Assessment of potentially unnecessary antibiotic use for suspected urinary tract infections in nursing homes using a simplified algorithm.

Background: Nursing home (NH) residents are frequently treated with antibiotics for urinary tract infections (UTIs), often due to overdiagnosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the proportion of potentially unnecessary antibiotic use for suspected UTIs in NHs across eight European countries.

Research Design And Methods: Over a three-month period (February to April 2024), NH professionals recorded information on all antibiotic treatments for UTIs using a specific registration chart.

Examination of non-conventional dysplasias adjacent to colorectal adenocarcinoma in patients with IBD.

Objective: Recently, several non-conventional variants of IBD-associated dysplasia have been described; however, their prevalence in Central-Eastern Europe is unknown. We aimed to perform a retrospective pilot study by re-evaluating several IBD-associated adenocarcinoma cases to survey the incidence of adjacent non-conventional dysplasia and validate that recent North American findings may apply to a European population.

Methods: Retrospectively, 28 randomly chosen cases of IBD-associated adenocarcinomas diagnosed between 2010 and 2022 were re-evaluated.

"I am still grieving my childhood" - Loss and grief of children raised in families with addiction following the death of the parent.

The aim of our study presented in this paper is to explore the experiences of loss among children raised in families affected by addiction and the grieving process following the parent's death. Our empirical research analyzed written accounts from Hungarian individuals using qualitative psychological methods. The participants had parents affected by alcoholism, have lost one or both parents, and at least two years have passed since the bereavement.

Left ventricular elastance with resting volumetric transthoracic echocardiography identifies different phenotypes in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: A retrospective analysis of a multicenter prospective observational study.

Background: Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a heterogeneous entity including patients with different phenotypes of near normal, normal, and supernormal left ventricular (LV) function.

Objectives: To assess the value of resting LV elastance (also known as force) with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) to identify HFpEF phenotypes.

Methods: In a prospective, observational, multicenter study, 2380 HFpEF patients were recruited from July 2016 to May 2024.

AF-FLOW Global Registry Confirms Validity of Electrographic Flow Mapping as a Phenotyping Tool for Atrial Fibrillation.

Background: Electrographic flow (EGF) mapping allows for the visualization of global atrial wavefront propagations. One mechanism of initiation and maintenance of atrial fibrillation (AF) is stimulation from EGF-identified focal sources that serve as driver sites of fibrillatory conduction. Electrographic flow consistency (EGFC) further quantifies the concordance of observed wavefront patterns, indicating that a healthier substrate shows more organized wavefront propagation and higher EGFC.

Expression and purification of E140 protein antigen fragments of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium berghei for serological assays.

Malaria, a life-threatening disease caused by Plasmodium parasites, continues to pose a significant global health threat, with nearly 250 million infections and over 600 000 deaths reported annually by the WHO. Fighting malaria is particularly challenging partly due to the complex life cycle of the parasite. However, technological breakthroughs such as the development of the nucleoside-modified mRNA lipid nanoparticle (mRNA-LNP) vaccine platform, along with the discovery of novel conserved Plasmodium antigens such as the E140 protein, present new opportunities in malaria prevention.

Development of a Novel Human Serum Albumin-Based Tool for Effective Drug Discovery: The Investigation of Protein Quality and Immobilization.

The binding ability of human serum albumin (HSA) on active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) is one of the most important parameters in the early stages of drug discovery. In this study, an immobilized HSA-based tool was developed for the rapid and easy in vitro screening of API binding. The work explored the serious incompleteness in the identification of HSA used for in vitro screening published in the last five years.

A systematic review on the trend of transcriptomic study in livestock: An effort to unwind the complexity of adaptation in a climate change environment.

Heat stress has been proven to cause negative effects on livestock leading to lower productivity and economic value. Understanding how heat stress manifests within an animal's body is the first step in devising a heat stress mitigation strategy; transcriptomic studies are one of the methods used. Here, using a systematic literature review methodology, we examine the recent decade of transcriptomics' application to the study of livestock adaptation.

ESKAPE pathogens rapidly develop resistance against antibiotics in development in vitro.

Despite ongoing antibiotic development, evolution of resistance may render candidate antibiotics ineffective. Here we studied in vitro emergence of resistance to 13 antibiotics introduced after 2017 or currently in development, compared with in-use antibiotics. Laboratory evolution showed that clinically relevant resistance arises within 60 days of antibiotic exposure in Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, priority Gram-negative ESKAPE pathogens.

Effect of non-spherical shape of dry powder aerosol drugs on their airway deposition distribution.

In the majority of aerosol drug deposition modelling efforts, the particles are approximated by regular spheres. However, microscope images acquired after drug formulation available in the open literature suggest that their shape is not regular in most of the cases. This work aimed to combine experimental measurements and numerical simulations to reveal the shape factors of the particles of commercialized aerosol drugs and the effect of non-sphericity on the lung deposition distribution of these drugs.

Assessment of hard tissue changes after horizontal guided bone regeneration with the aid of deep learning CBCT segmentation.

Objectives: To investigate the performance of a deep learning (DL) model for segmenting cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans taken before and after mandibular horizontal guided bone regeneration (GBR) to evaluate hard tissue changes.

Materials And Methods: The proposed SegResNet-based DL model was trained on 70 CBCT scans. It was tested on 10 pairs of pre- and post-operative CBCT scans of patients who underwent mandibular horizontal GBR.

The effects of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and urocortins on the serotonin (hydroxytryptamine, 5HT) released from the raphe nuclei (RN).

