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Purpose This study sought to determine the feasibility of using phonetic complexity manipulations as a way to systematically assess articulatory deficits in talkers with progressive dysarthria due to Parkinson's disease (PD). Method Articulatory kinematics were recorded using three-dimensional electromagnetic articulography from 15 talkers with PD (58–84 years old) and 15 healthy controls (55–80 years old) while they produced target words embedded in a carrier phrase. Majority of the talkers with PD exhibited a relatively mild dysarthria. For stimuli selection, phonetic complexity was calculated for a variety of words using the framework proposed by Kent (1992) , and six words representative of low, medium, and high phonetic complexity were selected as targets. Jaw, posterior tongue, and anterior tongue kinematic measures that were used to test for phonetic complexity effects included movement speed, cumulative path distance, movement range, movement duration, and spatiotemporal variability. Results Significantly smaller movements and slower movement speeds were evident in talkers with PD, predominantly for words with high phonetic complexity. The effect sizes of between-groups differences were larger for several jaw kinematic measures than those of the tongue. Discussion and Conclusion Findings suggest that systematic manipulations of phonetic complexity can support the detection of articulatory deficits in talkers with PD. Phonetic complexity should therefore be leveraged for the assessment of articulatory performance in talkers with progressive dysarthria. Future work will be directed toward linking speech kinematic and auditory–perceptual measures to determine the clinical significance of the current findings.

Objective:Children with CHD may be at increased risk for epilepsy. While the incidence of perioperative seizures after surgical repair of CHD has been well-described, the incidence of epilepsy is less well-defined. We aim to determine the incidence and predictors of epilepsy in patients with CHD.Methods:Retrospective cohort study of patients with CHD who underwent cardiopulmonary bypass at Results:Two-hundred and twenty-one patients were identified, 157 of whom were included in our analysis. Five patients (3.2%) developed epilepsy. Acute seizures occurred in 12 (7.7%) patients, only one of whom developed epilepsy. Predictors of epilepsy included an earlier gestational age, a lower birth weight, a greater number of cardiac surgeries, a need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or a left ventricular assist device, arterial ischaemic stroke, and a longer hospital length of stay.Conclusions:Epilepsy in children with CHD is rare. The mechanism of epileptogenesis in these patients may be the result of a complex interaction of patient-specific factors, some of which may be present even before surgery. Larger long-term follow-up studies are needed to identify risk factors associated with epilepsy in these patients.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) can be curative for sickle cell disease (SCD). SCD patients with cerebrovascular disease are often referred for HSCT. The objective of this study was to describe neurologic outcomes after HSCT in patients with pre-existing SCD and cerebrovascular comorbidity. Patients with SCD treated with HSCT at a single center between 1996 and 2019 were identified. Patients with cerebral ischemia and/or vasculopathy before undergoing HSCT were included. Patients with graft failure were excluded. The cohort was divided into 3 groups: symptomatic stroke, vasculopathy without symptomatic stroke, and isolated silent cerebral infarction (SCI). Magnetic resonance imaging/angiography and neurologic assessments pre- and post-HSCT were analyzed to assess outcomes. In a cohort of 44 patients, there were 25 with symptomatic infarction, 10 with vasculopathy, and 9 with isolated SCI. Post-HSCT ischemic injury (2 symptomatic strokes, 2 SCIs) was identified in 4 patients, all with previous symptomatic infarction. Within this group (n = 25), the post-HSCT incidence of subsequent symptomatic infarction was 1.6 events/100 patient-years, and SCIs occurred at a rate of 2.2 events/100 patient-years. No patient had progression of vasculopathy post-HSCT. Our data show a low incidence of new ischemic injury after successful HSCT for SCD. Patients with a history of both symptomatic stroke and vasculopathy are at greatest risk for post-HSCT ischemic injury.

