Tag: pubmed

J Hepatobiliary Pancreat Sci. 2022 Sep 30. doi: 10.1002/jhbp.1244. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Endoscopic ultrasound-guided liver biopsy (EUS-LB) is a novel liver biopsy technique. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of EUS-LB in comparison with percutaneous liver biopsy (PLB).

METHODS: This retrospective study evaluated the safety and efficacy of EUS-LB using a 19-gauge fine needle biopsy (FNB) needle compared with PLB using a spring-loaded 16-gauge needle in patients with diffuse liver disease at our hospital from April 2017 to December 2020. The primary outcomes included the total hepatic tissue surface area and the total number of portal tracts. Secondary outcomes included the success and adverse event rates.

RESULTS: Twenty patients each underwent EUS-LB and PLB. There was no statistical difference in the sum of liver tissue surface area (22 mm² vs. 22.6 mm² , P = 0.910) and the total number of portal tracts (29 vs. 25, P = 0.916). The success rate was 95% (19/20) for EUS-LB and 100% (20/20) for PLB (P = 1). There were two adverse events in the PLB group but none in the EUS-LB group (P = 0.487).

CONCLUSIONS: EUS-LB using FNB has an optimal tissue yield and success rate and is safe compared to PLB. Thus, EUS-LB may be a new alternative to PLB.

PMID:36179127 | DOI:10.1002/jhbp.1244

J Med Chem. 2022 Sep 30. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.2c00796. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Systematic and quantitative analysis of the reliability of formally exact methods that in silico calculate absolute protein-ligand binding free energies remains lacking. Here, we provide, for the first time, evidence-based information on the reliability of these methods by statistically studying 853 cases from 34 different research groups through meta-analysis. The results show that formally exact methods approach chemical accuracy (error = 1.58 kcal/mol), even if people are challenging difficult tasks such as blind drug screening in recent years. The geometrical-pathway-based methods prove to possess a better convergence ability than the alchemical ones, while the latter have a larger application range. We also reveal the importance of always using the latest force fields to guarantee reliability and discuss the pros and cons of turning to an implicit solvent model in absolute binding free-energy calculations. Moreover, based on the meta-analysis, an evidence-based guideline for in silico binding free-energy calculations is provided.

PMID:36179112 | DOI:10.1021/acs.jmedchem.2c00796

J Travel Med. 2022 Sep 30:taac109. doi: 10.1093/jtm/taac109. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The future of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic hinges on virus evolution and duration of immune protection of natural infection against reinfection. We investigated duration of protection afforded by natural infection, the effect of viral immune evasion on duration of protection, and protection against severe reinfection, in Qatar, between February 28, 2020 and June 5, 2022.

METHODS: Three national, matched, retrospective cohort studies were conducted to compare incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity among unvaccinated persons with a documented SARS-CoV-2 primary infection, to incidence among those infection-naïve and unvaccinated. Associations were estimated using Cox proportional-hazard regression models.

RESULTS: Effectiveness of pre-Omicron primary infection against pre-Omicron reinfection was 85.5% (95% CI: 84.8-86.2%). Effectiveness peaked at 90.5% (95% CI: 88.4-92.3%) in the 7th month after the primary infection, but waned to ~ 70% by the 16th month. Extrapolating this waning trend using a Gompertz curve suggested an effectiveness of 50% in the 22nd month and < 10% by the 32nd month. Effectiveness of pre-Omicron primary infection against Omicron reinfection was 38.1% (95% CI: 36.3-39.8%) and declined with time since primary infection. A Gompertz curve suggested an effectiveness of < 10% by the 15th month. Effectiveness of primary infection against severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 reinfection was 97.3% (95% CI: 94.9-98.6%), irrespective of the variant of primary infection or reinfection, and with no evidence for waning. Similar results were found in sub-group analyses for those ≥50 years of age.

CONCLUSIONS: Protection of natural infection against reinfection wanes and may diminish within a few years. Viral immune evasion accelerates this waning. Protection against severe reinfection remains very strong, with no evidence for waning, irrespective of variant, for over 14 months after primary infection.

