Associations between maternal plasma concentrations of corticotrophin releasing hormone and the placental transcriptome.

Introduction: The placenta produces corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH), which rises exponentially in maternal plasma across pregnancy. CRH plays a functional role in fetal development, labor initiation, and the regulation of gestational length. We aimed to understand how maternal plasma CRH during pregnancy reflects placental physiology during parturition by characterizing placental transcriptomic signatures of maternal plasma CRH and comparing to transcriptomic signatures of gestational age at birth.

Built environment change for injury prevention: insights from public health professionals across public health units in Ontario, Canada.

Background: Road-related injuries and deaths are among the most significant and avoidable public health problems in Canada. Modifications to the built environment (BE) can reduce injury rates for vulnerable road users (VRUs) and other priority populations who experience disproportionate risk. This paper highlights public health professionals' experiences working in injury prevention across Ontario public health units (PHUs) navigating barriers and facilitators to BE change.

Optimizing Management of Febrile Young Infants Without Serum Procalcitonin.

Background: Febrile young infants are at risk of invasive bacterial infections (IBIs; bacteremia or bacterial meningitis). American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines recommend that when procalcitonin testing is unavailable, C-reactive protein (CRP), absolute neutrophil count (ANC) and temperature should be used to identify low-risk infants. We sought to determine the optimal combination of these inflammatory markers to predict IBI when procalcitonin is unavailable.

Exploring adolescents' experiences navigating the intersection of their gender, sport, and dietary identities: an interpretative phenomenological study.

Not all adolescents have positive sport experiences. Research has repeatedly identified ties between unfavorable eating patterns and food beliefs (i.e.

Lived Employment Experiences of Young Adults With Childhood- and Adult-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Multicenter Canadian Qualitative Study.

Objective: This study examined the lived employment experiences of young adults with childhood- and adult-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Methods: Participants were recruited from three Canadian lupus clinics and asked to complete semistructured, qualitative video/phone interviews. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis.

Towards a critical posthumanist perspective on participatory design.

Participatory design places a strong emphasis on human agency, user perspectives and democratic ideals of inclusivity and empowerment, and is therefore often associated with humanist principles and values. In contrast, critical posthumanism questions key humanist assumptions about the centred and singular nature of the 'human condition'. Instead, posthumanism points to the evolving and diverse lived experiences of people and how these are transformed by (and are transforming of) culture, environment and technology.

Contralateral oculomotor nerve palsy associated with PHACES syndrome.

A 13-month-old boy presented to the pediatric ophthalmology clinic at BC Children's Hospital for strabismus assessment. On examination he had a right facial hemangioma, left ptosis, and left exotropia and hypotropia. Magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance angiography of his head demonstrated posterior cerebral artery tortuosity producing mild mass effect on the left oculomotor nerve.

The Prevalence of Physical Intimate Partner Violence During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period: A Systematic Review With Implications for Probable Violence-Caused Brain Injury Among Child Bearers.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) persists as a cause of short-term, long-term, and chronic health consequences. The elevated risk of IPV during pregnancy and the postpartum period (P-IPV) is commonly attributed to increased demands for child bearers and intimate partners. P-IPV may impact the health of the child bearer, developing fetus, and post-birth child.

Positioning and preparation errors impacting dental panoramic radiographs in patients with mixed dentition.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the quality of clinically indicated digital dental panoramic radiographs (DPRs) of children with mixed dentition. Despite the likely widespread use of this modality, recent research detailing errors on DPRs is scarce.

Materials And Methods: A consecutive case series was performed, including 178 DPRs from patients aged 6 to 12 years.

The fungal gut microbiota in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis.

Evidence suggests that the gut microbiome may play a role in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the majority of the studies have focused on gut bacterial communities; none have examined the fungal microbiota (mycobiota) in persons with pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS). We examined the gut mycobiota in persons with and without POMS through a cross-sectional examination of the gut mycobiota from 46 participants' stool samples (three groups: 18 POMS, 13 acquired monophasic demyelinating syndromes [monoADS], and 15 unaffected controls).

A retrospective, observational study of real-world clinical data from the Cognitive Function Development Therapy program.

Introduction: Cognitive deficits are common in psychiatric and mental health disorders, making the assessment of cognitive function in mental health treatment an important area of research. Cognitive Function Development Therapy (CFDT) is a novel therapeutic modality designed to enhance cognitive function and regulate the autonomic nervous system through targeted exercises and activities focused on attention networks and memory systems. The therapy is tracked and based on Primary Cognitive Function (PCF) scores.

An assessment of cord ferritin concentration and its predictors among a cohort of Canadian preterm and term infants.

Low iron (Fe) stores at birth may adversely influence child cognitive and motor development. The aims of this study were to assess cord blood Fe levels and explore maternal and neonatal factors associated with Fe status. Cord blood specimens ( 46) were obtained from the BC Children's Hospital BioBank in Vancouver, Canada.

Pediatric Endocrinology Education Among Trainees: A Scoping Review.

Introduction: Pediatric endocrinology education is a fundamental part of all pediatric endocrinology training. Hence, understanding the current methods used for training learners on skills required and understanding methods or topics that may be underexplored could help improve the quality of training.

