Witness Project Lung, a community-based initiative tailored to the specific needs of the Black community, aiming to improve awareness and engagement with lung cancer screening.

Methods: Utilizing a user-centered design and guided by the original Witness Project framework - an evidence-based lay health advisor intervention program originally developed to increase knowledge and awareness about breast cancer risk and screening in the Black community and later trans-created to the cervical and colorectal cancer screening contexts - Witness Project Lung was developed and refined through qualitative input from key stakeholders in the Black faith community.

Biomedical named entity recognition using improved green anaconda-assisted Bi-GRU-based hierarchical ResNet model.

Background: Biomedical text mining is a technique that extracts essential information from scientific articles using named entity recognition (NER). Traditional NER methods rely on dictionaries, rules, or curated corpora, which may not always be accessible. To overcome these challenges, deep learning (DL) methods have emerged.

A comprehensive allele specific expression resource for the equine transcriptome.

Background: Allele-specific expression (ASE) analysis provides a nuanced view of cis-regulatory mechanisms affecting gene expression.

Results: An equine ASE analysis was performed, using integrated Iso-seq and short-read RNA sequencing data from four healthy Thoroughbreds (2 mares and 2 stallions) across 9 tissues from the Functional Annotation of Animal Genomes (FAANG) project. Allele expression was quantified by haplotypes from long-read data, with 42,900 allele expression events compared.

Effect of intraoperative noise isolation on postoperative nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing gynecological laparoscopic surgery: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) are common complications following general anesthesia, particularly in gynecological laparoscopic surgeries. This study aims to evaluate the effect of intraoperative noise isolation on PONV incidence.

Method: This single-center, prospective, randomized controlled trial will enroll 192 adult patients undergoing laparoscopic gynecological surgery.

Liposomal bupivacaine as one component of the postoperative management of limb amputations in cats: a retrospective study.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of liposomal bupivacaine (LB) as part of an opioid-sparing multimodal analgesic protocol on postoperative pain control in cats undergoing limb amputation surgery compared with traditional pain management protocols more heavily reliant on injectable opioid and non-opioid analgesics.

Methods: Medical records of 29 cats that underwent forelimb or hindlimb amputation were reviewed to evaluate postoperative systemic pain medications utilized, appetite and time to discharge as presumptive gauges of postoperative pain. Statistical analysis of the data included Wilcoxon's rank-sum test and Fisher's exact test.

Enhancing individual glomerular filtration rate assessment: can we trust the equation? Development and validation of machine learning models to assess the trustworthiness of estimated GFR compared to measured GFR.

Background: Creatinine-based estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) equations are widely used in clinical practice but exhibit inherent limitations. On the other side, measuring GFR is time consuming and not available in routine clinical practice. We developed and validated machine learning models to assess the trustworthiness (i.

Comprehensive transcriptomic analysis reveals turnip mosaic virus infection and its aphid vector Myzus persicae cause large changes in gene regulatory networks and co-transcription of alternative spliced mRNAs in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Background: Virus infection and herbivory can alter the expression of stress-responsive genes in plants. This study employed high-throughput transcriptomic and alternative splicing analysis to understand the separate and combined impacts on host gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana by Myzus persicae (green peach aphid), and turnip mosaic virus (TuMV).

Results: By investigating changes in transcript abundance, the data shows that aphids feeding on virus infected plants intensify the number of differentially expressed stress responsive genes compared to challenge by individual stressors.

Single cell RNA sequencing improves the next generation of approaches to AML treatment: challenges and perspectives.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is caused by altered maturation and differentiation of myeloid blasts, as well as transcriptional/epigenetic alterations, all leading to excessive proliferation of malignant blood cells in the bone marrow. Tumor heterogeneity due to the acquisition of new somatic alterations leads to a high rate of resistance to current therapies or reduces the efficacy of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), thus increasing the risk of relapse and mortality. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) will enable the classification of AML and guide treatment approaches by profiling patients with different facets of the same disease, stratifying risk, and identifying new potential therapeutic targets at the time of diagnosis or after treatment.

Distinct Circle of Willis anatomical configurations in healthy preterm born adults: a 3D time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography study.

Background: Preterm birth (< 37 weeks' gestation) alters cerebrovascular development due to the premature transition from a foetal to postnatal circulatory system, with potential implications for future cerebrovascular health. This study aims to explore potential differences in the Circle of Willis (CoW), a key arterial ring that perfuses the brain, of healthy adults born preterm.

Methods: A total of 255 participants (108 preterm, 147 full-term) were included in the analysis.

