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Background The role of active hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication in chronic kidney disease (CKD) risk has not been clarified.Methods We compared CKD incidence in a large cohort of HIV-infected subjects who were HCV seronegative, HCV viremic (detectable HCV RNA), or HCV aviremic (HCV seropositive, undetectable HCV RNA). Stages 3 and 5 CKD were defined according to standard criteria. Progressive CKD was defined as a sustained 25% glomerular filtration rate (GFR) decrease from baseline to a GFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2. We used Cox models to calculate adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).Results A total of 52 602 HCV seronegative, 9508 HCV viremic, and 913 HCV aviremic subjects were included. Compared with HCV seronegative subjects, HCV viremic subjects were at increased risk for stage 3 CKD (adjusted HR 1.36 [95% CI, 1.26, 1.46]), stage 5 CKD (1.95 [1.64, 2.31]), and progressive CKD (1.31 [1.19, 1.44]), while HCV aviremic subjects were also at increased risk for stage 3 CKD (1.19 [0.98, 1.45]), stage 5 CKD (1.69 [1.07, 2.65]), and progressive CKD (1.31 [1.02, 1.68]).Conclusions Compared with HIV-infected subjects who were HCV seronegative, both HCV viremic and HCV aviremic individuals were at increased risk for moderate and advanced CKD.

And while the crossword itself cannot be recycled (a new one will have to be made for each class), the preparation time for each will be less than 45 minutes if you use an online crossword creation tool. The following is an activity which I have successfully integrated to my college and university classes in California. I first used the crossword activity as a quick review before tests including vocabulary, and added words which had given students difficulty, plus those which tend to confuse students with their spelling. [Extracted from the article]

I first used the crossword activity as a quick review before tests including vocabulary, and added words which had given students difficulty, plus those which tend to confuse students with their spelling. And while the crossword itself cannot be recycled (a new one will have to be made for each class), the preparation time for each will be less than 45 minutes if you use an online crossword creation tool. The following is an activity which I have successfully integrated to my college and university classes in California. [Extracted from the article]

Gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC) is the fourth-leading global cause of cancer mortality and leading infection-associated cancer. High incidence regions include Latin America and Eastern Asia. Immigrants from high incidence regions maintain their GAC risk. GAC is a major U.S. cancer disparity, incidence rates are 2-10 time higher in non-white populations. Emerging guidelines recommend 3-year surveillance endoscopy for patients with high-risk gastric premalignant conditions (GPMCs). Clinical trials of GPMC chemoprevention agents are lacking. We conducted an NCI Division of Cancer Prevention-funded, phase II placebo-controlled chemoprevention trial in patients with GPMCs (atrophic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia) with a highly bioavailable preparation of curcuminoids (Meriva®). The trial sites in Puerto Rico and rural Honduras had important characteristics: (1) representative Caribbean and Mesoamerican populations, linked to large U.S. immigrant populations; (2) high prevalence of H. pylori infection and GPMCs; (3) absence of turmeric and curcuminoids in the local diets; (4) proven bidirectional collaboration with U.S. academic institutions. H. pylori-negative GPMC patients were randomized to study drug (500 mg po bid) or placebo for 180 days (NCT02782949), with primary outcomes based upon histologic parameters. Principal study challenges included: (1) international regulatory environment; (2) research infrastructure strengthening, particularly in Central America; (3) participant recruitment in Honduras wherein only 10-15% are H. pylori negative; (4) the Covid-19 pandemic; and (5) natural disasters (3 hurricanes). There were no losses to follow-up related to the pandemic or natural disasters. In conclusion, the south-south partnership provides a model for chemoprevention and translational studies in Latino populations with prevalent cancers such as GAC.

Background: Legacy-oriented interventions have the potential to offer pediatric oncology patients and families comfort at end of life and during bereavement. Certified child life specialists often provide these services, and presently little is known about whether disparities exist in the provision of legacy-oriented interventions., Methods: In this retrospective decedent cohort study, we examined demographic and clinical characteristics from a sample of 678 pediatric oncology patients who died between 2015 and 2019. Bivariate analysis assessed differences between patients who received any versus no legacy-oriented intervention. Uni- and multivariable logistic regression models assessed associations of baseline characteristics and likelihood of receiving legacy-oriented intervention. Further multivariable analysis explored joint effects of significant variables identified in the univariable analysis., Results: Fifty-two percent of patients received a legacy-oriented intervention. Older adolescents (≥13 years) were less likely (odds ratio [OR]: 1.73, p = .007) to receive legacy-oriented interventions than younger ones. Patients with home/hospice deaths were also less likely (OR: 19.98, p < .001) to receive interventions compared to patients who passed away at SJCRH locations. Hispanic patients (OR: 1.53, p = .038) and those in palliative care (OR: 10.51, p < .001) were more likely to receive interventions. No significant race association was noted., Conclusion: All children and adolescents with cancer deserve quality care at end of life, including access to legacy-oriented interventions, yet nearly half of patients in this cohort did not receive these services. By identifying demographic and clinical characteristics associated with decreased odds of receiving legacy-oriented interventions, healthcare professionals can modify end-of-life care processes to improve access. Introducing legacy-oriented interventions early and increasing exposure in community spaces may enhance access to legacy-oriented interventions for pediatric oncology patients., (© 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents a therapeutic challenge where standard chemotherapy is limited to paclitaxel. MBQ-167, a clinical stage small molecule inhibitor that targets Rac and Cdc42, inhibits tumor growth and metastasis in mouse models of TNBC. Herein, we investigated the efficacy of MBQ-167 in combination with paclitaxel in TNBC pre-clinical models, as a prelude to safety trials of this combination in advanced breast cancer patients. Individual MBQ-167 or combination therapy with paclitaxel was more effective at reducing TNBC cell viability and increasing apoptosis compared to paclitaxel alone. In orthotopic mouse models of human TNBC (MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468), individual MBQ-167, paclitaxel, or the combination reduced mammary tumor growth with similar efficacy, with no apparent liver toxicity. However, paclitaxel single agent treatment significantly increased lung metastasis, while MBQ-167, single or combined, reduced lung metastasis. In the syngeneic 4T1/BALB/c model, combined MBQ-167 and paclitaxel decreased established lung metastases by ~80%. To determine the molecular basis for the improved efficacy of the combined treatment on metastasis, 4T1 tumor extracts from BALB/c mice treated with MBQ-167, paclitaxel, or the combination were subjected to transcriptomic analysis. Gene set enrichment identified specific downregulation of central carbon metabolic pathways by the combination of MBQ-167 and Paclitaxel but not individual compounds. Biochemical validation, by immunoblotting and metabolic Seahorse analysis, shows that combined MBQ-167 and paclitaxel reduces glycolysis. This study provides a strong rationale for the clinical testing of MBQ-167 in combination with paclitaxel as a potential therapeutic for TNBC and identifies a unique mechanism of action.

