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Portable medical equipment (PME) may contribute to transmission of multidrug-resistant organisms without proper disinfection. We studied whether a Disinfection Tracking System (DTS) with feedback prompt, attached to PME, can increase the frequency of PME disinfection.DTS devices were placed on 10 workstations-on-wheels (WOWs) and 5 vitals machine (VM). After a 25 day "screen-off" period, the DTS device screens were turned on to display the number of hours since the last recorded disinfection event for a 42 day period. We used a Bayesian multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial model to compare the number of events in the display "screen-off" to the "screen-on" period.During the "screen-off" period, there were 1.26 and 0.49 mean disinfection events and during the "screen-on" period, there were 1.76 and 0.50 mean disinfection events for WOWs and VM, respectively, per day. The model estimated mean events per device per day in the the "screen-on" period for WOW's were 1.32 (1.10 - 1.57) times greater than those in the "screen-off" period and the "screen-on" period for VM devices was 1.37 (0.89 - 2.01) times greater than those in the "screen-off" period.The rate of disinfection events for WOWs increased following the implementation of the DTS feedback prompt.

Background: Ovarian cancer (OCa) is the deadliest gynecologic cancer. Emerging studies suggest that ovarian cancer stem cells (OCSCs) contribute to tumor relapse and chemotherapy resistance. Recent studies demonstrate that OCa cells express estrogen receptor beta (ERβ), which functions as a tumor suppressor. However, the status of ERβ expression in OCSCs and the therapeutic utility of ERβ agonist LY500307 for targeting OCSCs remain unknown. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that OCSCs express ERβ and that treatment with ERβ agonist reduces stemness and promotes apoptosis of OCSCs. Methods: We isolated subpopulations of OCSCs from SKOV3, A2780, and patient-derived ascites cells using ALDEFLUOR kit and examined the expression of ERβ in OCSCs using RT-qPCR. The effect of ERβ agonist LY500307 on OCSCs was examined utilizing cell viability, cell cycle, sphere formation, self-renewal, and apoptosis assays. Mechanistic studies were conducted using RNA-seq, RT-qPCR, and Western blot analysis. The efficacy of LY500307 on the tumor-initiating capacity of OCSCs was determined via in vivo limiting dilution assay studies using orthotopic intrabursal xenograft murine models. Results: RT-qPCR assay showed that ERβ, particularly ERβ isoform 1, is highly expressed in OCSCs compared to non-OCSCs. ERβ agonist LY500307 significantly reduced the viability of OCSCs compared to non-OCSCs. Treatment of OCSCs with LY500307 significantly reduced the sphere formation and self-renewal of OCSCs. Further, LY500307 treatment resulted in G2/M cell cycle arrest and promoted the apoptosis of OCSCs. Mechanistic studies using RNA-seq analysis demonstrated that ERβ agonist treatment resulted in the modulation of pathways related to cell cycle and apoptosis. Western blots and RT-qPCR assays confirmed the upregulation of genes involved in apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, such as FDXR and CDKN1A. Importantly, treatment of LY500307 significantly attenuated the tumor-initiating capacity of OCSCs in orthotopically implanted OCa murine models. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that ERβ agonist LY500307 is highly efficacious in reducing the stemness and promoting apoptosis of OCSCs and may serve as a novel therapeutic agent in treating OCa Citation Format: Yi He, Salvador Alejo, Prabhakar P. Venkata, Jessica D. Johnson, Ilanna Loeffel, Julie Ann Martel, Uday P. Pratap, Suryavathi Viswanadhapalli, Rajeshwar R. Tekmal, Ratna K. Vadlamudi, Edward Kost, Gangadhara R. Sareddy. Therapeutic targeting of ovarian cancer stem cells using estrogen receptor beta agonist [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 891.

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