Acute kidney injury in liver transplant candidates: a position paper on behalf of the Liver Intensive Care Group of Europe.

Introduction: Acute kidney injury is associated with high mortality in the perioperative period of liver transplantation. The aim of this position paper was to provide an up-to-date overview with special emphases on diagnosis, risk factors, and treatment.

Evidence Acquisition: The Liver Intensive Care Group of Europe nominated a panel of recognized international experts who reviewed the available literature published from 1990 to January 2016 and produced clinical recommendations.

A multi-faceted intervention including antenatal corticosteroids to reduce neonatal mortality associated with preterm birth: a case study from the Guatemalan Western Highlands.

Background: The Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research undertook a cluster-randomized trial to assess the impact of a multi-faceted intervention to identify women at high-risk of preterm birth at all levels of care, to administer corticosteroids to women and refer for facility delivery compared with standard care. Of the seven sites that participated in the ACT trial, only two sites had statistically significant reductions in the neonatal mortality among the target group of <5th percentile infants, and of the two, Guatemala's improvement in neonatal mortality was by far the largest.

Methods: We used data available from the ACT trial as well as pretrial data in an attempt to understand why neonatal mortality may have decreased in the intervention clusters in <5(th) percentile infants in Chimaltenango, Guatemala.

Partner Notification Among Peruvian Pregnant Women With Syphilis.

Introduction: As part of an implementation research study on the feasibility of implementing point-of-care tests for syphilis in Peru, we collected information on partner treatment of syphilis-seropositive pregnant women and explored womens' and health providers' knowledge and practices regarding partner notification and treatment (PNT) for maternal syphilis.

Methods: Mixed methods were used to collect information. Quantitative data were collected from consecutive pregnant women with a positive point-of-care test for syphilis.

Honey Bee Location- and Time-Linked Memory Use in Novel Foraging Situations: Floral Color Dependency.

Learning facilitates behavioral plasticity, leading to higher success rates when foraging. However, memory is of decreasing value with changes brought about by moving to novel resource locations or activity at different times of the day. These premises suggest a foraging model with location- and time-linked memory.

Iron repletion relocalizes hephaestin to a proximal basolateral compartment in polarized MDCK and Caco2 cells.

While intestinal cellular iron entry in vertebrates employs multiple routes including heme and non-heme routes, iron egress from these cells is exclusively channeled through the only known transporter, ferroportin. Reduced intestinal iron export in sex-linked anemia mice implicates hephaestin, a ferroxidase, in this process. Polarized cells are exposed to two distinct environments.

Family planning in Nigeria and prospects for the future.

Nigeria, with its current demographics and without intervention, is set to double its population of 150 million people in 22 years. The government's population and health policies recognize family planning as a key intervention. However, unacceptably high unmet need for contraception exists in the country, which may indicate a lack of commitment for family planning.

Resistance evolution in HIV - modeling when to intervene.

The treatment of HIV is complicated by the evolution of antiviral drug resistant virus and the limited availability of antigenically independent antiviral regimens. The consequences to the patient of successive virological failures is such that many strategies to minimize the occurrence of such failures are being investigated. In this paper, a Markov chain-based model of virological failure is introduced.

Single port sleeve gastrectomy: strategic use of technology to re-establish fundamental tenets of multiport laparoscopy.

Background: Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is commonly performed using multiple ports. The quest to minimize surgical trauma has led to the development of single port laparoscopy, which has been shown to be a safe, less-invasive method of performing a variety of abdominal surgeries. We describe the feasibility and safety of single port sleeve gastrectomy (SPSG) for morbid obesity at an academic affiliate of a university hospital.

Intercellular calcium wave propagation in linear and circuit-like bone cell networks.

In the present study, the mechanism of intercellular calcium wave propagation in bone cell networks was identified. By using micro-contact printing and self-assembled monolayer technologies, two types of in vitro bone cell networks were constructed: open-ended linear chains and looped hexagonal networks with precisely controlled intercellular distances. Intracellular calcium responses of the cells were recorded and analysed when a single cell in the network was mechanically stimulated by nano-indentation.

Hsp27 knockdown using nucleotide-based therapies inhibit tumor growth and enhance chemotherapy in human bladder cancer cells.

Heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27) is a cytoprotective chaperone that is phosphoactivated during cell stress that prevents aggregation and/or regulate activity and degradation of certain client proteins. Recent evidence suggests that Hsp27 may be involved in tumor progression and the development of treatment resistance in various tumors, including bladder cancer. The purpose of this study was to examine, both in vitro and in vivo, the effects of overexpression of Hsp27 and, correspondingly, the down-regulation of Hsp27 using small interfering (si) RNA and OGX-427, a second-generation antisense oligonucleotide targeting Hsp27.

Antibiotic coating reduces penile prosthesis infection.

Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of a new antibiotic-coated (rifampicin+monocycline) penile prosthesis in prevention of bacterial adhesion and reduction of penile prosthesis infection.

Methods: In a retrospective analysis of medical records of men who had undergone implantation of American Medical Systems (AMS) inflatable penile prostheses between July 1990 and November 2003, we compared patients with AMS antibiotic-coated prostheses and patients with AMS nonantibiotic-coated prostheses. A total of 152 men aged from 27 to 79 years with erectile dysfunction underwent implantation of the AMS inflatable penile prosthesis.

