Digital Commons Network^™

Myeloablation Followed By Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation And Long-Term Normalization Of Systemic Sclerosis Molecular Signatures, Nancy Wareing, Xuan Wang, Lynette Keyes-Elstein, Ellen A Goldmuntz, Marka A Lyons, Peter Mcsweeney, Daniel E Furst, Richard A Nash, Leslie J Crofford, Beverly Welch, Ashley Pinckney, Maureen D Mayes, Keith M Sullivan, Shervin Assassi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective: In the randomized Scleroderma: Cyclophosphamide or Transplantation (SCOT) trial, myeloablation, followed by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), led to the normalization of systemic sclerosis (SSc) peripheral blood cell (PBC) gene expression signature at the 26-month visit. Herein, we examined long-term molecular changes ensuing 54 months after randomization for individuals receiving an HSCT or 12 months of intravenous cyclophosphamide (CYC).

Methods: Global PBC transcript studies were performed in study participants at pretreatment baseline and at 38 months and 54 months after randomization, as well as in healthy controls using Illumina HT-12 arrays.

Results: Thirty (HSCT = 19 and CYC = …

Quantitative Myocardial Perfusion In Liver Transplantation Candidates: Poorly Metabolized Caffeine Inhibition Of Vasodilatory Stress, Danai Kitkungvan, Nils P Johnson, Amanda E Roby, Patricia Mendoza, Linh Bui, Monica B Patel, Kelly Sander, Lindsey Harmon, Richard Kirkeeide, K Lance Gould

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Data on cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) in liver transplantation (LT) candidates are limited with no prior study accounting for poorly metabolized caffeine reducing stress perfusion.

Method: Consecutive LT candidates (n = 114) undergoing cardiac rest/stress PET were instructed to abstain from caffeine for 2 days extended to 5 and 7 days. Due to persistently high prevalence of measurable blood caffeine after 5-day caffeine abstinence, dipyridamole (n = 41) initially used was changed to dobutamine (n = 73). Associations of absolute flow, coronary flow reserve (CFR), detectable blood caffeine, and Modified End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score for liver failure …

A Multi-National Survey To Identify Clinicians’ Perspectives Concerning Proton Pump Inhibitors In Patients With Systemic Sclerosis, Giulia Bandini, Alessia Alunno, Filipe Oliveira Pinheiro, Corrado Campochiaro, Ilaria Galetti, Pietro Matucci Cerinic, Barbara Ruaro, Alberto Moggi Pignone, Silvia Bellando Randone, Lorenzo Dagna, Marco Matucci Cerinic, Zsuzsanna H Mcmahan, Michael Hughes

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objectives: Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) are widely used in SSc for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). However, there is little evidence to support their empirical use and long-term safety has been questioned. Our objective was to better describe clinicians' attitudes toward PPIs prescription and use in SSc patients.

Methods: Clinicians involved in the care of SSc patients were invited through international physician networks and social media to participate in an online survey.

Results: Responses from 227 clinicians from 36 countries were evaluable. The majority 'agreed' (41.4 %) or 'strongly agreed' (45.4 %) that GERD is a major cause of morbidity in …

Acetaminophen For Patent Ductus Arteriosus And Risk Of Mortality And Pulmonary Morbidity, Erik A Jensen, Sara B Demauro, Matthew A Rysavy, Ravi M Patel, Matthew M Laughon, Eric C Eichenwald, Barbara T Do, Abhik Das, Clyde J Wright

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective: Emerging data indicate that acetaminophen may adversely affect lung health. We examined whether acetaminophen compared with cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitor alone for patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is associated with mortality or respiratory morbidity in extremely preterm infants.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network. Infants were born at 22 to 28 weeks' gestation or weighing 401 to 1000 g between 2016 and 2020 and received acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and/or indomethacin for PDA closure. The primary outcome was death or grade 2 to 3 bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) …

Dual-Energy Lattice-Tip Ablation System For Persistent Atrial Fibrillation: A Randomized Trial., Elad Anter, Moussa Mansour, Devi G Nair, Dinesh Sharma, Tyler L Taigen, Petr Neuzil, Erich L Kiehl, Josef Kautzner, Jose Osorio, Stavros Mountantonakis, Andrea Natale, John D Hummel, Anish K Amin, Usman R Siddiqui, Doron Harlev, Paul Hultz, Shufeng Liu, Birce Onal, Khaldoun G Tarakji, Vivek Y Reddy

