Tag: pubmed

Spine J. 2023 Oct 22:S1529-9430(23)03460-5. doi: 10.1016/j.spinee.2023.10.003. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND CONTEXT: Lumbar interbody instrumentation techniques are common and effective surgical options for a variety of lumbar degenerative pathologies. Anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) has become a versatile and powerful means of decompression, stabilization, and reconstruction. As an anterior only technique, the integrity of the posterior muscle and ligaments remain intact. Adding posterior instrumentation to ALIF is common and may confer benefits in terms of higher fusion rate but could contribute to adjacent segment degeneration due to additional rigidity. Large clinical studies comparing stand-alone ALIF with and without posterior supplementary fixation (ALIF+PSF) are lacking.

PURPOSE: To compare rates of operative nonunion and adjacent segment disease (ASD) in ALIF with or without posterior instrumentation.

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.

PATIENT SAMPLE: Adult patients (≥ 18 years old) who underwent primary ALIF for lumbar degenerative pathology between levels L4 to S1 over a 12-year period. Exclusion criteria included trauma, cancer, infection, supplemental decompression, noncontiguous fusions, prior lumbar fusions, and other interbody devices.

OUTCOME MEASURES: Reoperation for nonunion and ASD compared between ALIF only and ALIF+PSF.

METHODS: Reoperations were modeled as time-to-events where the follow-up time was defined as the difference between the primary ALIF procedure and the date of the outcome of interest. Crude cumulative reoperation probabilities were reported at five-years follow-up. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression was used to evaluate risk of operative nonunion and for ASD adjusting for patient characteristics.

RESULTS: The study consisted of 1377 cases; 307 ALIF only and 1070 ALIF+PSF. Mean follow up time was 5.6 years. The 5-year crude nonunion incidence was 2.4% for ALIF only and 0.5% for ALIF+PSF; after adjustment for covariates, a lower operative nonunion risk was observed for ALIF+PSF (HR=0.22, 95% CI=0.06-0.76). Of the patients who are deemed potentially suitable for ALIF alone, one would need to add posterior instrumentation in 53 patients to prevent one case of operative nonunion at a 5-year follow-up (number needed to treat). Five-year operative ASD incidence was 4.3% for ALIF only and 6.2% for ALIF+PSF; with adjustments, no difference was observed between the cohorts (HR=0.96, 95% CI=0.54-1.71).

CONCLUSIONS: While the addition of posterior instrumentation in ALIFs is associated with lower risk of operative nonunion compared to ALIF alone, operative nonunion is rare in both techniques (<5%). Accordingly, surgeons should evaluate the added risks associated with the addition of posterior instrumentation and reserve the supplemental posterior fixation for patients that might be at higher risk for operative nonunion. Rates of operative ASD were not statistically higher with the addition of posterior instrumentation suggesting concern regarding future risk of ASD perhaps should not play a role in considering supplemental posterior instrumentation in ALIF.

PMID:37875244 | DOI:10.1016/j.spinee.2023.10.003

Appetite. 2023 Oct 22:107084. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.107084. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This study examined the relationship between weight stigma and disordered eating behaviors in university students during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering individuals with and without overweight. A national sample of 738 college students completed an online questionnaire at three time points between July 2020 and December 2021, reporting their experiences of weight stigma, perceived increase in weight stigma during the pandemic, internalized weight stigma, and disordered eating behaviors. The findings showed that the trajectories of disordered eating behaviors varied depending on participants’ anthropometric status. Among those with overweight, there was a decrease over time in binge eating, food restriction, and purging. Conversely, the non-overweight group experienced a slight increase in binge eating from T2 to T3. Using the Generalized Estimating Equations model, the study revealed that weight stigma predicted disordered eating behaviors in both weight spectrums during the pandemic. Experiences of weight stigma and the perceived increase in weight stigma significantly increased the likelihood of engaging in binge eating, food restriction, and purging among individuals with overweight. Furthermore, the internalization of weight stigma was longitudinally associated with all examined eating behaviors, regardless of anthropometric status. These findings highlight the importance of addressing weight stigma to prevent disordered eating in college students.