PMID:36179099 | DOI:10.1093/jtm/taac109

J AOAC Int. 2022 Sep 30:qsac118. doi: 10.1093/jaoacint/qsac118. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The 3M™ Petrifilm™ Rapid Yeast and Mold Count (RYM) Plate contains nutrients supplemented with antibiotics, a cold-water-soluble gelling agent, and an indicator system that facilitates yeast and mold enumeration in 48-60 h.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to evaluate the 3M Petrifilm RYM Plate in a matrix extension study for the enumeration of yeast and mold on stainless steel, sealed concrete, and rubber surfaces.

METHODS: The 3M Petrifilm RYM Plate was compared to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Bacteriological Analytical Manual, Ch 18: Yeasts, Molds and Mycotoxins in a paired matrix study for enumeration of yeast and mold on stainless steel, sealed concrete, and rubber environmental surfaces.

RESULTS: The 3M Petrifilm RYM Plate demonstrated equivalent performance to the reference method for enumeration of yeast and mold from stainless steel, sealed concrete, and rubber environmental surfaces. There were no significant statistical differences between the 3M Petrifilm RYM Plate and reference method results for the three matrixes evaluated.

CONCLUSIONS: The 3M Petrifilm RYM Plate is an effective plating method for enumerating yeast and mold when analyzing stainless steel, sealed concrete and rubber surfaces.

HIGHLIGHT: The 3M Petrifilm RYM Plate method allows the user to obtain accurate results within 48-60 h in the matrixes evaluated for the presence of yeast and mold when incubated at 25 ± 1 °C or 28 ± 1 °C. Interpretation and colony counting was straight forward and the 3M Petrifilm RYM Plate method required no additional agar or Petri dishes, creating an easier workflow by cutting down on supplies, sample plating time, and most noticeably, occupying less space in the incubator.

PMID:36179093 | DOI:10.1093/jaoacint/qsac118

J Med Internet Res. 2022 Sep 30;24(9):e37848. doi: 10.2196/37848.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Patients diagnosed with cervical cancer in the last 2 decades were mainly young females. Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is the most radical way to prevent HPV infection and cervical cancer. However, most female college students in mainland China have not yet been vaccinated, and their relevant knowledge is limited. Theory-based education delivered via the internet is a potentially accessible and useful way to promote HPV vaccination among this population.

OBJECTIVE: This 3-month follow-up study intended to identify the feasibility and efficacy of an information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model-based online intervention for promoting awareness and willingness regarding HPV vaccination among female college students.

METHODS: A 7-day online HPV education program for female college students in mainland China was developed using a cluster randomized trial design. Recruitment and questionnaire surveys were performed online without face-to-face contact. SPSS 23.0 was used for statistical analysis. The chi-square test and t test were used to compare differences in qualitative and continuous variables between intervention and control groups. The generalized estimating equation was used to test the effectiveness of the intervention with a consideration of the time factor.

RESULTS: Among 3867 participants, 102 had been vaccinated against HPV before the study (vaccination rate of 2.6%). A total of 3484 participants were followed up after the baseline survey, with no statistical difference in the loss rate between the intervention and control groups during the intervention and follow-up periods. At different follow-up time points, HPV-related knowledge, and the motivation, behavioral skills, and willingness regarding HPV vaccination were higher in the intervention group than in the control group. HPV-related knowledge was statistically different between the 2 groups, while the motivation, behavioral skills, and willingness regarding HPV vaccination only showed statistical differences right after the intervention, reaching a peak right after the intervention and then gradually reducing over time. Furthermore, there was no statistical difference in the HPV vaccination rate between the 2 groups.

CONCLUSIONS: IMB model-based online education could be a promising way to increase the HPV vaccination rate and reduce the burden of HPV infection and cervical cancer among high-risk female college students in China.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR1900025476; http://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx? proj=42672.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-DOI:10.1186/s12889-019-7903-x.

PMID:36178723 | DOI:10.2196/37848

JMIR Med Educ. 2022 Sep 30;8(3):e35637. doi: 10.2196/35637.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: There are gaps in knowledge translation (KT) of current evidence-based practices regarding stroke assessment and rehabilitation delivered through teletherapy. A lack of this knowledge can prevent occupational therapy (OT) students and practitioners from implementing current research findings.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this pilot study was to create an educational program to translate knowledge into practice regarding the remote delivery of stroke assessment and rehabilitation to OT students and practitioners. Four areas of focus were addressed in the educational program, including KT, task-oriented training, stroke assessments, and telerehabilitation.