Heart and Vascular Articles

Clinical outcomes of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) are suboptimal due, in part, to challenges in achieving durable lesions. Although focal point-by-point ablation allows for the creation of any required lesion set, this strategy necessitates the generation of contiguous lesions without gaps. A large-tip catheter, capable of creating wide-footprint ablation lesions, may increase ablation effectiveness and efficiency. In a randomized, single-blind, non-inferiority trial, 420 patients with persistent AF underwent ablation using a large-tip catheter with dual pulsed field and radiofrequency energies versus ablation using a conventional radiofrequency ablation system. The primary composite effectiveness endpoint was evaluated through 1 year …

Cluster-Based Toxicity Estimation Of Osteoradionecrosis Via Unsupervised Machine Learning: Moving Beyond Single Dose-Parameter Normal Tissue Complication Probability By Using Whole Dose-Volume Histograms For Cohort Risk Stratification, Seyedmohammadhossein Hosseinian, Mehdi Hemmati, Cem Dede, Travis C Salzillo, Lisanne V Van Dijk, Abdallah S R Mohamed, Stephen Y Lai, Andrew J Schaefer, Clifton D Fuller

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: Given the limitations of extant models for normal tissue complication probability estimation for osteoradionecrosis (ORN) of the mandible, the purpose of this study was to enrich statistical inference by exploiting structural properties of data and provide a clinically reliable model for ORN risk evaluation through an unsupervised-learning analysis that incorporates the whole radiation dose distribution on the mandible.

METHODS AND MATERIALS: The analysis was conducted on retrospective data of 1259 patients with head and neck cancer treated at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center between 2005 and 2015. During a minimum 12-month posttherapy follow-up period, 173 patients …

Tumoral Interferon Beta Induces An Immune-Stimulatory Phenotype In Tumor-Associated Macrophages In Melanoma Brain Metastases, Julia Gellert, Dennis A Agardy, Swaminathan Kumar, Alexandros Kourtesakis, Tamara Boschert, Kristine Jähne, Michael O Breckwoldt, Lukas Bunse, Wolfgang Wick, Michael A Davies, Michael Platten, Theresa Bunse

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Type I interferons (IFN) are immune-stimulatory cytokines involved in antiviral and antitumor immune responses. They enhance the efficacy of immunogenic anticancer therapies such as radiotherapy by activating both innate and adaptive immune cells. Macrophages are one of the most abundant innate immune cells in the immune microenvironment of melanoma brain metastases (MBM) and can exert potent immune-suppressive functions. Here, we investigate the potential of tumoral type I IFNs to repolarize tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) in two murine MBM models and assess the effects of radiotherapy-induced type I IFN on TAMs in a transcriptomic MBM patient dataset. In mice, we describe a …

A 3d Dual-Echo Spiral Sequence For Simultaneous Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast And Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Mri With Single Bolus Injection, Zhiqiang Li, Dinghui Wang, Melvyn B Ooi, Poonam Choudhary, Sudarshan Ragunathan, John P Karis, James G Pipe, C Chad Quarles, Ashley M Stokes

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Perfusion MRI reveals important tumor physiological and pathophysiologic information, making it a critical component in managing brain tumor patients. This study aimed to develop a dual-echo 3D spiral technique with a single-bolus scheme to simultaneously acquire both dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) and dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) data and overcome the limitations of current EPI-based techniques.

Methods: A 3D spiral-based technique with dual-echo acquisition was implemented and optimized on a 3T MRI scanner with a spiral staircase trajectory and through-plane SENSE acceleration for improved speed and image quality, in-plane variable-density undersampling combined with a sliding-window acquisition and reconstruction approach for increased …

Auto-Segmentation Of Adult-Type Diffuse Gliomas: Comparison Of Transfer Learning-Based Convolutional Neural Network Model Vs Radiologists, Qi Wan, Jisoo Kim, Clifford Lindsay, Xin Chen, Jing Li, J Bryan Iorgulescu, Raymond Y Huang, Chenxi Zhang, David Reardon, Geoffrey S Young, Lei Qin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Segmentation of glioma is crucial for quantitative brain tumor assessment, to guide therapeutic research and clinical management, but very time-consuming. Fully automated tools for the segmentation of multi-sequence MRI are needed. We developed and pretrained a deep learning (DL) model using publicly available datasets A (n = 210) and B (n = 369) containing FLAIR, T2WI, and contrast-enhanced (CE)-T1WI. This was then fine-tuned with our institutional dataset (n = 197) containing ADC, T2WI, and CE-T1WI, manually annotated by radiologists, and split into training (n = 100) and testing (n = 97) sets. The Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) was used to …

