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The COVID-19 pandemic presented enormous data challenges in the United States. Policy makers, epidemiological modelers, and health researchers all require up-to-date data on the pandemic and relevant public behavior, ideally at fine spatial and temporal resolution. The COVIDcast API is our attempt to fill this need: Operational since April 2020, it provides open access to both traditional public health surveillance signals (cases, deaths, and hospitalizations) and many auxiliary indicators of COVID-19 activity, such as signals extracted from deidentified medical claims data, massive online surveys, cell phone mobility data, and internet search trends. These are available at a fine geographic resolution (mostly at the county level) and are updated daily. The COVIDcast API also tracks all revisions to historical data, allowing modelers to account for the frequent revisions and backfill that are common for many public health data sources. All of the data are available in a common format through the API and accompanying R and Python software packages. This paper describes the data sources and signals, and provides examples demonstrating that the auxiliary signals in the COVIDcast API present information relevant to tracking COVID activity, augmenting traditional public health reporting and empowering research and decision-making., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest., (Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)

Background: Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is the gold standard treatment for patients with early hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). There are concerns about the efficacy of OLT for HCC in older patients, who we hypothesized might have poorer outcomes. Therefore, we sought to examine advanced age and its impact on OLT outcomes., Study Design: The United Network for Organ Sharing database was queried for patients who underwent OLT for HCC from 1987 to 2009. Patients were divided into 3 age groups: 35 to 49 years old, 50 to 64 years old, and 65 years or older, and patient characteristics were compared. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the impact of age on OLT outcomes., Results: Of 10,238 patients with OLT for HCC, 16.5% (n = 1,688) of patients were 35 to 49 years old, 67.8% (n = 6,937) were 35 to 49 years old, and 15.8% (n = 1,613) were 65 years and older. By Kaplan-Meier method, the 50- to 64-year-old age group had the highest overall survival, despite having one of the highest rates of hepatitis C positivity (70%), but this group also had the lowest rate of diabetes mellitus (8.7%). The lowest overall survival was observed in the 65-year or older age group (p < 0.001). Finally, there was no difference in disease-specific survival among the age groups (p = 0.858), and patients aged 65 years and older had the highest rate of death from nonhepatic causes (17.5%)., Conclusions: Although OS was prolonged in younger patients who underwent OLT for HCC, there was no observed difference in disease-specific survival among the age groups. Our results suggest that carefully selected patients 65 years of age and older can derive equal benefit from OLT for HCC when compared with their younger counterparts., (Copyright © 2014 American College of Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The shortage of cadaveric donor livers is the rate-limiting step in clinical liver transplantation. Split liver transplantation provides a means to expand the cadaveric donor pool. However, this concept has not reached its full potential because of inferior patient and graft survival and high complication rates when traditional ex vivo split techniques are used. Therefore we sought to evaluate the safety, applicability, and effectiveness of a new technique for split liver transplantation., Methods: This study consists of 15 in situ split liver procurements, which resulted in 28 liver transplants. In situ splitting of selected livers from hemodynamically stable cadaveric donors was performed at the donor hospital without any additional work-up or equipment being needed. In situ liver splitting is accomplished in a manner identical to the living-donor procurement. This technique for liver splitting results in a left lateral segment graft (segments 2 and 3) and a right trisegmental graft (segments 1 and 4-8). This procedure required the use of the donor hospital operating room for an additional 1.5-2.5 hr and did not interfere with the procurement of 30 kidneys, 12 hearts, 7 lungs, and 9 pancreata from these same donors., Results: The 6-month and 1-year actuarial patient survival rates were 92% and 92%, respectively, while the 6-month and 1-year actuarial graft survival rates were 86% and 86%, respectively. The 6-month and 1-year actuarial patient survival rate of patients who received a left lateral segment graft was 100% and 100%, respectively, while those who received a right trisegmental graft had 6-month and 1-year rates of 86% and 86%, respectively. The actuarial death-censored graft survival rates at 6 months and 1 year were 80% and 80%, respectively, for the left lateral segment grafts, and 93% and 93%, respectively, for the right trisegmental grafts. Alograft and patient survival was independent of United Network for Organ Sharing status at the time of liver transplantation. No patient developed a biliary stricture, required re-exploration for intra-abdominal hemorrhage, or suffered from portal vein, hepatic vein, or hepatic artery thrombosis, Conclusions: In situ split liver transplantation can be accomplished without complications and provides results that are superior to those obtained previously with ex vivo methods. It abolishes ex vivo benching and prolonged ischemia times and provides two optimal grafts with hemostasis accomplished. This technique decreases pediatric waiting time and allows adult recipients to receive right-sided grafts safely. In situ splitting is the method of choice for expanding the cadaveric liver donor pool.