PMID:37875240 | DOI:10.1016/j.appet.2023.107084

Curr Probl Cardiol. 2023 Oct 22:102161. doi: 10.1016/j.cpcardiol.2023.102161. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

ABCG1 is an essential protein involved in the efflux of intracellular cholesterol to the extracellular space, thus playing a critical role in reducing cholesterol accumulation in neighboring tissues. Bibliometric analysis pertains to the interdisciplinary field of quantitative examination of diverse documents using mathematical and statistical techniques. It integrates the investigation of structural and temporal patterns in academic publications with an exploration of subject focus and forms of uncertainty. This research paper examines the historical evolution, current areas of interest, and future development trends of ABCG1 through bibliometric analysis. This study aims to offer readers insights into the research status and emerging trends of ABCG1, thereby assisting researchers in the exciting field to explore novel research avenues. Following rigorous selection, research on ABCG1 has remained highly active over the past two decades. ABCG1 has even started to emerge in previously unrelated fields, such as the field of cancer research. According to the analysis conducted by Citespace, a lot of keywords and influential citations were identified. ABCG1 has been found to establish a connection between cancer and cardiovascular disease, highlighting their interrelationship. This review aims to assist readers who have limited familiarity with ABCG1 research in gaining a rapid understanding of its developmental trajectory. Additionally, it aims to offer researchers potential areas of focus for future studies related to ABCG1.

PMID:37875209 | DOI:10.1016/j.cpcardiol.2023.102161

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Oct 22:167955. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167955. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Although there has been a surge of interest in research focused on the presence of pharmaceuticals in the marine environment, study on the distribution and risks of pharmaceuticals in coastal waters remains inadequately documented due to the specific features of the marine environment, such as strong dilution, high salinity, and complex hydrodynamics. In this study, thirty pharmaceuticals with diverse physicochemical properties were analyzed in a coastal sea with low hydrodynamic energy caused by various artificial structures. The results indicate that 14 compounds were detected in seawater, with concentrations ranging from <1 to 201.4 ng L^-1, among which caffeine, metoprolol, and atenolol were detected at high levels. Statistical analysis reveals the prevalence of the most target pharmaceuticals with downward trends in concentrations from estuary to offshore region, demonstrating the significant impacts of riverine inputs on the coastal water. Nevertheless, the distribution patterns of caffeine and atenolol were intricate, suggesting that they may have also originated from other unknown sources. A newly-developed method combining risk quotient (RQ) and species sensitivity distribution (SSD) models was used in ecological risk assessment. The results indicate generally higher risks of target pharmaceuticals in the estuary compared to the offshore region, with caffeine, carbamazepine, and norfloxacin identified as the top three priority pollutants.

PMID:37875199 | DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167955

Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2023 Oct 22:107015. doi: 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2023.107015. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

AIM OF STUDY: Adjunctive rifampicin for implant associated infections (IAI) is controversial. We investigated the clinical outcomes of rifampicin combination therapy in comparison to monotherapy in treating prosthetic joint infection (PJI) or prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) due to staphylococci and streptococci.

METHODS: A systematic search was performed from inception to June 13^th 2022 in Embase, Medline, Cochrane, and Web of Science to investigate the clinical outcomes of rifampicin combination therapy in comparison to monotherapy in treating staphylococcal and streptococcal prosthetic joint infection (PJI) or prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE). Included were randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and observational studies.

RESULTS: Fourteen studies were included. Moderate quality of evidence was found in favor of rifampicin in patients with staphylococcal PJI who underwent debridement, antibiotic and implant retention (DAIR) procedure (Odds Ratio 2.49 (95%CI 1.93 to 3.23). Including the two RCT’s only, adding rifampicin to the antibiotic regimen after DAIR was also in favor of rifampicin but not statistically significant (Risk Ratio 1.27 (0.79 to 2.04), n=126). Pooling data of patients with staphylococcal PJI that underwent a 2-stage procedure showed that adding rifampicin was not associated with therapeutic success. Limited evidence was found for use of rifampicin for PVE caused by staphylococci.

