Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Experiences Of Women In The Healthcare Profession With Alcohol Use During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Amber Olsen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Women have severe health risks associated with drinking alcohol long-term and excessively. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the lived experience of women in healthcare positions regarding alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was informed by the theory of planned behavior. Semistructured interviews were used to gather information from participants based on their firsthand experiences with alcohol usage. Understanding women’s attitudes toward alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic can improve intervention. Data were analyzed using an inductive, thematic procedure. Participants associated their own use of alcohol with socialization, and all participants reported that they regarded …

Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among Middle-Aged And Older Adult Vietnamese American Members Of A Northern California Health Plan, Donna B Haysbert, Joan C Lo, Nirmala D Ramalingam, Nancy P Gordon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: There is increasing recognition that cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors vary by Asian subgroups. We examined CVD risk factor prevalence among Vietnamese adults in a northern California health plan.

METHODS: We used electronic health record data to examine smoking, overweight/obesity (body mass index ≥23.0 kg/m

RESULTS: Current smoking prevalence was 20.3% for middle-aged men, 7.0% for older men, and

CONCLUSIONS: Study results suggest that more research on health conditions, lifestyle, and social factors among Vietnamese American adults is needed to develop culturally competent interventions to reduce CVD risk in this growing ethnic group.

Association Between Giving Birth During The Early Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Pandemic And Serious Maternal Morbidity, Torri D Metz, Rebecca G Clifton, Brenna L Hughes, Grecio J Sandoval, William A Grobman, George R Saade, Tracy A Manuck, Monica Longo, Amber Sowles, Kelly Clark, Hyagriv N Simhan, Dwight J Rouse, Hector Mendez-Figueroa, Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, Jennifer L Bailit, Maged M Costantine, Harish M Sehdev, Alan T N Tita, George A Macones

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether delivering during the early the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was associated with increased risk of maternal death or serious morbidity from common obstetric complications compared with a historical control period.

METHODS: This was a multicenter retrospective cohort study with manual medical-record abstraction performed by centrally trained and certified research personnel at 17 U.S. hospitals. Individuals who gave birth on randomly selected dates in 2019 (before the pandemic) and 2020 (during the pandemic) were compared. Hospital, health care system, and community risk-mitigation strategies for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in response to the early …

Futility In Acute Care Surgery: First Do No Harm, Melissa Hornor, Uzer Khan, Michael W Cripps, Allyson Cook Chapman, Jennifer Knight-Davis, Thaddeus J Puzio, Bellal Joseph

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The consequences of the delivery of futile or potentially ineffective medical care and interventions are devastating on the healthcare system, our patients and their families, and healthcare providers. In emergency situations in particular, determining if escalating invasive interventions will benefit a frail and/or severely critically ill patient can be exceedingly difficult. In this review, our objective is to define the problem of potentially ineffective care within the specialty of acute care surgery and describe strategies for improving the care of our patients in these difficult situations.

Preexisting Depression And Ambulatory Status After Stroke: Florida-Puerto Rico Collaboration To Reduce Stroke Disparities, Amy K Starosciak, Kefeng Wang, Hao Ying, Kaushik Ravipati, Samantha Spring, Carolina M Gutierrez, Hannah Gardener, David Z Rose, Dianne Foster, Chuanhui Dong, Angus Jameson, Ayham Alkhachroum, Jose G Romano, Ralph L Sacco, Tatjana Rundek, Negar Asdaghi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: Stroke is a global public health burden, and therefore it is critical to identify modifiable risk factors to reduce stroke incidence and improve outcomes. Depression is such a risk factor; however, the association between preexisting depression and stroke outcomes, such as independent ambulation, is not well studied, especially among racial-ethnic minority groups. To address this gap in the literature, effects of preexisting depression on ambulatory status at hospital discharge after stroke were evaluated among individuals participating in the racially and ethnically diverse Florida-Puerto Rico Collaboration to Reduce Stroke Disparities project.

METHODS: Data were analyzed from a total of 42,031 …

Interpersonal Violence Against Women With Spinal Cord Injury: Adding Insult To Injury, Susan Robinson-Whelen, Rosemary B Hughes, Kimberley Aguillard, Diana Gonzalez, Heather B Taylor

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Mounting empirical evidence suggests that, compared to women without disabilities, women with disabilities are more likely to experience interpersonal violence (IPV). However, there is extremely limited research attention on IPV against women with spinal cord injury (SCI), a particularly understudied and underserved population.

OBJECTIVES: To conduct the first known examination of lifetime IPV experience in women with SCI, to explore demographic and disability-related correlates of IPV, and to examine the health impacts of IPV.

