Nevin Manimala

Odontology. 2026 Mar 30. doi: 10.1007/s10266-026-01369-5. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to evaluate the color stability of contemporary bioactive restorative materials, including Equia Forte HT, GC Fuji II LC, ACTIVA BioACTIVE, Cention N, and a conventional composite resin, and to comparatively analyze their color changes following thermal aging and exposure to iron preparations. A total of 120 specimens were fabricated from five different restorative materials: Equia Forte, Cention N, ACTIVA BioACTIVE, Fuji II, and SolareX (n = 24 per group). All samples were initially subjected to thermal cycling, followed by immersion in two iron-containing solutions (Ferrum and Ocean) and one control solution (distilled water) for 72 h. Measurements were recorded at baseline (after 24 h of immersion in distilled water), after thermal cycling, and following staining procedures. Color difference (ΔE00) and lightness (L*) values were quantitatively assessed using a dental spectrophotometer based on the CIEDE2000 color evaluation system. Statistical analyses were performed using the Shapiro-Wilk test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and generalized linear models (GLM) approach. All analyses were conducted with SPSS version 22.0, with a significance level set at p < 0.05. A statistically significant difference was observed between the baseline and post-aging color values (p < 0.05). Among the materials tested, Equia Forte exhibited the greatest degree of color change, while ACTIVA BioACTIVE and SolareX demonstrated similar and comparatively lower levels of discoloration. Although no statistically significant difference was found between ACTIVA BioACTIVE and SolareX regarding total color change from baseline to final measurements (p > 0.05), the ΔE2 values of Equia Forte, Cention N, and Fuji II were significantly higher than those of the SolareX group (p < 0.05). Furthermore, significant differences were noted in the L* values before and after aging depending on the restorative material used (p < 0.05). Equia Forte showed the lowest L* values at both baseline (L1) and post-aging (L2), whereas ACTIVA BioACTIVE and SolareX presented the highest values. The findings of this in vitro study suggest that the color stability of restorative materials is influenced by intrinsic material properties as well as exposure to thermal aging and staining solutions. These factors should be considered when selecting restorative materials, particularly in esthetically demanding clinical situations.

PMID:41912967 | DOI:10.1007/s10266-026-01369-5

J Imaging Inform Med. 2026 Mar 30. doi: 10.1007/s10278-026-01914-2. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Aligning radiological features with clinical text descriptions remains a key challenge for zero-shot disease recognition in chest radiography. We propose DVLM (Dual-Head Vision-Language Model with Neural Memory), a framework combining Vision Transformer visual encoding with ClinicalBERT-based text processing through parallel contrastive and supervised learning branches. A neural memory module stores disease-relevant patterns during training for improved generalization to unseen pathologies. We evaluated DVLM on CheXpert, MIMIC-CXR, and PadChest using multi-seed validation (five seeds $\times$ fivefold cross-validation), controlled ablation studies, and statistical significance testing. DVLM achieved 90.0% ± 0.28% macro-averaged AUROC on CheXpert (95% CI, 89.5-90.6%), with the neural memory module contributing +3.3% improvement ( $p<0.001$ , Cohen’s $d=0.89$ ). For zero-shot classification (25% held-out diseases), DVLM achieved 73.5% AUROC, outperforming MedKLIP by 2.3%. Temperature scaling reduced calibration error by 72%, and Grad-CAM localization achieved an IoU of 0.642 against radiologist annotations. Subgroup analysis confirmed equitable performance across demographic groups (maximum disparity, 1.3%). While DVLM demonstrates strong ranking capability suitable for triage applications, threshold-based classification for rare diseases remains limited (F1, 24.8-30.1%), indicating the need for radiologist confirmation in clinical deployment.

PMID:41912958 | DOI:10.1007/s10278-026-01914-2

J Gen Intern Med. 2026 Mar 30. doi: 10.1007/s11606-026-10370-1. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Gender and geographic inequities persist in academic medicine. This study examined the gender and country of affiliation of editors-in-chief (EICs) of general internal medicine journals and assessed disparities across journal impact levels.

METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of all journals indexed in the 2024 Journal Citation Reports under “MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL” with an impact factor ≥ 0.2. Gender and country of affiliation of EICs were extracted from journal websites, and journal country from the SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Countries were categorized by World Bank income level. Descriptive statistics and weighted logistic regression models examined differences across impact quartiles (Q1-Q4). To contextualize findings, gender and geographic distributions of EICs in Q1 journals were compared with previously published authorship benchmarks from 202,092 publications in the 50 highest-impact journals (2012-2021).

RESULTS: Among 304 eligible journals, 347 EICs were identified; 77.8% were men and 22.2% were women, with no significant variation across impact quartiles. Most EICs were affiliated with high-income countries (67.2%), decreasing with journal impact (Q1: 85.9%; Q2: 75.7%; Q3-Q4: 48.6%; p < 0.001). In Q1 journals, 25.0% of EICs were women versus 40.6% female first authors and 33.0% female last authors in the benchmark study, indicating a more pronounced gender imbalance at the leadership level, while geographic patterns were similar.

CONCLUSION: EICs of general internal medicine journals are predominantly men and mainly affiliated with institutions in high-income countries, especially in high-impact journals. Initiatives promoting equity in scientific publishing should include editorial leadership, where disparities remain substantial.

PMID:41912938 | DOI:10.1007/s11606-026-10370-1

Environ Monit Assess. 2026 Mar 31;198(4):387. doi: 10.1007/s10661-026-15239-8.

ABSTRACT

Heavy metal contamination in soils represents a critical environmental and public health challenge, particularly in intensively cultivated regions such as the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Despite widespread groundwater contamination studies in the region, systematic investigations of heavy metals in soils and associated ecological and human health risks remain limited. In this study, topsoil samples from 121 locations in Ballia district were analyzed for heavy metals, including Cr, Ni, As, Cd, Hg, and Pb. Contamination indices were used to assess soil contamination levels, while the Risk Index (RI) was applied to evaluate potential ecological risk. Human health risks were assessed using USEPA guidelines, and multivariate statistical techniques (PCA and HCA) were employed to identify dominant geochemical and anthropogenic signatures. Mean concentrations of Cr (138.7 mg/kg), Ni (52.5 mg/kg), and Hg (2.33 mg/kg) exceeded global background levels, with 70% of soils exceeding Indian agricultural screening values for Cr and nearly 46% for Ni. High enrichment of mercury (EF ≈ 143) was the principal contributor to ecological risk, with a mean RI of 1364, placing 72% of soils in the very high risk category. Human health risk assessment indicated that Ni (Incremental Lifetime Cancer Risk, ILCR = 1.27 × 10^-4) and Cr (ILCR = 9.91 × 10^-5) were the major contributors, accounting for ~ 95% of the total carcinogenic risk, with a cumulative ILCR of 2.26 × 10^-4 exceeding the USEPA acceptable limits. Multivariate analysis suggests mixed sources, dominated by geogenic sorption and redox cycling processes, along with anthropogenic enrichment of Hg and Cd. These findings highlight the presence of multi-metal contamination in agricultural soils, and their potential leaching into groundwater may pose significant ecological and human health risks. The results emphasize the need for regulatory control, targeted monitoring, and sustainable soil management practices in the Indo-Gangetic alluvial plains.

PMID:41912927 | DOI:10.1007/s10661-026-15239-8

Behav Res Methods. 2026 Mar 30;58(4):96. doi: 10.3758/s13428-025-02928-4.

