Tag: pubmed

Complement Med Res. 2022 Nov 7. doi: 10.1159/000527706. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Postoperative gastrointestinal tract dysfunction is considered a common complication affecting patients undergoing intestinal surgery. This research aims to provide evidence to assess the efficacy and safety of Baizhu Shaoyao San (BSS) or modified BSS in treating postoperative diarrhea of colorectal cancer patients.

METHODS: Eighty patients with colorectal cancer were randomized within two weeks after surgery to receive either modified BSS or Loperamide combined with the respective dummy. The curative effect was evaluated with the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome score. Determination of motilin and gastrin in plasma was conducted utilizing ELISA.

RESULTS: Compared with Loperamide therapy, the efficacy of modified BSS was statistically significant, the traditional Chinese medicine syndrome score decreased, and the total effective rate increased. Levels of motilin and gastrin in plasma decreased.

CONCLUSION: The curative effect and safety of modified BSS were statistically significant.

PMID:36349756 | DOI:10.1159/000527706

Mol Genet Genomic Med. 2022 Nov 9:e2080. doi: 10.1002/mgg3.2080. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Almost 5% of the world’s population develops an autoimmune disease (AID), it is considered the fourth leading cause of disability for women, who represent 78% of cases. The sex ratio when it comes to the most prevalent AID varies from 9:1 in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) to 13:1 in endemic Tunisian pemphigus foliaceus (PF).

METHODS: To test the potential involvement of skewed x-inactivation in the pathogenesis of Tunisian PF, we analyzed the methylation status of a highly polymorphic CAG repeat in the androgen receptor gene and evaluated the x chromosome inactivation (XCI) patterns in peripheral blood-leukocyte-derived DNA samples of female patients with PF (n = 98) compared to healthy control (HC) subjects (n = 150), as well as female patients with SLE (n = 98) were enrolled as a reference group.

RESULTS: XCI status was informative for 50 of the 98 PF patients (51%) and 70 of the 150 HC women (47%). Extremely skewed XCI patterns were more frequent in PF and SLEwomen than HC, but the difference was statistically significant only in women with SLE. No statistical difference was observed in XCI patterns between PF and SLE patients. PF phenotype-XCI correlation analysis revealed that (i) skewed XCI patterns may be involved in the disease’s subtype and (ii) it was more pronounced in the endemic group than the sporadic one. Furthermore, preferential XCI showed an increase in heterozygote genotypes of PF’s susceptibility polymorphisms in immunity-related X genes (FOXP3, AR, and TLR7) in PF patients compared to HC.

CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that skewed XCI could lead to hemizygosity of X-linked alleles that might unmask X-linked deleterious alleles.

PMID:36349750 | DOI:10.1002/mgg3.2080

Psychogeriatrics. 2022 Nov 9. doi: 10.1111/psyg.12905. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The main aim of this study was to compare older patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) to those with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) according to their dependency in daily living activities and comprehensive geriatric assessment parameters.

METHOD: A total of 227 AD and 123 DLB patients underwent a geriatric assessment that included comorbidities, number of drugs used, falls, urinary incontinence, hand grip strength, Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA), Tinetti Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment Scale, Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Basic and instrumental activities of daily living were assessed by the Barthel Index and the Lawton scale, respectively.

RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was 83.4 years, and 73% were female. There were no statistically significant differences between AD and DLB patients in age, gender, cognitive function, or comorbidities except for coronary artery disease (P < 0.05). The number of falls, drugs used, and ISI and Epworth scores were higher in patients with DLB than patients with AD (P < 0.05). DLB patients had lower MNA, Tinetti scale, and hand grip strength scores than AD patients. The ratio of patients highly dependent in basic daily activities as a whole was significantly greater in DLB than in AD (P < 0.05), but there was no significant difference in the overall levels of dependency in instrumental activities.