METHODS: Two pilot studies were conducted to assess the knowledge gained via pretests and posttests of knowledge, followed by a System Usability Scale and general feedback questionnaire. Participants in study 1 were 5 OT practitioners and 1 OT assistant. Participants in study 2 were 9 current OT students. Four 1-hour modules were emailed weekly to participants over the course of 4 weeks, with each module covering a different topic (KT, task-oriented training, stroke assessments, and telerehabilitation). Preliminary results were reviewed using descriptive statistics.

RESULTS: Statistically significant results were found with increased scores of knowledge for both students and practitioners. Most of the educational modules had an above-average score regarding value and positive feedback for the educational program as a whole from the participants.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the results of this pilot study indicate that a web-based educational program is a valuable, informational method of increasing the translation of knowledge in the remote delivery of stroke assessment and rehabilitation. OT students and practitioners found the information presented to be valuable and relevant to their future profession and current practice.

PMID:36178717 | DOI:10.2196/35637

JMIR Res Protoc. 2022 Sep 30;11(9):e39843. doi: 10.2196/39843.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Informed consent is a legal and ethical prerequisite for psychotherapy. However, in clinical practice, consistent strategies to obtain informed consent are scarce. Inconsistencies exist regarding the overall validity of informed consent for psychotherapy as well as the disclosure of potential mechanisms and negative effects, the latter posing a moral dilemma between patient autonomy and nonmaleficence.

OBJECTIVE: This protocol describes a randomized controlled web-based trial aiming to investigate the efficacy of a one-session optimized informed consent consultation.

METHODS: The optimized informed consent consultation was developed to provide information on the setting, efficacy, mechanisms, and negative effects via expectation management and shared decision-making techniques. A total of 122 participants with an indication for psychotherapy will be recruited. Participants will take part in a baseline assessment, including a structured clinical interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-fifth edition (DSM-5) disorders. Eligible participants will be randomly assigned either to a control group receiving an information brochure about psychotherapy as treatment as usual (n=61) or to an intervention group receiving treatment as usual and the optimized informed consent consultation (n=61). Potential treatment effects will be measured after the treatment via interview and patient self-report and at 2 weeks and 3 months follow-up via web-based questionnaires. Treatment expectation is the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes include the capacity to consent, decisional conflict, autonomous treatment motivation, adherence intention, and side-effect expectations.

RESULTS: This trial received a positive ethics vote by the local ethics committee of the Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University-Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany on April 1, 2021, and was prospectively registered on June 17, 2021. The first participant was enrolled in the study on August 5, 2021. We expect to complete data collection in December 2022. After data analysis within the first quarter of 2023, the results will be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals in summer 2023.

CONCLUSIONS: If effective, the optimized informed consent consultation might not only constitute an innovative clinical tool to meet the ethical and legal obligations of informed consent but also strengthen the contributing factors of psychotherapy outcome, while minimizing nocebo effects and fostering shared decision-making.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: PsychArchives; http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.4929.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/39843.

PMID:36178713 | DOI:10.2196/39843

JMIR Form Res. 2022 Sep 30;6(9):e30113. doi: 10.2196/30113.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Millions of workers experience work-related ill health every year. The loss of working days often accounts for poor well-being because of discomfort and stress caused by the workplace. The ongoing pandemic and postpandemic shift in socioeconomic and work culture can continue to contribute to adverse work-related sentiments. Critically investigating state-of-the-art technologies, this study identifies the research gaps in recognizing workers’ need for well-being support, and we aspire to understand how such evidence can be collected to transform the workforce and workplace.

OBJECTIVE: Building on recent advances in sentiment analysis, this study aims to closely examine the potential of social media as a tool to assess workers’ emotions toward the workplace.

METHODS: This study collected a large Twitter data set comprising both pandemic and prepandemic tweets facilitated through a human-in-the-loop approach in combination with unsupervised learning and meta-heuristic optimization algorithms. The raw data preprocessed through natural language processing techniques were assessed using a generative statistical model and a lexicon-assisted rule-based model, mapping lexical features to emotion intensities. This study also assigned human annotations and performed work-related sentiment analysis.

