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Objective: To determine the effectiveness and safety of atezolizumab, nivolumab and pembrolizumab in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Method: This is a retrospective observational study including patients treated in second line and beyond. The effectiveness of treatment was assessed by means of overall survival and progression free survival measurements. Toxicity was described according to the Common Criteria for Adverse Event Terminology v5.0. Results: The study included 8 patients treated with atezolizumab,19 with nivolumab, and 16 with pembrolizumab. Median progression free survival with atezolizumab was 9.6 months (95%CI 2-17.2), 12.6 months (95%CI 6.9-18.2) for nivolumab, and 8.5 months (95%CI 0-19) for pembrolizumab. Median overall survival was 13.4 months (95%CI 6-20.9) for nivolumab. Both PFS and OS were statistically higher in patients with grade 0-1 metastasis in the case of nivolumab, and in ECOG 0-1 patients for pembrolizumab. Median overall survival was not reached for atezolizumab or pembrolizumab. Around 85% of patients suffered adverse effects of some degree. Two of the patients treated with nivolumab developed vitiligo. Overall survival of both was higher than 2.5 years. Conclusions: For the patients included in the sample, nivolumab was less effective in those with two or more metastases; the effectiveness of pembrolizumab was lower in ECOG-2 patients. Vitiligo was related to a more durable response to treatment.

The optimal conditioning for patients with acute myeloid leukemia in first complete remission treated with allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) has not been defined so far. In this retrospective study, we compared two "reduced-toxicity" regimens: intravenous busulfan at a total dose of 9.6 mg/kg (3 days) + fludarabine (Bu3/Flu) and total body irradiation at a dose of 8 Gy + fludarabine (TBI8Gy/Flu). In the entire study cohort (n = 518), the probabilities of overall survival (OS), leukemia-free survival (LFS), relapse and non-relapse mortality (NRM) at 2 years for Bu3/Flu and TBI8Gy/Flu were 62% vs. 72.5% (p = 0.051), 59.5% vs. 65% (p = 0.15), 30% vs. 20% (p = 0.01), and 10% vs. 14% (p = 0.18), respectively. In multivariate model for patients

SUMMARYDuring the last two decades, the concept of social capital has been used with increasing frequency in health sciences due to the direct and indirect relationships between social capital and populations’ physical and mental health. Therefore, it is necessary to build an instrument to quantify this concept confidently and reliably. The study aimed to perform exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on a seven-item scale to measure social capital in adults of Colombia’s general population. An online validation study was done, including a sample of 700 adults aged between 18 and 76 years; 68% were females. Participants completed a seven-item scale called the Cognitive Social Capital Scale (CSCS). Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega were computed to test internal consistency. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to explore the dimensionality of the CSCS. The CSCS presented a low internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.56 and McDonald’s omega of 0.59) and poor dimensionality. Then, a five-item version (CSCS-5) was tested. The CSCS-5 showed high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.79 and McDonald’s omega of 0.80) and a one-dimension structure with acceptable goodness-of-fit indicators. In conclusion, the CSCS-5 presents high internal consistency and a one-dimension structure to measure cognitive capital social in Colombian sample. It can be recommended for the measuring of social capital in the general Colombian population. Further research should corroborate these findings on pencil and paper applications and explore other reliability and validity indicators.

Ischaemic stroke (IS) due to cervical and cerebral artery dissection (CAD) is a rare entity, and few data are available on the use of such reperfusion therapies as intravenous fibrinolysis and mechanical thrombectomy in these patients. We analysed the use of these treatments in patients with IS due to CAD and compared them against patients receiving reperfusion treatment for IS of other aetiologies.We conducted an observational, retrospective, multicentre study of patients with IS due to CAD recorded in the National Stroke Registry of the Spanish Society of Neurology during the period 2011-2019. Comparative analyses were performed between: a) patients with CAD treated and not treated with reperfusion therapies and b) patients treated with reperfusion for IS due to CAD and patients treated with reperfusion for IS due to other causes. Epidemiological data, stroke variables, and outcomes at discharge and at 3 months were included in the analysis.The study included 21,037 patients with IS: 223 (1%) had IS due to CAD, of whom 68 (30%) received reperfusion treatment. Reperfusion treatments were used less frequently in cases of vertebral artery dissection and more frequently in patients with carotid artery occlusion. Compared to patients with IS due to other causes, patients with CAD were younger, more frequently underwent mechanical thrombectomy, and less frequently received intravenous fibrinolysis. Rates of haemorrhagic complications, mortality, and independence at 3 months were similar in both groups.Reperfusion therapy is frequently used in patients with IS due to CAD. The outcomes of these patients demonstrate the efficacy and safety of reperfusion treatments, and are comparable to the outcomes of patients with IS due to other aetiologies.

