Racial disparity in preoperative C-reactive protein level for predicting prognosis of patients with non-metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma: INMARC study.

Background: C-reactive protein (CRP) is a prognostic biomarker for clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). However, there may be potential racial heterogeneity in distribution and prognostic impact of CRP level. We investigated potential racial differences in distribution and prognostic impact of preoperative CRP among Asian (AS), African American (AA), and Caucasian (CAUC) patients with non-metastatic ccRCC (nmccRCC).

Genetic Insights Into Coronary Microvascular Disease.

Coronary microvascular disease (CMVD) affects the coronary pre-arterioles, arterioles, and capillaries and can lead to blood supply-demand mismatch and cardiac ischemia. CMVD can present clinically as ischemia or myocardial infarction with no obstructive coronary arteries (INOCA or MINOCA, respectively). Currently, therapeutic options for CMVD are limited, and there are no targeted therapies.

Roles for Prlhr/GPR10 and Npffr2/GPR74 in Feeding Responses to PrRP.

Several groups of neurons in the NTS suppress food intake, including Prlh-expressing neurons (NTS cells). Not only does the artificial activation of NTS cells decrease feeding, but also the expression of Prlh (which encodes the neuropeptide PrRP) and neurotransmission by NTS neurons contributes to the restraint of food intake and body weight, especially in animals fed a high fat diet (HFD). We used animals lacking PrRP receptors GPR10 and/or GRP74 (encoded by Prlhr and Npffr2, respectively) to determine roles for each in the restraint of food intake and body weight by the increased expression of Prlh in NTS neurons (NTS mice) and in response to the anorectic PrRP analog, p52.

Real-time monitoring of small changes in powder blends and ejected tablets in a low-dose formulation with 1 %w/w of active pharmaceutical ingredient using Raman and near-infrared spatially resolved spectroscopy within a tablet press.

This study used Raman and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to monitor small real-time changes in powder blends and tablets in low-dose pharmaceutical formulations. The research aims to enhance process analytical technology (PAT) in pharmaceutical manufacturing, ensuring high-quality and uniform products with applications to produce drugs with narrow therapeutic indices (NTI). The study utilizes Raman and NIR spatially resolved spectroscopy (SRS) techniques to monitor a moderate cohesive material's active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) concentrations during manufacturing.

FOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT ATRIAL FIBRILLATION IN CARDIAC AMYLOIDOSIS. WHY IS THIS ARRHYTHMIA DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER ARRHYTHMIAS?

AF is a common arrhythmia in cardiomyopathy, particularly when congestive heart failure is present. The neurohormonal activation in congestive heart failure may trigger fibrotic and other changes in the left atrium and the atrial stretch associated with heart failure may induce further atrial pathology and/ or directly trigger AF (8). By the time that patients with AF develop extensive fibrosis, the arrhythmia has been shown to be associated with a greater difficulty in maintaining sinus rhythm despite attempted ablation procedures.

Implications of an Off-Hours Setting in Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Edge-to-Edge Repair for Mitral Regurgitation.

Background: - Little is known about mitral transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) performed outside of usual working hours. We aimed to explore the prevalence, correlates, and outcomes of mitral TEER initiated off-hours, i.e.

DOME: Directional medical embedding vectors from electronic health records.

Motivation: The increasing availability of electronic health record (EHR) systems has created enormous potential for translational research. Recent developments in representation learning techniques have led to effective large-scale representations of EHR concepts along with knowledge graphs that empower downstream EHR studies. However, most existing methods require training with patient-level data, limiting their abilities to expand the training with multi-institutional EHR data.

Oxidized hyaluronic acid/ε-polylysine/quaternized chitosan hydrogel with shear thinning injectability and self-healing properties for full-time and multipurpose wound healing.

Complex wound closure scenarios necessitate the development of advanced wound dressings that can effectively address the challenges of filling irregularly shaped wounds and managing fatigue failures encountered in daily patient activities. To tackle these issues, we develop a multifunctional hydrogel from natural polysaccharides and polypeptides with injectability and self-healing properties for promoting full-time and multipurpose wound healing. Synthesized through dynamic Schiff base linkages between oxidized hyaluronic acid (OHA), ε-polylysine (ε-PL), and quaternized chitosan (QCS), the OHA/ε-PL/QCS hydrogel can gel rapidly within 50 s.

Temporal Dynamics of Affective Scene Processing in the Healthy Adult Human Brain.

Understanding how the brain distinguishes emotional from neutral scenes is crucial for advancing brain-computer interfaces, enabling real-time emotion detection for faster, more effective responses, and improving treatments for emotional disorders like depression and anxiety. However, inconsistent research findings have arisen from differences in study settings, such as variations in the time windows, brain regions, and emotion categories examined across studies. This review sought to compile the existing literature on the timing at which the adult brain differentiates basic affective from neutral scenes in less than one second, as previous studies have consistently shown that the brain can begin recognizing emotions within just a few milliseconds.

How is Telehealth Used to Increase Access to Specialty Palliative Care? A Systematic Review.

Context: Specialty palliative care remains inaccessible for many with serious illness, especially in rural areas. Telehealth may be one solution.

Objectives: To describe how telehealth increases access to specialty palliative care, describe facilitators and barriers to its use, and summarize evidence of patient benefits.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use in the Last Year of Life: The COMPASS Cancer Cohort Study.