Unanchored simulated treatment comparison on survival outcomes using parametric and Royston-Parmar models with application to lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab in renal cell carcinoma.

Background: Population-adjusted indirect comparison using parametric Simulated Treatment Comparison (STC) has had limited application to survival outcomes in unanchored settings. Matching-Adjusted Indirect Comparison (MAIC) is commonly used but does not account for violation of proportional hazards or enable extrapolations of survival. We developed and applied a novel methodology for STC in unanchored settings.

Genomic biomarkers of survival in patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer undergoing intensified androgen deprivation therapy.

Introduction: Androgen deprivation therapy intensification (ADTi) with androgen receptor pathway inhibitors (ARPI), docetaxel or both has been shown to improve survival outcomes in patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC). Currently, baseline tumor genomic markers have no role in clinical decision-making in patients with mHSPC.

Methods: In this IRB-approved retrospective study, patients diagnosed with mHSPC who underwent comprehensive genomic profiling from primary tissue or metastatic sites and treated with ADTi were included.

Resistance mechanisms and therapeutic strategies of CDK4 and CDK6 kinase targeting in cancer.

Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) are important regulators of the cell cycle. Selective CDK4/6 small-molecule inhibitors have shown clinical activity in hormonal receptor-positive (HR) metastatic breast cancer, but their effectiveness remains limited in other cancer types. CDK4/6 degradation and improved selectivity across CDK paralogs are approaches that could expand the effectiveness of CDK4/6 targeting.

Neuroactive steroid biosynthesis during pregnancy predicts future postpartum depression: a role for the 3α and/or 3β-HSD neurosteroidogenic enzymes?

Postpartum depression (PPD) affects ~10-15% of childbearing individuals, with deleterious consequences for two generations. Recent research has explored the biological mechanisms of PPD, particularly neuroactive steroids (NAS). We sought here to investigate associations between NAS levels and ratios during pregnancy and the subsequent development of depressive symptoms with postpartum onset.

Plasma proteomic evidence for increased β-amyloid pathology after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Previous studies have suggested that systemic viral infections may increase risks of dementia. Whether this holds true for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus infections is unknown. Determining this is important for anticipating the potential future incidence of dementia.

Toward a biological definition of neuronal and glial synucleinopathies.

Cerebral accumulation of alpha-synuclein (αSyn) aggregates is the hallmark event in a group of neurodegenerative diseases-collectively called synucleinopathies-which include Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy. Currently, these are diagnosed by their clinical symptoms and definitively confirmed postmortem by the presence of αSyn deposits in the brain. Here, we summarize the drawbacks of the current clinical definition of synucleinopathies and outline the rationale for moving toward an earlier, biology-anchored definition of these disorders, with or without the presence of clinical symptoms.

Risk-directed management of chronic kidney disease.

The timely and rational institution of therapy is a key step towards reducing the global burden of chronic kidney disease (CKD). CKD is a heterogeneous entity with varied aetiologies and diverse trajectories, which include risk of kidney failure but also cardiovascular events and death. Developments in the past decade include substantial progress in CKD risk prediction, driven in part by the accumulation of electronic health records data.

Sensorimotor adaptation reveals systematic biases in 3D perception.

The existence of biases in visual perception and their impact on visually guided actions has long been a fundamental yet unresolved question. Evidence revealing perceptual or visuomotor biases has typically been disregarded because such biases in spatial judgments can often be attributed to experimental measurement confounds. To resolve this controversy, we leveraged the visuomotor system's adaptation mechanism - triggered only by a discrepancy between visual estimates and sensory feedback - to directly indicate whether systematic errors in perceptual and visuomotor spatial judgments exist.

A machine learning decision support tool optimizes WGS utilization in a neonatal intensive care unit.

The Mendelian Phenotype Search Engine (MPSE), a clinical decision support tool using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, helped neonatologists expedite decisions to whole genome sequencing (WGS) to diagnose patients in the neonatal intensive care unit. After the MPSE was introduced, utilization of WGS increased, time to ordering WGS decreased, and WGS diagnostic yield increased.

Neonatology fellow assessment and evaluation: embracing the word salad of CBME, EPAs, and milestones.

Neonatal-perinatal medicine (NPM) fellowship training aims to educate fellows and enable them to move into successful independent neonatal practice. To reach this goal, every fellow must acquire a wide range of clinical, scholarly, and professional skills that require assessment and evaluation by the fellowship program. The assessment and evaluation of fellow progression and promotion must rely on a rigorous educational framework.