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a genetic connective tissue disorder characterized by compromised skeletal integrity, altered microarchitecture, and bone fragility. Current OI treatment strategies focus on bone antiresorptives and surgical intervention with limited effectiveness, and thus identifying alternative therapeutic options remains critical. Muscle is an important stimulus for bone formation. Myostatin, a TGF-β superfamily myokine, acts through ActRIIB to negatively regulate muscle growth. Recent studies demonstrated the potential benefit of myostatin inhibition with the soluble ActRIIB fusion protein on skeletal properties, although various OI mouse models exhibited variable skeletal responses. The genetic and clinical heterogeneity associated with OI, the lack of specificity of the ActRIIB decoy molecule for myostatin alone, and adverse events in human clinical trials further the need to clarify myostatin's therapeutic potential and role in skeletal integrity. In this study, we determined musculoskeletal outcomes of genetic myostatin deficiency and postnatal pharmacological myostatin inhibition by a monoclonal anti-myostatin antibody (Regn647) in the G610C mouse, a model of mild-moderate type I/IV human OI. In the postnatal study, 5-week-old wild-type and +/G610C male and female littermates were treated with Regn647 or a control antibody for 11 weeks or for 7 weeks followed by a 4-week treatment holiday. Inhibition of myostatin, whether genetically or pharmacologically, increased muscle mass regardless of OI genotype, although to varying degrees. Genetic myostatin deficiency increased hindlimb muscle weights by 6.9% to 34.4%, whereas pharmacological inhibition increased them by 13.5% to 29.6%. Female +/mstn +/G610C (Dbl.Het) mice tended to have similar trabecular and cortical bone parameters as Wt showing reversal of +/G610C characteristics but with minimal effect of +/mstn occurring in male mice. Pharmacologic myostatin inhibition failed to improve skeletal bone properties of male or female +/G610C mice, although skeletal microarchitectural and biomechanical improvements were observed in male wild-type mice. Four-week treatment holiday did not alter skeletal outcomes. © 2020 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR).

Purpose This study aims to assess whether patients [who receive community pharmacy services at locations where routine medication therapy management (MTM) care is reimbursed] who were adherent to their medications generated lower inpatient hospitalization expenses. Design/methodology/approach This is a retrospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study using administrative claims data drawn from 84 community pharmacies in North Dakota. The included patients were enrolled in a Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota insurance plan and were taking one or more of eight groups of medications (metformin, antidepressants, anti-asthmatics, ACEs/ARBs, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, diuretics and statins) commonly prescribed to treat chronic conditions filled between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015. Community pharmacists used software that allowed the pharmacists to provide and bill for MTM services. Data from these sources were used to calculate medication adherence and inpatient costs. Findings Patients prescribed a beta blocker, a calcium channel blocker, and a diuretic or an anti-diabetic medication, and those who are fully adherent to their medications were associated with significantly lower inpatient hospitalization costs (as measured by insurance payments to hospitals) as compared to non-adherent patients. Patients who were fully adherent to their medications had no statistically significant differences in patient-specific costs compared to non-adherent patients. Originality/value Patients receiving services at a community pharmacy that offers MTM services and those who were adherent to their medication regimens generate lower health care expenses. Most of the savings come from lower hospitalization expenses, rather than patient-paid expenses.

Background: Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are a list of professional tasks that pharmacy educational organizations support, and accreditation organizations encourage, for assessment by colleges and schools of pharmacy. Objective: This manuscript evaluates the perceived frequency of performing EPAs in the population health promoter (PHP) domain among pharmacists practicing in North Dakota. Methods: This survey evaluated the self-reported EPA activities of registered pharmacists living and practicing in North Dakota. For EPAs and supporting tasks in the 6 domains (including the PHP domain), respondents were asked to self-report the number of times during the last 30 days that they perform the task, using a 6 point response scale (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or more times). there were 990 pharmacists surveyed, and 457 (46.1%) of pharmacists responded. Results: Within the PHP domain, pharmacists reported performing “Minimize adverse drug events and medication errors” most frequently (mean=3.4, SD=2.0), followed by “Ensure that patients have been immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases” (mean=2.3, SD 2.3), “Maximize the appropriate use of medications in a population” (mean=2.2, SD 2.3), and “Identify patients at risk for prevalent diseases in a population” (mean=1.3, SD=1.9). In these Core EPAs PHP domains, the clinical pharmacists reported the highest level, followed by pharmacy managers and staff pharmacists. Conclusions: Pharmacists in North Dakota currently perform some population health promoter activities, but not at a consistent and high level. Most of the health prevention activities were medication-related and oriented towards individual patients (micro-level), rather than at a community (population-based) macro-level.