Molecular Responses In Decitabine- And Decitabine/ Venetoclax-Treated Patients With Acute Myeloid Leukemia And Myelodysplastic Syndromes, Agata Gruszczynska, Abhishek Maiti, Christopher A Miller, Sai Mukund Ramakrishnan, Daniel C Link, Geoffrey L Uy, Allegra A Petti, Kala Hayes, Courtney D Dinardo, Farhad Ravandi, Timothy J Ley, David H Spencer, Feng Gao, Marina Y Konopleva, John S Welch

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Outcome Of 3q262/Mecom Rearrangements In Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, Hiroki Akiyama, Hagop Kantarjian, Elias Jabbour, Ghayas Issa, Fadi G Haddad, Nicholas J Short, Shimin Hu, Jo Ishizawa, Michael Andreeff, Koji Sasaki

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Study aims: To evaluate the outcomes of patients with 3q26.2/MECOM-rearranged chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

Methods: We reviewed consecutive adult patients with 3q26.2/MECOM-rearranged CML between January 1, 1998 and February 16, 2023. Rearrangements of 3q26.2/MECOM were confirmed by conventional cytogenetics, and fluorescence in situ hybridization starting in 2015.

Results: We identified 55 patients with MECOM-rearranged CML, including 23 in chronic phase (CP) or accelerated phase (AP) and 32 in blast phase (BP). Nine patients (16%) achieved a major cytogenetic response (MCyR) or deeper. At a median follow-up of 89 months, median survival was 14 months. The 5-year survival rate was 19% …

Safety And Efficacy Of Percutaneous Image-Guided Ablation For Soft Tissue Sarcoma Metastases To The Liver, Ahmed Awad, Koustav Pal, Steven Yevich, Joshua D Kuban, Alda Tam, Bruno C Odisio, Sanjay Gupta, Peiman Habibollahi, Andrew J Bishop, Anthony Paul Conley, Neeta Somaiah, Dejka M Araujo, Maria Alejandra Zarzour, Ravin Ratan, Christina L Roland, Emily Z Keung, Steven Y Huang, Rahul A Sheth

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: To evaluate outcomes following percutaneous image-guided ablation of soft tissue sarcoma metastases to the liver.

Materials and methods: A single-institution retrospective analysis of patients with a diagnosis of metastatic soft tissue sarcoma who underwent percutaneous image-guided ablation of hepatic metastases between January 2011 and December 2021 was performed. Patients with less than 60 days of follow-up after ablation were excluded. The primary outcome was local tumor progression-free survival (LPFS). Secondary outcomes included overall survival, liver-specific progression-free survival. and chemotherapy-free survival.

Results: Fifty-five patients who underwent percutaneous ablation for 84 metastatic liver lesions were included. The most common histopathological subtypes …

Acute Myeloid Leukemia With Mast Cell Differentiation Is Characterized By Interstitial Mast Cells, Complex Karyotype, Do Hwan Kim, Sa A Wang, Wei Wang, Guilin Tang, Shaoying Li, C Cameron Yin, Pei Lin, Marina Konopleva, M James You, Roberto N Miranda, Xiaoqiong Wang, Qing Wei, L Jeffrey Medeiros, Jie Xu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

T-Cell-Rich Hodgkin Lymphoma With Features Of Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma And Nodular Lymphocyte-Predominant Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Borderline Category With Overlapping Morphologic And Immunophenotypic Features, Siba El Hussein, Hong Fang, Fatima Zahra Jelloul, Wei Wang, Sanam Loghavi, Roberto N Miranda, Jonathan W Friedberg, W Richard Burack, Andrew G Evans, Jie Xu, L Jeffrey Medeiros

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Context.—: It is known that a subset of cases of classic Hodgkin lymphoma (CHL) with B-cell-rich nodules (lymphocyte-rich CHL) exhibits morphologic and immunophenotypic features that overlap with nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin lymphoma (NLPHL), raising diagnostic difficulties that can be resolved in most cases by performing an adequate battery of immunohistochemical studies.