Pulmonary hypertension in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: current theories of pathogenesis and their implications for treatment.

The development of pulmonary hypertension is a poor prognostic sign in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), affecting both mortality and quality of life. Although pulmonary hypertension in COPD is traditionally viewed as a result of emphysematous destruction of the vascular bed and/or hypoxia, recent studies indicate that neither of these factors correlates very well with pulmonary artery pressures. New human and animal experimental data are beginning to show that pulmonary hypertension in this setting is probably a result of the direct effect of tobacco smoke on the intrapulmonary vessels with abnormal production of mediators that control vasoconstriction, vasodilatation, and vascular cell proliferation, ultimately leading to aberrant vascular remodelling and aberrant vascular physiology.

Recent advances in non-interventional pediatric cardiac catheterization.

Purpose Of Review: The role of cardiac catheterization in pediatric cardiology has changed significantly in the past 10-15 years. As interventional procedures dominate the field, it is important to examine the recent advances in non-interventional pediatric cardiac catheterization.

Recent Findings: Meaningful and accurate data must be acquired for the presurgical evaluation of patients with congenital heart disease to better guide clinical decisions.

Spectroscopy of the conformational disorder in molecular films: tetracosane and squalane on Pt(111).

The spectroscopic investigation of the molecular vibrations of adsorbed branched and unbranched alkane molecules using helium atom scattering (HAS) provides evidence for the thermal formation of gauche defects in tetracosane (C24H50) monolayers above 200 K. HAS results for the vibration of tetracosane molecules perpendicular to the Pt(111) surface reveal a strong frequency decrease and peak broadening above the transition temperature which can be related to a reduction of the force holding the molecules to the surface. This reduction of the force is interpreted as being due to the thermal formation of gauche defects within the tetracosane molecules.

Inhibition of intimal hyperplasia by direct thrombin inhibitors in an animal vein bypass model.

Many functions of the coagulation system have nonthrombotic effects. The indirect thrombin inhibitor heparin has been previously shown to be effective in limiting intimal hyperplasia (IH). We sought to study the effect of thrombin on IH by using two direct thrombin inhibitors (DTIs), argatroban and lepirudin.

Non-endometrioid carcinomas of the uterine corpus: a review of their pathology with emphasis on recent advances and problematic aspects.

This review considers the clinical and pathologic features of the various histologic subtypes of endometrial carcinoma excluding those of pure endometrioid type, as the latter tumors were the subject of a previous contribution in the Journal (Vol. 9, No. 2).

Metaphase FISHing of transgenic mice recommended: FISH and SKY define BAC-mediated balanced translocation.

The evolving trend to use larger transgenes and their associated increased chance of unexpected genetic events mandates more careful characterization of transgenic mice. In characterizing our five new mouse strains transgenic for the BAC, bEMS4, we have identified the highest copy number reported to date: the stable incorporation of approximately 40 copies of a 194-kb expressed transgene in a single insertion site. We caution, however, that standard molecular techniques failed to identify a balanced translocation in another strain, and an inappropriate site of insertion in a third.

The proto-oncogene BCL-6 in normal and malignant B cell development.

BCL-6 is an important regulator of the immune system. It is required for GC formation and T cell dependent antibody responses. Mice deficient in BCL-6 fail to form GC and mount reduced levels of T cell-dependent antibody responses.

Entero-colocutaneous fistula: a late consequence of polypropylene mesh abdominal wall repair: case report and review of the literature.

Background: The underlying risk associated with visceral mesh erosion is the close opposition of adjacent intestines to the prosthetic graft. This highly morbid condition has been described with most types and techniques of abdominal wall mesh repair.

Patient: We report the case of a 52-year-old man who presented with an entero-colocutaneous fistula 10 years after prosthetic mesh repair of an incisional hernia.

Handlebar hernia: ultrasonography-aided diagnosis.

Traumatic hernia resulting from blunt impalement of the abdominal wall, known as "handlebar hernia," is seldom addressed in the surgical literature, with only 28 previously reported cases. We describe our experience with this rare traumatic hernia diagnosed by physical examination and confirmed by ultrasonography. Published reports suggest handlebar hernia's potential for serious underlying injury and the diagnostic importance of computed tomographic scanning.

Protein calorie restriction affects nonhepatic IGF-I production and the lymphoid system: studies using the liver-specific IGF-I gene-deleted mouse model.

Nutritional status is a critical factor that modulates the responsiveness of the liver to GH and the resulting production of endocrine (mostly liver-derived) IGF-I. Using a conditional Cre/lox P system, we have established a liver-specific IGF-I-deficient mouse model. Despite the reduction in the circulating IGF-I (75%), the growth parameters are normal, except for the reduced spleen size, providing a unique model to study the effect of protein restriction on the autocrine/paracrine GH/IGF-I axis.

Electron Spin Polarization and Time-Resolved Electron Paramagnetic Resonance: Applications to the Paradigms of Molecular and Supramolecular Photochemistry.

Most molecular and supramolecular organic photochemical reactions involve paramagnetic reactive intermediates (such as molecular triplet states, triplet radical pairs, and free radicals). In a number of cases these species are created with "anomalous" spin populations which are far from thermal equilibrium. Such paramagnetic species are said to be "spin polarized" and may be observed directly by time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (TREPR).