Objective: Cancer patients are among the most vulnerable populations during and after a disaster. We evaluated the impact of treatment interruption on the survival of women with gynecologic cancer in Puerto Rico following Hurricanes Irma and María., Methods: A retrospective cohort study among a clinic-based sample of women with gynecological cancer diagnosed between January 2016 and September 2017 (n = 112) was done. Women were followed from their diagnosis until December 2019, to assess vital status. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox proportional hazards models were performed., Results: Mean age was 56 (± 12.3) years; corpus uteri (58.9%) was the most common gynecologic cancer. Predominant treatments were surgery (91.1%) and chemotherapy (44.6%). Overall, 75.9% were receiving treatment before the hurricanes, 16.1% experienced treatment interruptions, and 8.9% died during the follow-up period. Factors associated with treatment interruption in bivariate analysis included younger age (≤55 years), having regional/distant disease, and receiving > 1 cancer treatment ( P < 0.05). Crude analysis revealed an increased risk of death among women with treatment interruption (HR: 3.88, 95% CI: 1.09-13.77), persisting after adjusting for age and cancer stage (HR: 2.49, 95% CI: 0.69-9.01)., Conclusions: Findings underscore the detrimental impact of treatment interruption on cancer survival in the aftermath of hurricanes, emphasizing the need for emergency response plans for this vulnerable population.

Named Entity Recognition (NER) is a natural language processing task that has been widely explored for different languages in the recent decade but is still an under-researched area for the Urdu language due to its rich morphology and language complexities. Existing state-of-the-art studies on Urdu NER use various deep-learning approaches through automatic feature selection using word embeddings. This paper presents a deep learning approach for Urdu NER that harnesses FastText and Floret word embeddings to capture the contextual information of words by considering the surrounding context of words for improved feature extraction. The pre-trained FastText and Floret word embeddings are publicly available for Urdu language which are utilized to generate feature vectors of four benchmark Urdu language datasets. These features are then used as input to train various combinations of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM), Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), CRF, and deep learning models. The results show that our proposed approach significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art studies on Urdu NER, achieving an F-score of up to 0.98 when using BiLSTM+GRU with Floret embeddings. Error analysis shows a low classification error rate ranging from 1.24% to 3.63% across various datasets showing the robustness of the proposed approach. The performance comparison shows that the proposed approach significantly outperforms similar existing studies., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Anam et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Introduction: Nonoperative management (NOM) along with supportive care has been the adopted approach for traumatic rib fractures; however, surgical approaches have emerged recently to treat this common pathology. Despite this, there are no guidelines for surgical rib fixation in patients with traumatic rib fractures., Methods: An institutional review board-approved retrospective cohort study was performed at the Puerto Rico Trauma Hospital aiming to compare the outcomes and complications between patients with traumatic rib fractures who undergo surgical fixation and their counterparts with NOM. The study period comprised from January 2016 through July 2020. Outcomes were evaluated with negative binomial and logistic regressions., Results: Fifty patients were identified for the surgical rib fixation group, who were matched to 150 patients who received NOM. The majority of patients were male (91.5%), with a median (interquartile range) age of 53 (29) years. Concomitant chest injuries were significantly more prevalent in the operative group, such as flail segment (P < 0.001), number of fractures (P < 0.001), and displaced rib fractures (P < 0.001). Although hospital length of stay was 25% (95% confidence interval: 1.02-1.54) longer in the surgical group, this intervention was associated with an 85% (95% confidence interval: 0.03-0.70) lower mortality rate when compared to conservative management., Conclusions: Rib fixation may offer some benefits in selected patients with traumatic rib fractures, such as those with bilateral rib fractures, multiple displaced rib fractures, flail segment, and concomitant thoracic injuries. This study may serve as a guide for treatment strategy and patient selection regarding the surgical management of traumatic rib fractures., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)