ABSTRACT

Meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) is a method to systematically synthesize results from primary studies, allowing the researchers to simultaneously examine multiple relations among variables by fitting a structural equation model to the pooled correlations. Incorporating dichotomous variables (e.g., having a specific disease or not) into MASEM poses challenges. While primary studies that investigate the relation between a dichotomous and continuous variable typically report standardized mean differences (e.g., Cohen’s d), in the specialized MASEM software it is not possible to directly include standardized mean differences. Instead, MASEM typically uses correlation matrices as input. A proposed solution is to convert the standardized mean differences to point-biserial correlations. Here lies a complication because, in contrast to a standardized mean difference, the point-biserial correlation depends on the distribution of group membership. Through three Monte Carlo simulation studies, we investigated which conversion formula is suitable when one wants to include a dichotomous variable in MASEM. We varied the prevalence, sampling plan, within-study sample sizes, and the distribution of participants over two groups. Our results show that which conversion is suitable, and which is not depends on the aim of the meta-analyst. Moreover, if the group distribution in the sample does not reflect the prevalence in the population, it is necessary to adjust the correlation between the continuous variables in the model. We have extended our freely available web application (Effect Size Calculator and Converter; https://hdejonge.shinyapps.io/ESCACO/ ) to fill the existing gap and to assist the meta-analyst with both the conversions and the adjustment.

PMID:41912908 | DOI:10.3758/s13428-025-02928-4

Sci Rep. 2026 Mar 30. doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-46756-8. Online ahead of print.

NO ABSTRACT

PMID:41912895 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-026-46756-8

Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2026 Mar 30. doi: 10.1134/S1607672925700279. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

of the study was to obtain data on the safety of netakimab (NTK) in a population of patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), including various somatic diseases, as well as to assess treatment retention during 2 years of observation in real world clinical practice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: -Patients were recruited for the study from August 2020 to December 2021 at 23 centers in the Russian Federation. The study included 137 patients who were prescribed netakimab therapy before enrollment. Clinical and medical history data for the first visit were entered retrospectively, and following visits at 12, 24, 52, 76, and 104 weeks of therapy were collected within the study. The average age of the patients 42.3 years, 34.3% of them with previous biologics therapy. RESULTS-: Median observation period was 104 weeks (range 1-137 weeks). At the end of the analyzed period (104 weeks of therapy), 85.5% (95% confidence interval (95% CI): 79.7-91.8) of patients continued treatment with netakimab. Retention on NTK therapy was slightly better in “bio-naïve” vs patients who received biologics earlier: 88.7% (95% CI: 82.3-95.5) and 78.9% (95% CI: 67.5-92.2), respectively, without significant differences between groups (p = 0.16). As many as 21 (15.3%) patients withdrew from study before visit 6. The main end-of-study reasons were lost to follow-up (7 (5.1%) patients) and treatment inefficacy (6 (4.4%) patients). The BASDAI (Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index) and ASDAS-CRP (Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score with C-reactive protein) showed statistically significant decreases from baseline: by 3 times during the first 3 months of therapy and 2 times decrease during the first year of treatment. This trend continued in the second year of treatment, although with a lower rate of reduction. By week 104 of therapy, 52.9% (95% CI: 47.3-58.4) reached low disease activity (1.3 ≤ ASDAS < 2.1), 21.3% (95% CI: 12.8-29.8) had inactive disease (ASDAS < 1.3). Netakimab was well tolerated by patients: AEs, related to therapy according to the investigator’s opinion, were reported in 8 (6.0%) patients. CONCLUSIONS-: In real-world clinical practice, 85.5% of patients continued treatment with Netakimab at the end of 104 weeks. By 104 weeks 74% patients had low disease activity or inactive disease. Netakimab was well tolerated by most of patients.

PMID:41912852 | DOI:10.1134/S1607672925700279

Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2026 Mar 30. doi: 10.1134/S1607672925700255. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