Objective.—: To fully characterize cases of T-cell-rich Hodgkin lymphoma where a specific diagnosis of NLPHL (ie, pattern D) or CHL could not be made even after complete immunophenotypic investigation.

Design.—: The clinical, immunomorphologic, and molecular (when applicable) presentation of 3 cases of T-cell-rich Hodgkin lymphoma was thoroughly investigated.

Results.—: These …

De-Escalation Of Disease-Modifying Therapy For People With Multiple Sclerosis Due To Safety Considerations: Characterizing 1-Year Outcomes In 25 People Who Switched From Ocrelizumab To Diroximel Fumarate., Mark Gudesblatt, Barbara Bumstead, Marijean Buhse, Myassar Zarif, Sarah A Morrow, Jacqueline A Nicholas, Laura M Hancock, Jeffrey Wilken, Joanna Weller, Nicole Scott, Anne Gocke, James B Lewin, Olivia Kaczmarek, Jason P Mendoza, Daniel Golan

Neuroscience Articles

INTRODUCTION: Switching disease-modifying therapy (DMT) may be considered for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) if a patient's current therapy is no longer optimal. This was particularly important during the recent COVID-19 pandemic because of considerations around immune deficiency and impaired vaccine response associated with B cell-depleting DMTs. This real-world, single-center study aimed to evaluate change or decline in functional ability and overall disease stability in people with RRMS who were switched from B cell-depleting ocrelizumab (OCRE) to diroximel fumarate (DRF) because of safety concern related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS: Adults with RRMS were included if they had been clinically stable …

Comparing Balance Using The Bestest In Alzheimer, Huntington And Parkinson Disease, Lauren E Tueth, Ryan P Duncan, Beth E Crowner, Gammon M Earhart

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Development Of New Cd38 Targeted Peptides For Cancer Imaging, Alexander Zheleznyak, Rui Tang, Kathleen Duncan, Brad Manion, Kexian Liang, Baogang Xu, Alexander Vanover, Anchal Ghai, Julie Prior, Stephen Lees, Samuel Achilefu, Kimberly Kelly, Monica Shokeen

2020-Current year OA Pubs

PURPOSE: Multiple myeloma (MM) affects over 35,000 patients each year in the US. There remains a need for versatile Positron Emission Tomography (PET) tracers for the detection, accurate staging, and monitoring of treatment response of MM that have optimal specificity and translational attributes. CD38 is uniformly overexpressed in MM and thus represents an ideal target to develop CD38-targeted small molecule PET radiopharmaceuticals to address these challenges.

PROCEDURES: Using phage display peptide libraries and pioneering algorithms, we identified novel CD38 specific peptides. Imaging bioconjugates were synthesized using solid phase peptide chemistry, and systematically analyzed in vitro and in vivo in relevant …

Potential Us Health Care Savings Based On Clinician Views Of Feasible Site-Of-Care Shifts, Nikhil R Sahni, Crosbie Marine, David M Cutler, Laura N Medford-Davis, Melvin Mezue, Omar Kattan, Ed Levine, Karen E Joynt Maddox

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: Shifting care to alternative sites when clinically appropriate may be associated with reduced US health care spending, improved access, and, in some cases, improved care outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: To fill 2 main gaps in the current literature on site-of-care shifts: (1) understanding the clinician perspective on appropriateness of alternative care sites, given the central role they play in referrals and patient trust and (2) considering all potential sites where care could shift and calculating net savings potential.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In this survey study, physicians (MDs and DOs), nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists, radiology and imaging technicians, and …

Sex-Dependent Differences In Vulnerability To Early Risk Factors For Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Results From The Aurora Study, Stephanie Haering, Stacey L House, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Knowledge of sex differences in risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can contribute to the development of refined preventive interventions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine if women and men differ in their vulnerability to risk factors for PTSD.