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and urocortins (UCN1, UCN2 and UCN3) belong to the same CRF family of neuropeptides. They regulate the neuroendocrine, autonomic and behavioral responses to stress via two CRF receptors (CRF1 and CRF2). Stress, anxiety and depression affects the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the serotoninergic neurotransmission, both being regulated by CRF and CRF-related peptides.

Therapeutic Consequences and Prognostic Impact of Multimorbidity in Heart Failure: Time to Act.

: In heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), the early diagnosis and proper treatment of comorbidities (CMs) are of fundamental relevance. Our aim was to assess the prevalence of CMs among real-world patients requiring hospitalisation for HFrEF and to investigate the effect of CMs on the implementation of guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) and on all-cause mortality (ACM). : The data of a consecutive HFrEF patient cohort hospitalised for HF between 2021 and 2024 were analysed retrospectively.

Chemoresistance in Pancreatic Cancer: The Role of Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Key Resistance Genes.

Drug resistance is a significant challenge in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), where stromal elements such as adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs) contribute to a chemoresistant tumor microenvironment (TME). This study explored the effects of oxaliplatin (OXP) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) on PDAC cells (Capan-1) and ASCs to investigate the mechanisms of chemoresistance. While OXP and 5-FU reduced Capan-1 viability in a dose- and time-dependent manner, ASCs demonstrated high resistance, maintaining > 90% viability even at cytotoxic doses.

The Effect of a Secondary Stressor on the Morphology and Membrane Structure of an Already Challenged Maternal and Foetal Red Blood Cell Population.

The red blood cell (RBC) membrane is unique and crucial for maintaining structural-functional relationships. Maternal smoking induces significant changes in the morphological, rheological, and functional parameters of both maternal and foetal RBCs, mainly due to the continuous generation of the free radicals. The major aim of this study was to follow the consequences of a secondary stressor, like fungal infection, on the already compromised RBC populations.

Novel and Variants and the Observed Clinical Outcomes in a Hungarian Melanoma Cohort.

Accumulating evidence suggests that inherited melanoma is not rare and approx. one in seven individuals with melanoma has clinically relevant hereditable cancer-predisposing and/or -susceptibility variant(s). Concerning its germline genetic background, genetic screening aims to identify either variants of predisposing genes with high penetrance or variants of susceptibility genes with medium or low penetrance.

Comparative Evaluation of Different Mint Species Based on Their In Vitro Antioxidant and Antibacterial Effect.

In our research six different mint species (peppermint, spearmint (five different chemotypes), Horse mint, mojito mint, apple mint (two different chemotypes), bergamot mint) have been evaluated by referring to their chemical (essential oil (EO) content and composition) and in vitro biological (antibacterial, antioxidant effect) characteristics. The EO amount of the analyzed mint populations varied between 1.99 and 3.

Revealing Stachybotrys-like fungal growth in buildings - Possible exposure highlighted through three case studies.

Genus Stachybotrys (Stachybotryaceae, Hypocreales) requires high humidity to grow and represents one of the most notorious fungi associated with suspected illness in moist buildings. If Stachybotrys conidia are found in settled indoor dusts, their presence may indicate water intrusion and mold infestation revealed after dismantling the building structures. This study describes detection of Stachybotrys growth hidden inside the structures of three buildings in Finland.

Editor's Highlights-February 2025.

Understanding the pathophysiology of inflammatory skin diseases, including psoriasis, atopic dermatitis (AD), and prurigo nodularis (PN), has led to the development of innovative treatments. In the February issue of the Journal, we provide insight into the global epidemiology and psychosocial impact of psoriasis. We also discuss the role of tissue-resident memory T cells in disease recurrence and evaluate the effectiveness of tildrakizumab in treating difficult areas in psoriasis.

Three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography-derived deformation analysis of the morphologic left ventricle in adults with corrected dextro-transposition of the great arteries-insights from the CSONGRAD Registry and MAGYAR-Path Study.

Background: Dextro-transposition of the great arteries (dTGA) stands out as a prevalent cyanotic congenital heart defect (CHD), characterized by an intricate reversal in the arrangement of the major arteries. In the past, several surgical procedures have been used to treat dTGA, including the atrial switch. Although the method is no longer used, survivors of the procedure still living among us.

Prospective validation of ORACLE, a clonal expression biomarker associated with survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Human tumors are diverse in their natural history and response to treatment, which in part results from genetic and transcriptomic heterogeneity. In clinical practice, single-site needle biopsies are used to sample this diversity, but cancer biomarkers may be confounded by spatiogenomic heterogeneity within individual tumors. Here we investigate clonally expressed genes as a solution to the sampling bias problem by analyzing multiregion whole-exome and RNA sequencing data for 450 tumor regions from 184 patients with lung adenocarcinoma in the TRACERx study.

Pulmonary Function Testing in Healthy Infants in Rural Bangladesh: Feasibility Study.

Background: Infant pulmonary function testing (iPFT) in low- and middle-income countries is limited. We evaluated the early feasibility of iPFT in rural Bangladesh.

Methods: Experts established an iPFT laboratory at Zakiganj Upazila Health Complex in Sylhet, Bangladesh and trained staff.

The effect of unilateral endoscopic arytenoid abduction lateropexy on swallowing in cases of bilateral vocal fold palsy.

Objective: Endoscopic arytenoid abduction lateropexy (EAAL) is a minimally invasive surgical technique for the immediate management of bilateral vocal fold palsy (BVFP). Specifically, it achieves a stable and adequate airway by lateralizing the arytenoid cartilage without resecting laryngeal structures. Thus, this study evaluated the effect of EAAL on swallowing in cases of BVFP.