METHODS: The sample included 175 women with traumatic SCI from across the United States who enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of an online psychological …

Association Between Brain Similarity To Severe Mental Illnesses And Comorbid Cerebral, Physical, And Cognitive Impairments, Yizhou Ma, Mark D Kvarta, Bhim M Adhikari, Joshua Chiappelli, Xiaoming Du, Andrew Van Der Vaart, Eric L Goldwaser, Heather Bruce, Kathryn S Hatch, Si Gao, Ann Summerfelt, Neda Jahanshad, Paul M Thompson, Thomas E Nichols, L Elliot Hong, Peter Kochunov

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Severe mental illnesses (SMIs) are often associated with compromised brain health, physical comorbidities, and cognitive deficits, but it is incompletely understood whether these comorbidities are intrinsic to SMI pathophysiology or secondary to having SMIs. We tested the hypothesis that cerebral, cardiometabolic, and cognitive impairments commonly observed in SMIs can be observed in non-psychiatric individuals with SMI-like brain patterns of deviation as seen on magnetic resonance imaging. 22,883 participants free of common neuropsychiatric conditions from the UK Biobank (age = 63.4 ± 7.5 years, range = 45–82 years, 50.9% female) were split into discovery and replication samples. The regional vulnerability index …

Depression And Insomnia Among Healthcare Professionals During Covid-19 Pandemic In Ethiopia: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Aragaw Asfaw Hasen, Abubeker Alebachew Seid, Ahmed Adem Mohammed

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Healthcare professionals play a great role in the struggle against COVID-19. They are highly susceptible to COVID-19 due to their responsibilities. This susceptibility directly affects their mental health status. Comprehensive evidence on prevalence of depression and insomnia during this pandemic is vital. Thus, this study aims to provide the pooled prevalence of depression and insomnia, and their associated factors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This systematic review and meta-analysis follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Studies were searched from PubMed, Cochrane Library, CrossRef, African Journals Online and Google Scholar databases from …

Poor Sleep Quality And Suicidal Ideation Among Pregnant Women During Covid-19 In Ethiopia: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Aragaw Asfaw Hasen, Abubeker Alebachew Seid, Ahmed Adem Mohammed

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 has profoundly impacted the mental health and well-being of pregnant women worldwide. In Ethiopia, the poor sleep quality and suicidal ideation among pregnant women has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to provide comprehensive evidence on the prevalence and associated factors of poor sleep quality and suicidal ideation among pregnant women during COVID-19 in Ethiopia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study is based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) recommendation. Data were searched from PubMed, Google Scholar, and African Journals Online from the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic to February 2023. …

Comorbidities And Risk Factors Associated With Insomnia In The Elderly Population, Neil Mookerjee, Nicole Schmalbach, Gianna Antinori, Subhadra Thampi, Dylan Windle-Puente, Amy Gilligan, Ha Huy, Megha Andrews, Angela Sun, Roshni Gandhi, William Benedict, Austin Chang, Ben Sanders, Justin Nguyen, Maanika Reddy Keesara, Janet Aliev, Aneri Patel, Isaiah Hughes, Ian Millstein, Krystal Hunter, Satyajeet Roy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION/OBJECTIVES: Sleep disorders affect around 50 to 70 million Americans, with chronic insomnia being the most common, especially in the elderly population. With an 11-fold increase in the US office visits due to insomnia, from 0.8 to 9.4 million, between 1993 and 2015, it is imperative to identify the modifiable risk factors. The aim of our study was to examine the association of risk factors and comorbid medical conditions with insomnia in patients 65 years, and older.

METHODS: We performed a retrospective electronic medical record review of the patients aged 65 years and older, who visited our suburban internal medicine …

Reproductive Coercion Victimization And Associated Mental Health Outcomes Among Female-Identifying Young Adults, Emily A Muñoz, Ryan C Shorey, Jeff R Temple

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Reproductive coercion is a serious public health problem. Victimization has been associated with poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in clinical and college samples. We build on these findings by examining the association between reproductive coercion victimization and mental and behavioral health outcomes, including depression, PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and drinking behaviors in a diverse community-derived sample of female-identifying young adults (mean age = 20; SD=.72). Participants (n = 368) were originally recruited as part of a study on dating violence in seven Texas public high schools. Participants completed an online study that …