Context: There has been growing interest in the role of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as part of end-of-life care.

Objectives: This study prospectively examined the prevalence, predictors and outcomes of ingestible CAM use among cancer patients in their last year of life in Singapore.

Methods: This study (N=427) utilized data across 12 months (4 time points) prior to patient death.

Blood-based diagnosis of pediatric tuberculosis: a prospective cohort study in South Africa and Dominican Republic.

Objectives: Pediatric tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis is complicated by challenges in obtaining invasive respiratory specimens that frequently contain few Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) bacilli. We report the diagnostic performance of an Mtb antigen-derived peptide (MAP-TB) assay and its ability to monitor TB treatment response.

Methods: Study cohorts enrolled children who presented with presumptive TB at two hospitals in South Africa from 2012 to 2017 (157 children aged <13 years) and at community-based clinics in the Dominican Republic from 2019 to 2023 (101 children aged <18 years).

A Guide to Pediatric Antibiotic Allergy Testing: A Report from the United States Drug Allergy Registry.

Pediatric antibiotic labels are common, and unnecessary antibiotic avoidance is associated with negative personal and public health outcomes; as a result, there is an increasing emphasis on the importance of pediatric antibiotic allergy evaluations. Different testing strategies have been advised, including skin testing and challenge testing with varied doses and duration. Established consensus testing protocols are lacking.

Low-dose aspirin use in low-risk nulliparous pregnancies: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Objective: To assess the efficacy of low-dose aspirin in the prevention of adverse outcomes in low-risk, nulliparous singleton pregnancies.

Data Sources: PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus, Cochrane Library, clinicaltrials.gov, and ScienceDirect were searched from their inception to August 5, 2023.

Risk of severe maternal morbidity and mortality among pregnant patients with chronic kidney disease: Renal disease and severe maternal morbidity.

Background: Chronic kidney disease is a significant cause of adverse obstetric outcomes. However, there are few studies assessing the risk of severe maternal morbidity and mortality among patients with chronic kidney disease and no studies assessing the association between individual indicators of severe maternal morbidity and chronic kidney disease.

Objective: To evaluate the risk of severe maternal morbidity and mortality among pregnant patients with chronic kidney disease.

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in Pathology & Medicine: Generative & Non-Generative AI Basics.

This manuscript serves as an introduction to a comprehensive seven-part review article series on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and their current and future influence within pathology and medicine. This introductory review provides a comprehensive grasp of this fast-expanding realm and its potential to transform medical diagnosis, workflow, research, and education. Fundamental terminology employed in AI-ML is covered using an extensive dictionary.

Correlating Disordered Activation Domain Ensembles with Gene Expression Levels.

Transcription factor proteins bind to specific DNA promoter sequences and initiate gene transcription. These proteins often contain intrinsically disordered activation domains (ADs) that regulate their transcriptional activity. Like other disordered protein regions, ADs do not have a fixed three-dimensional structure and instead exist in an ensemble of conformations.

Rapid-onset cancer.

Human cancers are generally thought to develop over the course of decades. Such slow progression is well documented for a variety of cancers that we designate "slow-onset" cancers. "Rapid-onset" cancers, in contrast, can develop in a matter of months in humans or in as little as 9 days in mice.

The Trail of axonal protein Synthesis: Origins and current functional Landscapes.

Local protein synthesis (LPS) in axons is now recognized as a physiological process, participating both in the maintenance of axonal function and diverse plastic phenomena. In the last decades of the 20th century, the existence and function of axonal LPS were topics of significant debate. Very early, axonal LPS was thought not to occur at all and was later accepted to play roles only during development or in response to specific conditions.

Explaining neuronal membrane potentials: The Goldman equation vs. Lee's TELC hypothesis.

In two recent papers (Curr Trends Neurol 17: 83-98, 2023; J Neurophysiol 124: 1029-1044, 2020), James Lee has argued that his Transmembrane Electrostatically-Localized Cations (TELC) hypothesis offers a model of neuron transmembrane potentials that is superior to Hodgkin-Huxley classic cable theory and the Goldman-Hodgkin-Katz (GHK) equation. Here we examine critically the arguments in these papers, finding key weaknesses and fallacies. We also examine closely the literature cited by Lee, and find (i) strong support for the GHK equation; (ii) published measurements that contradict TELC predictions; and (iii) no convincing support for the TELC hypothesis.

Pelvic regional control with 25Gy in 5 fractions in SBRT for high risk prostate cancer: Pooled prospective outcomes from the SHARP consortium.

Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of 25Gy/5# prophylactic pelvic nodal irradiation for regional control during stereotactic radiotherapy (SBRT) for high risk prostate cancer.

Methods: The multinational XXXX consortium database of patients treated with curative-intent prostate SBRT for high risk prostate cancer was queried for prophylactic radiotherapy 25Gy/5# to the pelvic lymph nodes. Details of Phoenix-defined biochemical failure, and location of recurrence (local, regional, or distant) were extracted.

Development and Application of a Polycationic Soybean Protein-Based Flocculant for Enhanced Flocculation and Dewatering of Dairy Manure.

In agricultural and waste management systems, dairy manure wastewater is often recycled for irrigation. However, a key challenge lies in handling suspended solids (SS) and effectively dewatering sludge. To address this, an innovative polycationic soybean protein-based flocculant (SPI+) was developed and applied to enhance flocculation and sludge dewatering efficiency.