CONCLUSIONS: Adding rifampicin in staphylococcal PJI treated by DAIR was clearly increase the chance for therapeutic success. The clinical benefit of adjunctive rifampicin to in treatment of other staphylococci and streptococci IAI is still unclear.

PMID:37875179 | DOI:10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2023.107015

G3 (Bethesda). 2023 Oct 24:jkad247. doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkad247. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Black spruce (Picea mariana [Mill.] B.S.P.) is a dominant conifer species in the North American boreal forest that plays important ecological and economic roles. Here, we present the first genome assembly of P. mariana with a reconstructed genome size of 18.3 Gbp and NG50 scaffold length of 36.0 kbp. A total of 66,332 protein-coding sequences were predicted in silico and annotated based on sequence homology. We analyzed the evolutionary relationships between P. mariana and five other spruces for which complete nuclear and organelle genome sequences were available. The phylogenetic tree estimated from mitochondrial genome sequences agrees with biogeography; specifically, P. mariana was strongly supported as a sister lineage to P. glauca and three other taxa found in western North America, followed by the European P. abies. We obtained mixed topologies with weaker statistical support in phylogenetic trees estimated from nuclear and chloroplast genome sequences, indicative of ancient reticulate evolution affecting these two genomes. Clustering of protein-coding sequences from the six Picea taxa and two Pinus species resulted in 34,776 orthogroups, 560 of which appeared to be specific to P. mariana. Analysis of these specific orthogroups and dN/dS analysis of positive selection signatures for 497 single-copy orthogroups identified gene functions mostly related to plant development and stress response. The P. mariana genome assembly and annotation provides a valuable resource for forest genetics research and applications in this broadly distributed species, especially in relation to climate adaptation.

PMID:37875130 | DOI:10.1093/g3journal/jkad247

Am J Hum Genet. 2023 Oct 18:S0002-9297(23)00325-7. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2023.09.012. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The heritability explained by local ancestry markers in an admixed population (h_γ²) provides crucial insight into the genetic architecture of a complex disease or trait. Estimation of h_γ² can be susceptible to biases due to population structure in ancestral populations. Here, we present heritability estimation from admixture mapping summary statistics (HAMSTA), an approach that uses summary statistics from admixture mapping to infer heritability explained by local ancestry while adjusting for biases due to ancestral stratification. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that HAMSTA h_γ² estimates are approximately unbiased and are robust to ancestral stratification compared to existing approaches. In the presence of ancestral stratification, we show a HAMSTA-derived sampling scheme provides a calibrated family-wise error rate (FWER) of ∼5% for admixture mapping, unlike existing FWER estimation approaches. We apply HAMSTA to 20 quantitative phenotypes of up to 15,988 self-reported African American individuals in the Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) study. We observe hˆ_γ² in the 20 phenotypes range from 0.0025 to 0.033 (mean hˆ_γ² = 0.012 ± 9.2 × 10^-4), which translates to hˆ² ranging from 0.062 to 0.85 (mean hˆ² = 0.30 ± 0.023). Across these phenotypes we find little evidence of inflation due to ancestral population stratification in current admixture mapping studies (mean inflation factor of 0.99 ± 0.001). Overall, HAMSTA provides a fast and powerful approach to estimate genome-wide heritability and evaluate biases in test statistics of admixture mapping studies.