Objective: This study aims to explore training and assessment strategies used in pediatric endocrinology training across medical education programs through a scoping review.

A matter of timing: Biting by malaria-infected Anopheles mosquitoes and the use of interventions during the night in rural south-eastern Tanzania.

Knowing when and where infected mosquitoes bite is required for estimating accurate measures of malaria risk, assessing outdoor exposure, and designing intervention strategies. This study combines secondary analyses of a human behaviour survey and an entomological survey carried out in the same area to estimate human exposure to malaria-infected Anopheles mosquitoes throughout the night in rural villages in south-eastern Tanzania. Mosquitoes were collected hourly from 6PM to 6AM indoors and outdoors by human landing catches in 2019, and tested for Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite infections using ELISA.

HELP-KIDNEY: Health Literacy and Patient Outcomes in Pediatric Kidney Transplant.

Background: Below adequate health literacy is common and linked to increased risk of adverse health outcomes. Supporting optimal health following kidney transplantation requires the capacity to understand health information and make decisions about care. The impact of low health literacy in the context of pediatric kidney transplant has not previously been studied.

Exome Sequencing in the Diagnostic Pathway for Suspected Rare Genetic Diseases: Does the Order of Testing Affect its Cost-Effectiveness?

Background: Patients with suspected rare diseases often experience lengthy and uncertain diagnostic pathways. This study aimed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of exome sequencing (ES) in different positions in the diagnostic pathway for patients suspected of having a rare genetic disease.

Methods: Data collected retrospectively from 305 patients suspected of having a rare genetic disease (RGD), who received clinical-grade ES and participated in the Canadian multicentre Care4Rare-SOLVE study, informed a discrete event simulation of the diagnostic pathway.

Case report: Canadian consensus on chlormethine gel use in mycosis fungoides-CTCL: literature review and real-world experience.

Mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most common type of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), representing the majority of all lymphomas arising in the skin. The disease treatment focuses on managing symptoms and preventing disease evolution. To date, there is no gold standard for MF-CTCL treatment.

vmrseq: probabilistic modeling of single-cell methylation heterogeneity.

Single-cell DNA methylation measurements reveal genome-scale inter-cellular epigenetic heterogeneity, but extreme sparsity and noise challenges rigorous analysis. Previous methods to detect variably methylated regions (VMRs) have relied on predefined regions or sliding windows and report regions insensitive to heterogeneity level present in input. We present vmrseq, a statistical method that overcomes these challenges to detect VMRs with increased accuracy in synthetic benchmarks and improved feature selection in case studies.

Polygenic score distribution differences across European ancestry populations: implications for breast cancer risk prediction.

Background: The 313-variant polygenic risk score (PRS) provides a promising tool for clinical breast cancer risk prediction. However, evaluation of the PRS across different European populations which could influence risk estimation has not been performed.

Methods: We explored the distribution of PRS across European populations using genotype data from 94,072 females without breast cancer diagnosis, of European-ancestry from 21 countries participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) and 223,316 females without breast cancer diagnosis from the UK Biobank.

- a large-scale dataset of 3D medical shapes for computer vision.

Objectives: The shape is commonly used to describe the objects. State-of-the-art algorithms in medical imaging are predominantly diverging from computer vision, where voxel grids, meshes, point clouds, and implicit surface models are used. This is seen from the growing popularity of ShapeNet (51,300 models) and Princeton ModelNet (127,915 models).

The role of C-reactive protein and ferritin in the diagnosis of HLH, adult-onset still's disease, and COVID-19 cytokine storm.

Cytokine storm syndromes such as hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), Adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD), and COVID-19 cytokine storm (CCS) are characterized by markedly elevated inflammatory cytokines. However clinical measurement of serum cytokines is not widely available. This study examined the clinical utility of C-reactive protein (CRP) and ferritin, two inexpensive and widely available inflammatory markers, for distinguishing HLH from AOSD and CCS.

Towards a histological diagnosis of childhood small vessel CNS vasculitis.

Background: Primary small vessel CNS vasculitis (sv-cPACNS) is a challenging inflammatory brain disease in children. Brain biopsy is mandatory to confirm the diagnosis. This study aims to develop and validate a histological scoring tool for diagnosing small vessel CNS vasculitis.

Modified Crohn's Disease Exclusion Diet Maintains Remission in Pediatric Crohn's Disease; Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background & Aims: The Crohn's Disease (CD) Exclusion Diet (CDED)+Partial Enteral Nutrition (PEN) is effective for inducing remission in mild-moderate CD. We assessed whether a 2-week course of Exclusive Enteral Nutrition (EEN), followed by CDED+PEN is superior to 8 weeks of EEN in sustaining clinical remission at week 14 in mild-to-severe CD and if CDED+PEN can maintain remission to week 24.

Methods: This international, multicenter, randomized-controlled trial compared 2-weeks of EEN (Modulen®IBD) followed by 3 phases of the CDED+PEN (henceforth CDED) to 8 weeks of EEN, followed by PEN with free diet up to week 24 (henceforth EEN).