// Jianjun Liu 1,* , Mingxue Su 2,* , Jing Wang 3,* , Gan Zhang 1 , Jing Zhou 1 , Anqing Zhang 1 , Zixue Ren 1 , Xucai Zheng 1 , Shikai Hong 1 , Shengying Wang 1 and Rongxin Zhang 1 1 Department of Head - Neck and Thoracic Surgery, Anhui Provincial Cancer Hospital, West branch of Anhui Province Hospital, Hefei, China 2 Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Lu’an People’s Hospital, Lu’an, China 3 Department of Urologic Surgery, Anhui Provincial Cancer Hospital, West branch of Anhui Province Hospital, Hefei, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Rongxin Zhang, email: // Shengying Wang, email: // Keywords : neoadjuvant radiotherapy; gastric cancer; survival analysis; SEER Received : August 23, 2016 Accepted : October 05, 2016 Published : October 11, 2016 Abstract Although local advanced gastric cancer (AGC) could benefit from neoadjuvant radiotherapy (NRT), there are few studies evaluating patients’ survival after NRT. In current study, we aimed to investigate the value of prognostic factors in AGC patients after NRT and to evaluate whether post-therapy pathological characteristics were predictive factors in these patients. We retrospectively analyzed AGC patients who underwent NRT from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Database. The patients’ clinical and post-therapy pathological characteristics were analyzed. The best cutoff points for continuous variables were identified by X-tile. The discrimination of risk factors were compared by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. As a result, 1,429 AGC patients were included into this study. In the multivariate analysis, the lymph nodes status and histology grade were significant risk factors for DSS (disease special survival). Then, we propose a novel Grade-lymph node Ratio (G-R) staging system for the AGC patients’ survival prognosis. Clearly, the new G-R staging system has a more-accurate 3-year and 5-year DSS prediction than the AJCC staging system ( p = 0.001, 0.007, respectively). In conclusions, the current large, general population-based study demonstrated that the G-R staging system resulting in more-accurate DSS prediction. It could be regarded as a reliable classification for AGC patients after NRT in future.

Essential meiotic endonuclease 1 homolog 1 (EME1) is a key DNA repair protein that participates in the recognition and repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Deficiency of the EME1 gene can lead to spontaneous genomic instability and thus contribute to tumorgenesis. We hypothesized that the exon variants of EME1 confer genetic susceptibility to breast cancer. In a case-control study of 748 breast cancer patients and 778 normal controls, we analyzed the association between two exon variants of EME1 (i.e.,Ile350Thr: rs12450550T > C and Glu69Asp: rs3760413T > G) and breast cancer risk. We found that compared to the common Ile/Ile genotype, the Thr variant genotypes (Thr/Ile + Thr/Thr) conferred a 1.47-fold increased risk of breast cancer (OR=1.47, 95% CI=1.13-1.92). The variant Ile350Thr was also associated with early onset of breast cancer (r = -0.116, P = 0.002). The mean age of onset was 44.4 years for Thr/Thr genotype carriers and 46.5 years for Thr/Ile genotype carriers, which was significantly lower than that (49.4 years) for Ile/Ile genotype carriers (P = 0.006). Moreover, no significant association was observed between the Glu69Asp variant and breast cancer risk. Our findings suggest that the EME1 variant Ile350Thr contributes to an increased risk and early onset of breast cancer.