to evaluate the effectiveness of long-term therapy with Russian rituximab (RTX) biosimilar in Sjögren’s disease (SjD) in real-life clinical practice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: -The retrospective study included 53 patients with SjD (Russian 2001 criteria and ACR/EULAR (American College of Rheumatology/European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology) 2016 criteria), observed at the Nasonova Research Institute of Rheumatology from 2017 to 2024 and receiving long-term RTX therapy (Russian biosimilar Acellbia®, BIOCAD). The signs of clinical and laboratory activity of the disease, stomatological and ophthalmological tests, as well as the incidence of new systemic manifestations and lymphomas were assessed dynamically. RESULTS: -The median duration of RTX therapy was 27 [19; 55] months, and the median total dose was 4 [3.5; 5.5] g. Before the therapy, 13 (25%) patients had recurrent parotitis, which was relieved in all patients during the therapy. Persistent enlargement of the salivary glands was observed in 10 (20.4%) patients, in 9 of them it was relieved. A significant increase in stimulated saliva flow was found (from 1.5 [0.5; 3] to 2.4 [1.4; 3.5] mL; p = 0.002), an increase in salivation was found in 51% of patients, stabilization in 28.6%, and deterioration in 20.4%. When assessing the ultrasound dynamics of the salivary glands, the size of hypoechoic avascular lesions significantly decreased (from 1.8 [1.3; 2.3] to 1.3 [1.1; 1.5] mm; p<0.001), and according to the ultrasound activity index, stabilization was noted in 67.4% of patients, improvement in 27.9%, and deterioration in 4.7% of patients. When assessing the dynamics of sialography, the size of cavities significantly decreased (from 1.5 [1.5; 2.5] to 1.0 [0; 1.5] mm; p < 0.001), and according to the assessment of sialographic stages, stabilization was noted in 67.5% of patients, improvement in 32.5% of patients, and deterioration was not noted in any patient. When assessing the lacrimal glands function, a significant increase in lacrimation was found according to the stimulated Schirmer’s test (from 6 [3.75; 12] to 8 [5; 15] mm; p = 0.005); an increase in lacrimation was noted in 38% of patients, stabilization in 40.6%, and a decrease in 21.4%. When assessing the tear break-up time, a tendency towards its increase was noted, but statistically insignificant (from 5 [3.75; 9.25] to 5.5 [4; 9] sec; p = 0.35). Corneal epitheliopathy during the therapy was relieved in 44% and persisted in 56% of patients; worsening of corneal epitheliopathy during the treatment was observed in a few patients, while no cases of ulcer formation or perforation of the cornea were recorded. During the therapy, a significant decrease in the levels of erythrocyte sedimentation rate, gamma globulins, IgG, IgA, IgM, rheumatoid factor, an increase in the C3 complement level, and the elimination of monoclonal gammopathy were observed, while the dynamics of the C4 complement level and cryoglobulinemia were multidirectional. The median duration of B lymphocyte depletion was 5 [4; 6] months, constant depletion could be maintained only in 59.6% of patients. During the therapy, the SjD systemic activity index (ESSDAI, EULAR Sjögren’s Syndrome Disease Activity Index) significantly decreased (from 5 [2; 8] to 1 [0; 3] points; p<0.001), and minimal clinically important improvement of this index was achieved in 66.6% of patients. During the observation, one patient developed a new skin lesion (lupus chilblain); no other new systemic manifestations or lymphomas were registered. CONCLUSIONS. : According to our retrospective study conducted in real-life clinical practice, long-term therapy with Russian RTX biosimilar in most cases (60-80%) led to stabilization or improvement of SjD manifestations. RTX can be used to treat not only systemic but also glandular manifestations of the disease. Given the lack of an optimal response to RTX therapy in a number of SjD patients, it is necessary to study the effectiveness of drugs that lead to a deeper depletion of B lymphocytes.

PMID:41912841 | DOI:10.1134/S1607672925700255

Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2026 Mar 30. doi: 10.1134/S1607672925700231. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Interleukin (IL)-6 plays an important role in the pathogenesis of comorbid rheumatoid arthritis (RA) depression. IL-6 inhibitors used to treat patients with RA may also have an antidepressant effect. THE OBJECTIVE-: of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of 24-week IL-6 inhibitor therapy with olokizumab (OKZ) in combination with or without psychopharmacotherapy (PPT) in patients with moderate to high RA activity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: -A total of 125 patients with RA were included, 102 (81.6%) of them were women. The average age of the patients was 48.5 ± 12.6 years; the majority of the patients (86.4%) had high RA activity and had shown ineffectiveness with stable 12-week therapy using conventional synthetic disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs). Additionally, 34 (27.2%) patients had shown inefficiency with one or more biological DMARDs. According to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10), a psychiatrist diagnosed varying severity of depression (chronic or recurrent) in all patients during a semi-structured interview. At week 0, all patients were randomized using sequential numbers in a 2:2:1 ratio into one of three groups: in group 1, patients received csDMARDs + OKZ 64 mg subcutaneously once every 4 weeks (q4w) (n = 49); in group 2, patients received csDMARDs + OKZ 64 mg subcutaneously q4w along with PPT (n = 51); in group 3, patients received csDMARDs + PPT (n = 25). The study duration was 24 weeks. The severity of depression was assessed using the PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire 9) and MADRS (Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale) scales, and anxiety was assessed using the HAM-A (Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale) scale. Projective experimental psychological techniques were also used.

