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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
Inflammation In The Neovaginal Microenvironment Of Transfeminine Individuals, Hannah M.J. Wilcox
Inflammation In The Neovaginal Microenvironment Of Transfeminine Individuals, Hannah M.J. Wilcox
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Transfeminine individuals are assigned male at birth but do not identify as male. Some transfeminine individuals may choose to undergo the gender affirming surgery vaginoplasty to create a neovagina. There is a paucity of data on the neovaginal microenvironment to inform best gynecological practices. Vaginal and penile inflammation is modulated by local microbiota, but drivers of inflammation in the neovagina are poorly understood. The compositions of the neovaginal microbiota and immune milieu were elucidated from neovaginal swabs, using 16s rRNA gene sequencing and multiplex immunoassay, respectively. Immune data reduction and clustering was performed, and six unique immune profile types (IPTs) …
Assessing Inflammation In The Pathology Of Knee Osteoarthritis, Zachary J. Koudys
Assessing Inflammation In The Pathology Of Knee Osteoarthritis, Zachary J. Koudys
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a joint disease that causes pain, stiffness, and loss of function. Inflammation of the synovium plays a role in the pathology of OA. Macrophages are the dominant immune cells in synovial tissue. Activated macrophages over-express the translocator protein (TSPO). [18F]FEPPA is a 2nd generation positron emission tomography (PET) tracer that can target TSPO with high specificity. Hybrid [18F]FEPPA PET/MRI may enable accurate quantification of macrophage activity in vivo. In this work, [18F]FEPPA tracer uptake in knee synovial tissue was measured ex vivo using autoradiography and was validated to correlate to …