CONCLUSION: DLB patients are more dependent on their caregivers than AD patients. Nutritional deterioration, sleep disorders, falls, balance and gait problems, decreased muscle strength, and multiple drug use are more common in those with DLB compared to those with AD. The management of older patients with DLB may be more difficult than older patients with AD.

PMID:36349708 | DOI:10.1111/psyg.12905

Psychol Med. 2022 Nov 9:1-12. doi: 10.1017/S0033291722003427. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Interpretation bias (i.e. the selective negative interpretation of ambiguous stimuli) may contribute to the development and maintenance of health anxiety. However, the strength of the empirical evidence for this association remains a topic of debate. This study aimed to estimate the association between health anxiety and interpretation bias and to identify potential moderators of this association. Chinese-language databases (CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang), English-language databases (Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus), and German-language databases (Psyndex and PubPsych) were searched for relevant studies. There were 36 articles (39 studies) identified by this search (N = 8984), of which 32 articles (34 studies) were included in the meta-analysis (N = 8602). Results revealed a medium overall effect size (g = 0.67). Statistically equivalent effect sizes were observed for patients diagnosed with clinical health anxiety (g = 0.58) and subclinical health anxiety (g = 0.72). The effect sizes for threat stimuli that were health related (g = 0.68) and not health related (g = 0.63) did not differ significantly. The effect size for studies using an offline paradigm (g = 0.75) was significantly higher than that for studies using an online paradigm (g = 0.50). It is concluded that health anxiety is significantly and robustly associated with interpretation bias. These findings are of central importance for the advancement of models and treatment of health anxiety.

PMID:36349699 | DOI:10.1017/S0033291722003427

J Int Adv Otol. 2022 Nov;18(6):522-529. doi: 10.5152/iao.2022.21503.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to observe the application of the Chinese version of Tinnitus Handicap Inventory-China in Tinnitus patients and verify its reliability and validity.

METHODS: About 1129 patients with tinnitus as the first complaint were selected as subjects. The patients were randomly divided into 2 groups: exploration group (n = 565), whose data were analyzed with reliability analysis method using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software 19.0, validation group (n = 564), whose data were analyzed with validity analysis method using AMOS21.0.

RESULTS: (1) Reliability test: The Cronbach’s α coefficients of the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory-China scale in both groups were 0.94, among which, the Cronbach’s α coefficients of functional factor (F), emotion factor (E), and catastrophic factor (C) in group E were 0.87, 0.90, and 0.78, respectively. The half-reliability of the 2 components is 0.87. The correlation coefficient between items and the scale in group E and group V is 0.36-0.78 and 0.33-0.77, respectively. (2) Content validity: The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of group E is 0.96, a total of 4 common factors were extracted, and the cumulative interpretation rate is 57.844%. The number of factors with load less than 0.4 on the 4 common factors is only 1 (F24), suggesting that this factor had little significance; the number of factors with load more than 0.4 on the 2 common factors is 8 (F1, E6, F9, C11, F15, E21, E22, and C23), suggesting that patients had different understandings of these 8 questions. (3) Structural validity: The root mean square error of approximation value of the AMOS structural model in group V is 0.065, and the root mean square residual value is 0.114, indicating low fitness; the NC value is 3.353, indicating good fitness of the scale, but it still needed to be simplified.

CONCLUSION: The Chinese version of Tinnitus Handicap Inventory-China has a high reliability when applied in China, but the content validity and structure validity are not high, and the clinical practicability needs to be improved.

PMID:36349675 | DOI:10.5152/iao.2022.21503

J Int Adv Otol. 2022 Nov;18(6):471-477. doi: 10.5152/iao.2022.21639.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The measurement of low-frequency cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission, for example, 0.5-kHz cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission, is often severely affected by background noise, and currently 0.5-kHz cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission is not commonly applicable in clinical setting.

METHODS: The fundamental part of current study was the optimization of recording technology to reduce noise interference with the measurement of 0.5-kHz cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission and to establish the response patterns of cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission across speech frequencies from 0.5 to 8kHz in the presence of normal hearing and noise-induced hearing loss.