METHODS: As part of the longitudinal AURORA study, 2924 patients seeking emergency department (ED) treatment in the acute aftermath of trauma provided self-report assessments of pre- peri- and post-traumatic risk factors, as well as 3-month PTSD severity. We systematically examined sex-dependent effects of 16 risk factors that have previously been hypothesized to show different associations with …

Plasma Proteomic Signature Predicts Myeloid Neoplasm Risk, Duc Tran, J Scott Beeler, Jie Liu, Brian Wiley, Irenaeus C C Chan, Zilan Xin, Michael H Kramer, Armel L Batchi-Bouyou, Xiaoyu Zong, Matthew J Walter, Giulia E M Petrone, Sarantis Chlamydas, Francesca Ferraro, Stephen T Oh, Daniel C Link, Ben Busby, Yin Cao, Kelly L Bolton

2020-Current year OA Pubs

PURPOSE: Clonal hematopoiesis (CH) is thought to be the origin of myeloid neoplasms (MN). Yet, our understanding of the mechanisms driving CH progression to MN and clinical risk prediction of MN remains limited. The human proteome reflects complex interactions between genetic and epigenetic regulation of biological systems. We hypothesized that the plasma proteome might predict MN risk and inform our understanding of the mechanisms promoting MN development.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We jointly characterized CH and plasma proteomic profiles of 46,237 individuals in the UK Biobank at baseline study entry. During 500,036 person-years of follow-up, 115 individuals developed MN. Cox proportional hazard …

Nf1 Mutation Disrupts Activity-Dependent Oligodendroglial Plasticity And Motor Learning In Mice, Yuan Pan, Corina Anastasaki, Jit Chatterjee, Suzanne Scheaffer, David H Gutmann, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Neurogenetic disorders, such as neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), can cause cognitive and motor impairments, traditionally attributed to intrinsic neuronal defects such as disruption of synaptic function. Activity-regulated oligodendroglial plasticity also contributes to cognitive and motor functions by tuning neural circuit dynamics. However, the relevance of oligodendroglial plasticity to neurological dysfunction in NF1 is unclear. Here we explore the contribution of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) to pathological features of the NF1 syndrome in mice. Both male and female littermates (4-24 weeks of age) were used equally in this study. We demonstrate that mice with global or OPC-specific Nf1 heterozygosity exhibit defects …

A Maternal Brain Hormone That Builds Bone, Muriel E Babey, Xiao Zhang, Erica L Scheller, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

In lactating mothers, the high calcium (Ca

Psilocybin Desynchronizes The Human Brain, Joshua S Siegel, Demetrius Perry, Benjamin P Kay, Evan M Gordon, Timothy O Laumann, T Rick Reneau, Nicholas V Metcalf, Samuel R Krimmel, Joshua S Shimony, Julie A Schweiger, Dean F Wong, David A Bender, Kristen M Scheidter, Forrest I Whiting, Jonah A Padawer-Curry, Eric J Lenze, Marcus E Raichle, Abraham Z Snyder, Ginger E Nicol, Nico U F Dosenbach, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

A single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic that acutely causes distortions of space-time perception and ego dissolution, produces rapid and persistent therapeutic effects in human clinical trials

Neoantigen-Specific Cytotoxic Tr1 Cd4 T Cells Suppress Cancer Immunotherapy, Hussein Sultan, Yoshiko Takeuchi, Jeffrey P Ward, Tian-Tian Liu, Vladimir Sukhov, Yuang Song, Samuel Ameh, Simone Brioschi, Darya Khantakova, Cora D Arthur, J Michael White, Heather Kohlmiller, Kathleen C F Sheehan, Marco Colonna, Kenneth M Murphy, Maxim N Artyomov, Robert D Schreiber, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

CD4

Lisocabtagene Maraleucel In Follicular Lymphoma: The Phase 2 Transcend Fl Study, Franck Morschhauser, Brad Kahl, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

An unmet need exists for patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) follicular lymphoma (FL) and high-risk disease features, such as progression of disease within 24 months (POD24) from first-line immunochemotherapy or disease refractory to both CD20-targeting agent and alkylator (double refractory), due to no established standard of care and poor outcomes. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is an option in R/R FL after two or more lines of prior systemic therapy, but there is no consensus on its optimal timing in the disease course of FL, and there are no data in second-line (2L) treatment of patients with high-risk features. …

Community-Based Participatory Research And System Dynamics Modeling For Improving Retention In Hypertension Care, Jiancheng Ye, Ikechukwu A Orji, Michelle A Birkett, Lisa R Hirschhorn, Theresa L Walunas, Justin D Smith, Namratha R Kandula, Gabriel L Shedul, Mark D Huffman, Dike B Ojji