The cellular microenvironment has a fundamental regulatory role in major cellular functions. This microenvironment is made of an array of polymeric proteins and glycoproteins that constitute the extracellular matrix (ECM). The ECM does not serve only as a structural support but also as a bioactive material. This influences a large plethora of cellular (physiological and pathological) processes, such as differentiation, migration, or proliferation through both biochemical and mechanical stimuli. Many efforts have been dedicated in developing models of the ECM for the study of diverse varieties of physio-pathological phenomena; these models differ in their complexity, physiological relevance, and applications. Among all of them, cell-derived matrices (CDMs) have attracted significant attention due to their superior performance. CDMs are natural extracellular matrices produced by cells or derived from decellularized tissues. CDMs have been rapidly applied in cell biology as bioactive scaffolds due to their advanced capabilities to recapitulate the biological, biochemical, and mechanical properties of the native scenario. Cells cultured in CDMs display phenotypes, gene expression, and dynamic signatures similar to in vivo conditions. This improved performance has led to their adoption by the scientific community for the production of controlled cellular microenvironments for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications, disease modelling, or mechanistic studies, among others. Importantly, CDMs can be combined with other technologies typically employed in a cell biology lab, such as lab-on-a-chip devices, bioreactors, or engineered three-dimensional scaffolds for advanced biomimicry. In these two volumes of Methods in Cell Biology, we focus on the applications of CDMs to cell biology. Part A (Volume 156) deals with detailed methods describing the fabrication and engineering of CDMs, their compositional and/or structural analysis, and their application in biomedical studies. Part B (Volume 157) gives an account on the methods for the decellularization of tissues, their characterization, and application for tissue engineering and disease modelling. These two volumes cover a broad range of applications of CDMs to cell biology, with detailed discussions and examples. Overall, the purpose of these volumes is to provide to the readers a detailed outline of the methods available to fabricate, analyze, characterize, and understand the functional capabilities of CDMs for cell and molecular biology applications. We hope that these volumes will prove helpful in developing experiments to answer some of the important questions in cell biology, providing the readers with new interesting methods and insights to help them to reveal key mechanisms involved in physio-pathological processes.

The cellular microenvironment has a fundamental regulatory role in major cellular functions. This microenvironment is made of an array of polymeric proteins and glycoproteins that constitute the extracellular matrix (ECM). The ECM does not serve only as a structural support but also as a bioactive material. This influences a large plethora of cellular (physiological and pathological) processes, such as differentiation, migration, or proliferation through both biochemical and mechanical stimuli. Many efforts have been dedicated in developing models of the ECM for the study of diverse varieties of physio-pathological phenomena; these models differ in their complexity, physiological relevance, and applications. Among all of them, cell-derived matrices (CDMs) have attracted significant attention due to their superior performance. CDMs are natural extracellular matrices produced by cells or derived from decellularized tissues. CDMs have been rapidly applied in cell biology as bioactive scaffolds due to their advanced capabilities to recapitulate the biological, biochemical, and mechanical properties of the native scenario. Cells cultured in CDMs display phenotypes, gene expression, and dynamic signatures similar to in vivo conditions. This improved performance has led to their adoption by the scientific community for the production of controlled cellular microenvironments for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications, disease modelling, or mechanistic studies, among others. Importantly, CDMs can be combined with other technologies typically employed in a cell biology lab, such as lab-on-a-chip devices, bioreactors, or engineered three-dimensional scaffolds for advanced biomimicry. In these two volumes of Methods in Cell Biology, we focus on the applications of CDMs to cell biology. Part A (Volume 156) deals with detailed methods describing the fabrication and engineering of CDMs, their compositional and/or structural analysis, and their application in biomedical studies. Part B (Volume 157) gives an account on the methods for the decellularization of tissues, their characterization, and application for tissue engineering and disease modelling. These two volumes cover a broad range of applications of CDMs to cell biology, with detailed discussions and examples. Overall, the purpose of these volumes is to provide to the readers a detailed outline of the methods available to fabricate, analyze, characterize, and understand the functional capabilities of CDMs for cell and molecular biology applications. We hope that these volumes will prove helpful in developing experiments to answer some of the important questions in cell biology, providing the readers with new interesting methods and insights to help them to reveal key mechanisms involved in physio-pathological processes.

The study's objective was to study the association of perceived discrimination with depression, insomnia and post-traumatic stress in people recovered from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Santa Marta, Colombia. COVID-19 survivors were invited to participate. The authors measured perceived discrimination related to COVID-19 (COVID-19 Perceived Stigma Scale), depression (PHQ-9), insomnia (Athens Insomnia Scale), and post-traumatic stress (Brief Davidson Trauma Scale). Three hundred thirty COVID-19 survivors participated in the research; the participants were between 18 and 89 years; 61.52% were females. 32.12% of the participants reported high perceived discrimination; 49.70%, depression; 60.61%, insomnia; and 13.33% post-traumatic stress. After adjusting for age, gender, and income, depression, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress were associated significantly with discrimination perceived by COVID-19. Perceived discrimination is a social stressor that affects the psychological well-being of people recovered from COVID-19. In the follow-up of this group of patients, it is important to consider the impact of perceived discrimination on psychological well-being.