RESULTS: After a series of optimization, a clinically applicable technology of measuring 0.5-kHz cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission was successfully completed via animal model. Cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission was recorded in 6 guinea pigs across speech frequencies from 0.5 to 8kHz before and after exposure to white bandnoise between 0.5 and 2 kHz. After noise exposure, significant reduction in the signal-to-noise ratio of cubic distortion product otoacoustic emission was found at 0.5 and 2 kHz, indicating our recording technology was sensitive and accurate. Other interesting finding was the reduction in cubic distortion product otoacoustic emiss ion-s ignal -to-n oise ratio at 4 and 6 kHz although the reduction was not statistically significant probably because of short exposure time. The result implied that the damaging effect induced by low-frequency noise exposure might spread upward to high-frequency region.

CONCLUSIONS: Our recording technology was stable and reliable and had the great potentiality to be used in clinical setting.

PMID:36349667 | DOI:10.5152/iao.2022.21639

J Affect Disord. 2022 Oct 28;321:217-226. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.10.044. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: We estimate 30-day prevalence of 11 common mental disorders among a representative sample of university students in South Africa and explore disparities in student mental health across historically segregated institutions and marginalised groups.

METHODS: Cross-sectional data collected in self-report surveys of students (n = 28,268) from 17 universities were weighted to adjust for differences in survey responses. Poisson regression was used to estimate risk ratios (RRs).

RESULTS: Prevalence estimates were highest (21.0-24.5 %) for two anxiety disorders (social anxiety disorder, PTSD) and two disruptive behavior disorders (eating disorder, ADHD). Prevalence estimates were higher for any anxiety disorder (37.1 %) and any disruptive behavior disorder (38.7 %) than for any mood disorder (16.3 %) or any substance use disorder (6.6 %). Prevalence estimates varied significantly by historical segregation status of institutions (F₃ = 221.6, p < .001), with prevalence consistently highest in Historically White Institutions (HWIs). Across all institutions, risk of any disorder was lower among oldest than younger students (RR = 0.7, 95%CI = 0.7-0.8), and elevated among gender non-conforming (RR = 1.3, 95%CI = 1.1-1.4), female (RR = 1.2, 95%CI = 1.1-1.2), and sexual minority (RR = 1.2, 95%CI = 1.2-1.3) students. Black students attending HWIs had elevated risk of any disorder relative to White students.

LIMITATIONS: Reliance on self-report measures together with relatively low and variable response rates across institutions limit generalizability of results.

CONCLUSIONS: Modest risks associated with sociodemographic factors suggest a need to focus on mental health of female, gender nonconforming and sexual minority students at all universities along with Black students attending HWIs.

PMID:36349649 | DOI:10.1016/j.jad.2022.10.044

Int Health. 2022 Nov 9:ihac071. doi: 10.1093/inthealth/ihac071. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Globally, maternal and neonatal health remains a public health priority, particularly for resource-constrained regions like sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Skilled birth attendance (SBA) is essential in promoting maternal and neonatal health. This study investigated the inequalities in the prevalence of SBA in Ghana using data from the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) between 1993 and 2014.

METHODS: Data were analysed using the World Health Organization’s Health Equity Assessment Toolkit software. In analysing the data, we first disaggregated SBA by four inequality stratifiers: wealth index, education, residence, and region. Second, we measured the inequality through summary measures, namely difference, population attributable risk, ratio, and population attributable fraction. A 95% confidence interval was constructed for point estimates to measure statistical significance.

RESULTS: Throughout the period, SBA was highest among women in the highest wealth quintile and those with a secondary or higher level of education. The analysis also indicated that SBA was highly concentrated among urban residents in 1993 (80.78 [95% uncertainty interval {UI} 76.20-84.66]) and persisted to 2014 (91.55 [95% UI 88.80-93.68]). In 1993, Northern region recorded the lowest prevalence of SBA in Ghana (15.69 [95% UI 11.20-21.54]) and the region consistently recorded the lowest SBA prevalence even into 2014 (38.21 [95% UI 27.44-50.27]).