RESULTS: A mixed methods approach, including topic modeling using latent Dirichlet allocation, identified the top topics from the corpus to understand how Twitter users engage with discussions on work-related sentiments. The sorted aspects were portrayed through overlapped clusters and low intertopic distances. However, further analysis comprising the Valence Aware Dictionary for Sentiment Reasoner suggested a smaller number of negative polarities among diverse subjects. By contrast, the human-annotated data set created for this study contained more negative sentiments. In this study, sentimental juxtaposition revealed through the labeled data set was supported by the n-gram analysis as well.

CONCLUSIONS: The developed data set demonstrates that work-related sentiments are projected onto social media, which offers an opportunity to better support workers. The infrastructure of the workplace, the nature of the work, the culture within the industry and the particular organization, employers, colleagues, person-specific habits, and upbringing all play a part in the health and well-being of any working adult who contributes to the productivity of the organization. Therefore, understanding the origin and influence of the complex underlying factors both qualitatively and quantitatively can inform the next generation of workplaces to drive positive change by relying on empirically grounded evidence. Therefore, this study outlines a comprehensive approach to capture deeper insights into work-related health.

PMID:36178712 | DOI:10.2196/30113

Int J Occup Saf Ergon. 2022 Sep 30:1-27. doi: 10.1080/10803548.2022.2131274. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: -This paper aims to prompt the first-line workers to go beyond the regular job roles and engage in more discretionary safety behavior-safety participation in the Chinese construction industry. The construction industry is a high-risk industry, and the first-line workers are more likely to expose to workplace hazards. Once the accidents happen, the negative consequences would come out. Therefore, employee voluntary safety behavior is focused on in this research.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH-: The present research framework examines the roles of safety leadership and safety management practices from the group and organizational perspectives in predicting the voluntary safety behavior (safety participation) of the first-line workers in the Chinese construction industry through casual-chain mediators (safety climate and job satisfaction). In this study, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) is adopted for the data analysis and hypotheses testing.

FINDINGS-: After data analysis, the results show that safety leadership and safety management practices are significantly and positively associated with the safety participation of the first-line workers through safety climate and job satisfaction. Moreover, safety management practices have a more statistical effect on safety climate compared to safety leadership.

PMID:36178706 | DOI:10.1080/10803548.2022.2131274

Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2022 Sep 30. doi: 10.1097/PCC.0000000000003074. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Interest in using bedside C-reactive protein (CRP) and ferritin levels to identify patients with hyperinflammatory sepsis who might benefit from anti-inflammatory therapies has piqued with the COVID-19 pandemic experience. Our first objective was to identify patterns in CRP and ferritin trajectory among critically ill pediatric sepsis patients. We then examined the association between these different groups of patients in their inflammatory cytokine responses, systemic inflammation, and mortality risks.

DATA SOURCES: A prospective, observational cohort study.

STUDY SELECTION: Children with sepsis and organ failure in nine pediatric intensive care units in the United States.

DATA EXTRACTION: Two hundred and fifty-five children were enrolled. Five distinct clinical multi-trajectory groups were identified. Plasma CRP (mg/dL), ferritin (ng/mL), and 31 cytokine levels were measured at two timepoints during sepsis (median Day 2 and Day 5). Group-based multi-trajectory models (GBMTM) identified groups of children with distinct patterns of CRP and ferritin.

DATA SYNTHESIS: Group 1 had normal CRP and ferritin levels (n = 8; 0% mortality); Group 2 had high CRP levels that became normal, with normal ferritin levels throughout (n = 80; 5% mortality); Group 3 had high ferritin levels alone (n = 16; 6% mortality); Group 4 had very high CRP levels, and high ferritin levels (n = 121; 11% mortality); and Group 5 had very high CRP and very high ferritin levels (n = 30; 40% mortality). Cytokine responses differed across the five groups, with ferritin levels correlated with macrophage inflammatory protein 1α levels and CRP levels reflective of many cytokines.

CONCLUSIONS: Bedside CRP and ferritin levels can be used together to distinguish groups of children with sepsis who have different systemic inflammation cytokine responses and mortality risks. These data suggest future potential value in personalized clinical trials with specific targets for anti-inflammatory therapies.

PMID:36178701 | DOI:10.1097/PCC.0000000000003074