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The COVID-19 pandemic emerged suddenly in early 2020, posing a serious health threat and creating tremendous stress and distress across the world. Religion has been shown to play important and varied roles in previous disasters and health crises, but its roles in the pandemic have yet to be outlined. We aimed to summarize the research conducted on religion and COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic with a systematic review of studies that specifically involved individual-level religiousness and COVID-19. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and PsycINFO covering a one-year period from the first published mention of the novel coronavirus (Jan. 5, 2020) through January 4, 2021. We included articles about COVID-19 that were peer-reviewed and empirical, measured and reported results on religion on an individual level, and were available in English. Our search produced 137 empirical articles that met the inclusion criteria. In the course of sorting studies by their primary focus, eight categories of empirical findings emerged: general distress and wellbeing (53 articles), COVID-19-specific stress (24 articles), beliefs in science, conspiracies, and misinformation (15 articles), COVID-19 public health behaviors (12 articles), perceived risk of COVID-19 (10 articles), perceived growth or positive changes taking place during the pandemic (nine articles), health behaviors (three articles), and consumer behavior (three articles). Findings indicated that religiousness was associated with both unique benefits and challenges and played a significant role in the pandemic. Religiousness was associated with a broad range of outcomes across geographical regions and populations during the first year of COVID-19. It was a commonly reported coping mechanism with varying levels of favorable associations with mental health and COVID-19-related behaviors., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS) has previously been shown to significantly affect the clearance, tumor delivery, and efficacy of nanoparticles (NPs). This study profiled MPS cell infiltration in murine preclinical tumor models and evaluated how these differences may affect tumor disposition of PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) in models sensitive and resistant to PLD. Significant differences in MPS presence existed between tumor types (e.g. ovarian versus endometrial), cell lines within the same tumor type, and location of tumor implantation (i.e. flank versus orthotopic xenografts). Further, the differences in MPS presence of SKOV-3 ovarian and HEC1A endometrial orthotopic cancer models may account for the 2.6-fold greater PLD tumor exposure in SKOV-3, despite similar plasma, liver and spleen exposures. These findings suggest that profiling the presence of MPS cells within and between tumor types is important in tumor model selection and in tumor types and patients likely to respond to NP treatment., (Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Doxorubicin, a widely used anticancer agent, exhibits antitumor activity against a wide variety of malignancies. The drug exerts its cytotoxic effects by binding to and intercalating within the DNA of tumor and tissue cells. However, current assays are unable to accurately determine the concentration of the intracellular active form of doxorubicin. Thus, the development of a sample processing method and a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methodology was performed in order to quantify doxorubicin that is associated with DNA in tumors and tissues, which provided an intracellular cytotoxic measure of doxorubicin exposure after administration of small molecule and nanoparticle formulations of doxorubicin. The assay uses daunorubicin as an internal standard; liquid-liquid phase extraction to isolate drug associated with DNA; a Shimadzu HPLC with fluorescence detection equipped with a Phenomenex Luna C18 (2μm, 2.0×100mm) analytical column and a gradient mobile phase of 0.1% formic acid in water or acetonitrile for separation and quantification. The assay has a lower limit of detection (LLOQ) of 10ng/mL and is shown to be linear up to 3000ng/mL. The intra- and inter-day precision of the assay expressed as a coefficient of variation (CV%) ranged from 4.01 to 8.81%. Furthermore, the suitability of this assay for measuring doxorubicin associated with DNA in vivo was demonstrated by using it to quantify the doxorubicin concentration within tumor samples from SKOV3 and HEC1A mice obtained 72h after administration of PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin (Doxil(®); PLD) at 6mg/kg IV x 1. This HPLC assay allows for sensitive intracellular quantification of doxorubicin and will be an important tool for future studies evaluating intracellular pharmacokinetics of doxorubicin and various nanoparticle formulations of doxorubicin., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The clinical risks associated with sleep apnea have been documented for a number of years but continue to attract limited attention in the general hospital population. While risk assessment tools have been developed and protocols for management adopted on a relatively routine basis, there is a continued disconnect between identifying at risk, undiagnosed patients in nonsurgical admissions. This article outlines one community hospital's initiative to identify patients at risk for sleep apnea with implementation of safety protocols, patient education and a post-hospitalization referral system to improve the clinical outcome and safety of a population at risk., (© 2016 American Society for Healthcare Risk Management of the American Hospital Association.)