CONCLUSIONS: There are significant inequalities in SBA across education, wealth, residence, and region in Ghana. To enhance SBA, there is the need for policymakers and interventionists to design and develop targeted policies and programs that are tailored to the needs of the subpopulations at risk of low SBA: women with no formal education, those within the poorest wealth quintile, rural-dwelling women and women in the Northern region. This will facilitate the uptake of SBA and ultimately translate into the realization of Sustainable Development Goals 3.1 and 3.2.

PMID:36349614 | DOI:10.1093/inthealth/ihac071

Neuroimage. 2022 Oct 27;264:119703. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119703. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Quantifying the volume of the cerebellum and its lobes is of profound interest in various neurodegenerative and acquired diseases. Especially for the most common spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA), for which the first antisense oligonculeotide-base gene silencing trial has recently started, there is an urgent need for quantitative, sensitive imaging markers at pre-symptomatic stages for stratification and treatment assessment. This work introduces CerebNet, a fully automated, extensively validated, deep learning method for the lobular segmentation of the cerebellum, including the separation of gray and white matter. For training, validation, and testing, T1-weighted images from 30 participants were manually annotated into cerebellar lobules and vermal sub-segments, as well as cerebellar white matter. CerebNet combines FastSurferCNN, a UNet-based 2.5D segmentation network, with extensive data augmentation, e.g. realistic non-linear deformations to increase the anatomical variety, eliminating additional preprocessing steps, such as spatial normalization or bias field correction. CerebNet demonstrates a high accuracy (on average 0.87 Dice and 1.742mm Robust Hausdorff Distance across all structures) outperforming state-of-the-art approaches. Furthermore, it shows high test-retest reliability (average ICC >0.97 on OASIS and Kirby) as well as high sensitivity to disease effects, including the pre-ataxic stage of spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3). CerebNet is compatible with FreeSurfer and FastSurfer and can analyze a 3D volume within seconds on a consumer GPU in an end-to-end fashion, thus providing an efficient and validated solution for assessing cerebellum sub-structure volumes. We make CerebNet available as source-code (https://github.com/Deep-MI/FastSurfer).

PMID:36349595 | DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119703

Biol Sex Differ. 2022 Nov 8;13(1):66. doi: 10.1186/s13293-022-00468-6.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Dysregulation in the prefrontal cortex underlies a variety of psychiatric illnesses, including substance use disorder, depression, and anxiety. Despite the established sex differences in prevalence and presentation of these illnesses, the neural mechanisms driving these differences are largely unexplored. Here, we investigate potential sex differences in glutamatergic transmission within the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The goal of these experiments was to determine if there are baseline sex differences in transmission within this region that may underlie sex differences in diseases that involve dysregulation in the prefrontal cortex.

METHODS: Adult male and female C57Bl/6J mice were used for all experiments. Mice were killed and bilateral tissue samples were taken from the medial prefrontal cortex for western blotting. Both synaptosomal and total GluA1 and GluA2 levels were measured. In a second set of experiments, mice were killed and ex vivo slice electrophysiology was performed on prepared tissue from the medial prefrontal cortex. Spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents and rectification indices were measured.

RESULTS: Females exhibit higher levels of synaptosomal GluA1 and GluA2 in the mPFC compared to males. Despite similar trends, no statistically significant differences are seen in total levels of GluA1 and GluA2. Females also exhibit both a higher amplitude and higher frequency of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents and greater inward rectification in the mPFC compared to males.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we conclude that there are sex differences in glutamatergic transmission in the mPFC. Our data suggest that females have higher levels of glutamatergic transmission in this region. This provides evidence that the development of sex-specific pharmacotherapies for various psychiatric diseases is important to create more effective treatments.

PMID:36348414 | DOI:10.1186/s13293-022-00468-6