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: The high prevalence of hypertension calls for broad, multisector responses that foster prevention and care services, with the goal of leveraging high-quality treatment as a means of reducing hypertension incidence. Health care system improvements require stakeholder input from across the care continuum to identify gaps and inform interventions that improve hypertension care service, delivery, and retention; system dynamics modeling offers a participatory research approach through which stakeholders learn about system complexity and ways to model sustainable system-level improvements.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association of simulated interventions with hypertension care retention rates in the Nigerian primary health care system using …

Traumatic Brain Injury, Seizures, And Cognitive Impairment Among Older Adults, Yiqi Zhu, Jonathan Williams, Kebede Beyene, Jean-Francois Trani, Ganesh M Babulal

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: Traumatic brain injury (TBI), seizures, and dementia increase with age. There is a gap in understanding the associations of TBI, seizures, and medications such as antiseizure and antipsychotics with the progression of cognitive impairment across racial and ethnic groups.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association of TBI and seizures with the risk of cognitive impairment among cognitively normal older adults and the role of medications in moderating the association.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This multicenter cohort study was a secondary analysis of the Uniform Data Set collected between June 1, 2005, and June 30, 2020, from the National Alzheimer's Coordination …

Plasma Galectin-9 Relates To Cognitive Performance And Inflammation Among Adolescents With Vertically Acquired Hiv, Preeti Moar, Soe Mar, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: Adolescents with perinatally acquired HIV (AWH) are at an increased risk of poor cognitive development yet the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Circulating galectin-9 (Gal-9) has been associated with increased inflammation and multimorbidity in adults with HIV despite antiretroviral therapy (ART); however, the relationship between Gal-9 in AWH and cognition remain unexplored.

DESIGN: A cross-sectional study of two independent age-matched cohorts from India [AWH on ART ( n  = 15), ART-naive ( n  = 15), and adolescents without HIV (AWOH; n  = 10)] and Myanmar [AWH on ART ( n  = 54) and AWOH ( n  = 22)] were studied. …

Analytical Validation Of The Multitarget Stool Rna Test For Colorectal Cancer Screening, Erica K Barnell, Jack Land, Kimberly Kruse, Maya C Scott, Ben Wedeking, Catherine Morrison, Clayton Grass, Ann Zuniga, Elizabeth M Wurtzler, Eric J Duncavage

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The multitarget stool RNA (mt-sRNA) test (ColoSense) is a noninvasive diagnostic test that screens for colorectal cancer and advanced adenomas in average-risk individuals aged 45 years and older. The mt-sRNA test incorporates a commercially available fecal immunochemical test, concentration of eight RNA transcripts, and participant-reported smoking status. As part of the CRC-PREVENT (Colorectal Cancer and Pre-Cancerous Adenoma Non-Invasive Detection Test) clinical trial, 12 analytical validation studies were conducted to assess analytical sensitivity, linearity, precision, interfering substances, cross-reactivity, carry-over, cross-contamination, and robustness. Analytical validation of the mt-sRNA test demonstrated limit of blank, limit of detection, and limit of quantification of < 0.6, < 0.7, and ≤2.5 copies/μL for all markers, respectively. The mt-sRNA test demonstrated linearity between 2.5 and 2500 copies/μL, and < 20% coefficient of variation, and/or ≥95% concordance with regard to precision, interfering substances, carry-over, cross-contamination, and robustness. There was no significant impact of cross-reactivity from non-colorectal cancer diseases. These data provide a framework for laboratories to complete analytical validation for RNA-based panels that require premarket approval as a class III medical device from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Activated Sputum Eosinophils Associated With Exacerbations In Children On Mepolizumab, Gabriella E Wilson, Michelle Gill, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: MUPPITS-2 was a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial that demonstrated mepolizumab (anti-IL-5) reduced exacerbations and blood and airway eosinophils in urban children with severe eosinophilic asthma. Despite this reduction in eosinophilia, exacerbation risk persisted in certain patients treated with mepolizumab. This raises the possibility that subpopulations of airway eosinophils exist that contribute to breakthrough exacerbations.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine the effect of mepolizumab on airway eosinophils in childhood asthma.

METHODS: Sputum samples were obtained from 53 MUPPITS-2 participants. Airway eosinophils were characterized using mass cytometry and grouped into subpopulations using unsupervised clustering analyses of 38 surface and intracellular markers. …