Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Effect Of Musculature On Mortality, A Retrospective Cohort Study, Amy L Shaver, Mary E Platek, Anurag K Singh, Sung Jun Ma, Mark Farrugia, Gregory Wilding, Andrew D Ray, Heather M Ochs-Balcom, Katia Noyes

Department of Medical Oncology Faculty Papers

Background: While often life-saving, treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC) can be debilitating resulting in unplanned hospitalization. Hospitalizations in cancer patients may disrupt treatment and result in poor outcomes. Pre-treatment muscle quality and quantity ascertained through diagnostic imaging may help identify patients at high risk of poor outcomes early. The primary objective of this study was to determine if pre-treatment musculature was associated with all-cause mortality.

Methods: Patient demographic and clinical characteristics were abstracted from the cancer center electronic database (n = 403). Musculature was ascertained from pre-treatment CT scans. Propensity score matching was utilized to adjust for confounding …

Longitudinal Analysis Of The Impact Of Oral Contraceptive Use On The Gut Microbiome, Xinwei Hua, Yueming Cao, David M Morgan, Kaia Miller, Samantha M Chin, Danielle Bellavance, Hamed Khalili

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Introduction. Evidence has linked exogenous and endogenous sex hormones with the human microbiome.Hypothesis/Gap statement. The longitudinal effects of oral contraceptives (OC) on the human gut microbiome have not previously been studied.Aim. We sought to examine the longitudinal impact of OC use on the taxonomic composition and metabolic functions of the gut microbiota and endogenous sex steroid hormones after initiation of OC use.Methodology. We recruited ten healthy women who provided blood and stool samples prior to OC use, 1 month and 6 months after starting OC. We measured serum levels of sex hormones, including estradiol, progesterone, sex hormone-binding …