RESULTS: -After 12 and 24 weeks of therapy, a significant decrease in the severity of depression and anxiety was observed in all patients’ groups. However, the differences between the final and initial values of the scales filled in by a psychiatrist were statistically significantly greater (p < 0.001) in the groups of patients receiving PPT: in group 2 (ΔMADRS_24-0 = -20.2 ± 6.57; ΔHAM-A_24-0 = -13.2 ± 5.68) and group 3 (ΔMADRS_24-0 = -17.8 ± 4.73; ΔHAM-A_24-0 = -13.4 ± 4.41), compared with the group 1 (ΔMADRS_24-0 = -5.42 ± 7.14; ΔHAM-A_24-0 = -4.58 ± 6.80). There were no significant differences between the groups according to the PHQ-9 depression questionnaire (in group 1, ΔPHQ-9_24-0 = -4.89 ± 4.87; in group 2, ΔPHQ-9_24-0 = -6.73 ± 4.97; in group 3, ΔPHQ-9_24-0 = -7.26 ± 5.58, respectively), despite a greater decrease in the severity of depression observed in the groups with PPT. According to a semi-structured interview with a psychiatrist and in accordance with the criteria of ICD-10 the proportion of patients without depression 24 weeks after the start of therapy was significantly higher in the groups receiving PPT: 84.3% in group 2, 100% in group 3, and 16.3% in group 1.

CONCLUSIONS: -In patients with moderate/high RA activity and comorbid depression, OKZ without PPT can lead to a decrease in the severity of depression or, less often, to a complete regression of depressive symptoms, mainly in patients with minor depression. OKZ therapy without PPT also reduces the severity of anxiety, but does not eliminate it completely. The combination of OKZ and PPT is optimal for achieving complete regression of depression and anxiety in this category of RA patients.

PMID:41912840 | DOI:10.1134/S1607672925700231

Brain Topogr. 2026 Mar 31;39(3):39. doi: 10.1007/s10548-026-01190-x.

ABSTRACT

Precise localization of auditory evoked fields (AEFs) from magnetoencephalography (MEG) data is very important for the functional understanding of the auditory cortex in medicine and cognitive neuroscience. The numerical solution of the field equations in the human head using the boundary element method (BEM) is a powerful tool for achieving this. The spatial resolution of the BEM is crucial for the achievable accuracy of localized neural sources. However, in classical BEM (as implemented, e.g., in MNE-Python), very high resolutions are impractical due to the associated prohibitive computational effort. In contrast, our recently introduced reciprocal boundary element fast multipole method (reciprocal BEM-FMM) allows for hitherto unprecedented spatial resolution of forward models. In this work, we employ reciprocal BEM-FMM to construct high-resolution forward models to localize AEFs. Simulated AEFs were generated using a direct BEM-FMM approach on realistic 40-tissue Sim4Life segmentations. Comparative analyses from simulated data demonstrate that high-resolution BEM-FMM forward models yield statistically superior source estimates relative to the 3-layer BEM. We also compare BEM-FMM forward models with source dipole resolution varying from 25,000 to 3,200,000 sources, and find that resolutions above 200,000 sources are sufficient for achieving accurate, high-resolution source estimates. We therefore recommend using the high-resolution reciprocal BEM-FMM to utilize high spatial anatomical precision for the modeling of neural activity.

PMID:41912838 | DOI:10.1007/s10548-026-01190-x