PMID:37875120 | DOI:10.1016/j.ajhg.2023.09.012

J Phys Chem A. 2023 Oct 24. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.3c04674. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Intramolecular hydrogen bonds (H-bonds) are abundant in physicochemical and biological processes. The strength of such interaction is governed by a subtle balance between conformational flexibility and steric effect that are often hard to predict. Herein, using linear aminoalcohols NH₂(CH₂)_nOH (n = 2-5) as a model system, we demonstrated the dependence of intramolecular H-bond on the backbone chain length. With sensitive photoacoustic Raman spectroscopy (PARS), the gas-phase Raman spectra of aminoalcohols were measured in both N-H and O-H stretching regions at 298 and 338 K and explained with the aid of quantum chemistry calculations. For n = 2-4, two conformers corresponding to the O-H···N intramolecular H-bond and free OH were identified, whereas for n = 5, only the free-OH conformer was identified. Compared to free OH, a striking spectral dependence was observed for the intramolecular H-bonded conformer. According to the red shift of the OH-bonded band, the strongest intramolecular H-bond yields in n = 4, but the favorable chain length to form an intramolecular hydrogen bond at room temperature was observed in n = 3, which corresponds to a six-membered-ring in 3-aminopropanol. This is in good agreement with statistical analysis from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) that the intramolecular hydrogen bond is preferred when the six-membered ring is formed. Furthermore, combined with the calculated thermodynamic data at the MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ//M062X/6-311++G(d,p) level, the origin of decrease in intramolecular hydrogen-bond formation was ascribed to an unfavorable negative entropy contribution when the backbone chain is further getting longer, which results in the calculated Gibbs free energy optimum changing with increasing temperature from n = 4 (0-200 K) to n = 3 (200-400 K) and to n = 2 (above 400 K). These results will provide new insight into the nature of intramolecular hydrogen bonds at the molecular level and the application of intramolecular hydrogen bonds in rational drug design and supramolecular assembly.

PMID:37875015 | DOI:10.1021/acs.jpca.3c04674

Eur J Public Health. 2023 Oct 24:ckad181. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckad181. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Value-based healthcare (VBHC) is a conceptual framework to improve the value of healthcare by health, care-process and economic outcomes. Benchmarking should provide useful information to identify best practices and therefore a good instrument to improve quality across healthcare organizations. This paper aims to provide a proof-of-concept of the feasibility of an international VBHC benchmarking in breast cancer, with the ultimate aim of being used to share best practices with a data-driven approach among healthcare organizations from different health systems.

METHODS: In the VOICE community-a European healthcare centre cluster intending to address VBHC from theory to practice-information on patient-reported, clinical-related, care-process-related and economic-related outcomes were collected. Patient archetypes were identified using clustering techniques and an indicator set following a modified Delphi was defined. Benchmarking was performed using regression models controlling for patient archetypes and socio-demographic characteristics.

RESULTS: Six hundred and ninety patients from six healthcare centres were included. A set of 50 health, care-process and economic indicators was distilled for benchmarking. Statistically significant differences across sites have been found in most health outcomes, half of the care-process indicators, and all economic indicators, allowing for identifying the best and worst performers.

CONCLUSIONS: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first international experience providing evidence to be used with VBHC benchmarking intention. Differences in indicators across healthcare centres should be used to identify best practices and improve healthcare quality following further research. Applied methods might help to move forward with VBHC benchmarking in other medical conditions.

PMID:37875008 | DOI:10.1093/eurpub/ckad181

Health Promot Int. 2023 Oct 1;38(5):daad133. doi: 10.1093/heapro/daad133.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to explore the chain mediation model of self-efficacy and health literacy between empowerment and quality of life among spousal caregivers of disabled elderly based on ‘Marriage Binding’. From December 2020 to June 2022, the cross-sectional study was conducted in hospitals and communities, in Guangdong, Fujian, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi and Yunnan provinces, China. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the demographic data and four main variables, including empowerment, self-efficacy, health literacy and quality of life. Spearman correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between the four main research variables. Multiple Linear Regression and bootstrap analysis were used to analyze the direct and indirect effects among them. Any two variables of spousal caregivers were correlated among empowerment, self-efficacy, health literacy and quality of life. Self-efficacy and health literacy can separately and sequentially mediate the relationship between empowerment and quality of life. To improve the quality of life of spousal caregivers of disabled elderly, the mediating role of self-efficacy, the mediating role of health literacy and the chain mediating role of self-efficacy and health literacy should take effect. In the future, some intervention studies should be taken to enhance the effects of those variables that may be beneficial for improving quality of life of spousal caregivers of disabled elderly.

PMID:37874985 | DOI:10.1093/heapro/daad133