Nanoparticles (NPs) are cleared by monocytes and macrophages. Chemokines CCL2 and CCL5 are key mediators for recruitment of these immune cells into tumors and tissues. The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of CCL2 and CCL5 on the pharmacokinetics (PKs) of NPs. Mice deficient in CCL2 or CCL5 demonstrated altered clearance and tissue distribution of polyethylene glycol tagged liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) compared to control mice. The PK studies using mice bearing SKOV3 ovarian cancer xenografts revealed that the presence of tumor cells and higher expression of chemokines were significantly associated with greater clearance of PLD compared to non-tumor bearing mice. Plasma exposure of encapsulated liposomal doxorubicin positively correlated with the total exposure of plasma CCL2 and CCL5 in patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer treated with PLD. These data emphasize that the interplay between PLD and chemokines may have an important role in optimizing PLD therapy., From the Clinical Editor: The use of nanoparticles as drug delivery carriers is gaining widespread acceptance in the clinical setting. However, the underlying pharmacokinetics of these novel drugs has not really been elucidated. In this interesting article, the authors carried out experiments using mice deficient in CCL2 or CCL5 to study the clearance of liposomal system. They showed the important role the immune system played and would enable better designs of future drug delivery systems., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

A meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the inter-patient pharmacokinetic (PK) variability of liposomal and small molecule (SM) anticancer agents. Inter-patient PK variability of 9 liposomal and SM formulations of the same drug was evaluated. PK variability was measured as coefficient of variance (CV%) of area under the plasma concentration versus time curve (AUC) and the fold-difference between AUCmax and AUCmin (AUC range). CV% of AUC and AUC ranges were 2.7-fold (P<0.001) and 16.7-fold (P=0.13) greater, respectively, for liposomal compared with SM drugs. There was an inverse linear relationship between the clearance (CL) of liposomal agents and PK variability with a lower CL associated with greater PK variability (R(2)=0.39). PK variability of liposomal agents was greater when evaluated from 0-336 h compared with 0-24h. PK variability of liposomes is significantly greater than SM. The factors associated with the PK variability of liposomal agents need to be evaluated., From the Clinical Editor: In this meta-analysis, the inter-patient pharmacokinetic variability of 9 liposomal and small molecule anti-cancer agents was studied. The authors determined that several parameters are in favor of the liposomal formulation; however, the PK variability of the formulation was higher compared with small molecule agents, the reason for which remains to be determined in future studies., (© 2013.)

Chronic low-level occupational exposure to manganese (Mn) is reportedly associated with the development of Parkinsonian-like symptoms. In a study of 143 manganese smelter workers, inhalable Mn exposure was associated with lower performances on the Digit Symbol Coding and Stroop tests; respirable Mn exposure was associated with improved Digit Symbol Coding test performance and reduced performance on the Trail Making (Part A), Matrix Reasoning, and Stroop tests. While these relationships reached statistical significance, the magnitude of these effects was significantly smaller than the standard error of measurement of the neuropsychological tests, indicating that these differences are not of clinical significance.

Psychiatric medication use for children has increased dramatically over the past three decades. Despite substantial media attention to the issue, little is known about how the lay public feels about the use of psychiatric medications for children. Drawing on theories of medicalization, we describe and analyze Americans' attitudes towards the use of psychiatric medications generally and Prozac specifically for children described as having three types of behavioral problems. Using data from the 1998 General Social Survey's Pressing Issues in Health and Medical Care Module, we find that more Americans (57%) are willing to use psychiatric medications for children who have expressed suicidal statements than for "oppositional" behaviors (34.2%) or for hyperactivity (29.5%). Across the board, respondents are less willing to give Prozac than the general class of psychiatric medications. While socio-demographics do little to identify Americans with differing positions, the strongest and most consistent correlates of willingness to give psychiatric medications to children are trust in personal physicians, general attitudes towards psychiatric medications, and the respondent's expressed willingness to take psychiatric medications herself or himself.

The relationship of serum ionised calcium to total calcium was investigated in three series of experiments, each using different ion-selective electrodes. In the first, total and ionised calcium were measured in healthy and patient groups to compare the predictive value of each estimation. In the second and third studies, measured ionised calcium was compared with ionised calcium calculated using 5 different formulae, and with total calcium, both uncorrected, and adjusted for varying protein content using eight formulae. In 144 of 149 healthy subjects, serum ionised calcium and total calcium were normal. There were discrepancies between serum ionised calcium and total calcium in 135 of 572 patients with conditions associated with abnormal calcium metabolism. Correction of total calcium, or calculation of ionised calcium did not significantly improve this figure. Thus, corrected or derived calcium values will not substitute for ionised calcium determination in patients with abnormal calcium metabolism.

In a study of 514 healthy adults, we used a Beckman Astra 8 Analyzer to establish normal reference intervals for plasma creatinine, urea, and electrolytes. For potassium and chloride these were considerably lower and higher, respectively, than previously reported ranges. All of these analytes showed significant sex-related differences; all except chloride showed age-related changes. The relationship of these biochemical indices to fasting, cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, regular exercise, and the contraceptive pill--independent of these age- and sex-related differences--was assessed by multiple linear regression. The effect was significant in each case. Our results underline the importance of regular review of reference values.