Circulating Vitamin D And Breast Cancer Risk: An International Pooling Project Of 17 Cohorts, Kala Visvanathan, Alison M Mondul, Anne Zeleniuch-Jacquotte, Molin Wang, Mitchell H Gail, Shiaw-Shyuan Yaun, Stephanie J Weinstein, Marjorie L Mccullough, A Heather Eliassen, Nancy R Cook, Claudia Agnoli, Martin Almquist, Amanda Black, Julie E Buring, Chu Chen, Yu Chen, Tess Clendenen, Laure Dossus, Veronika Fedirko, Gretchen L Gierach, Edward L Giovannucci, Gary E Goodman, Marc T Goodman, Pascal Guénel, Göran Hallmans, Susan E Hankinson, Ronald L Horst, Tao Hou, Wen-Yi Huang, Michael E Jones, Corrine E Joshu, Rudolf Kaaks, Vittorio Krogh, Tilman Kühn, Marina Kvaskoff, I-Min Lee, Yahya Mahamat-Saleh, Johan Malm, Jonas Manjer, Gertraud Maskarinec, Amy E Millen, Toqir K Mukhtar, Marian L Neuhouser, Trude E Robsahm, Minouk J Schoemaker, Sabina Sieri, Malin Sund, Anthony J Swerdlow, Cynthia A Thomson, Giske Ursin, Jean Wactawski-Wende, Ying Wang, Lynne R Wilkens, Yujie Wu, Emilie Zoltick, Walter C Willett, Stephanie A Smith-Warner, Regina G Ziegler

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Laboratory and animal research support a protective role for vitamin D in breast carcinogenesis, but epidemiologic studies have been inconclusive. To examine comprehensively the relationship of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] to subsequent breast cancer incidence, we harmonized and pooled participant-level data from 10 U.S. and 7 European prospective cohorts. Included were 10,484 invasive breast cancer cases and 12,953 matched controls. Median age (interdecile range) was 57 (42-68) years at blood collection and 63 (49-75) years at breast cancer diagnosis. Prediagnostic circulating 25(OH)D was either newly measured using a widely accepted immunoassay and laboratory or, if previously measured by the cohort, …

Feasibility Of Quantitative Diffusion-Weighted Imaging During Intra-Procedural Mri-Guided Brachytherapy Of Locally Advanced Cervical And Vaginal Cancers, Megan C Jacobsen, Bastien Rigaud, Samantha J Simiele, Gaiane M Rauch, Matthew S Ning, Sastry Vedam, Ann H Klopp, R Jason Stafford, Kristy K Brock, Aradhana M Venkatesan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: To determine the feasibility of quantitative apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) acquisition during magnetic resonance imaging-guided brachytherapy (MRgBT) using reduced field-of-view (rFOV) diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI).

Methods and materials: T2-weighted (T2w) MR and full-FOV single-shot echo planar (ssEPI) DWI were acquired in 7 patients with cervical or vaginal malignancy at baseline and prior to brachytherapy, while rFOV-DWI was acquired during MRgBT following brachytherapy applicator placement. The gross target volume (GTV) was contoured on the T2w images and registered to the ADC map. Voxels at the GTV's maximum Maurer distance comprised a central sub-volume (GTVcenter). Contour ADC mean and standard deviation were …

Evaluating The Relationship Of In Utero Nicotine Exposure With Hypoglycemia After Delivery: An Observational Study, Mary G Johnson, Robert Suchting, Lisa M Scheid, Lindsay N Holzapfel, Aditi Chalise, Angela L Stotts, John C Chapman, Amir M Khan, Thomas F Northrup

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Hypoglycemia in neonates is common and contributes to 4.0-5.8% of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions. In utero nicotine exposure is underexplored as a potential contributor to neonatal hypoglycemia. Rat models have shown that in utero nicotine exposure can be associated with a reduction in pancreatic beta cell mass, leading to glucose dysregulation. The primary aim of this work is to study the risk of developing hypoglycemia after birth in a population of in utero nicotine-exposed neonates.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective matched cohort study that augmented an existing dataset of neonates admitted to a level IV NICU with …

Delayed Presentation Of Berardinelli-Siep Lipodystrophy In An Adolescent Female, Courtney Cleary, Nadine Gordon, Sheela Gavvala

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Berardinelli-Siep syndrome (BSS) is a form of congenital generalized lipodystrophy that disrupts the pathways of lipid metabolism. It presents with physical exam findings, including muscular hypertrophy and lipoatrophy as well as serious metabolic consequences such as diabetes mellitus, hypertriglyceridemia, acute pancreatitis, hepatomegaly, and hepatic steatosis. Diagnosis generally occurs soon after birth or in childhood. The case presented is significant for a delayed diagnosis of suspected BSS Type 1 which is rather uncommon in a developed country. Due to the detrimental complications of BSS, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, pancreatitis, and liver disease, early diagnosis and intervention are crucial. Pediatric providers must …

Population-Based Mini-Mental State Examination Norms In Adults Of Mexican Heritage In The Cameron County Hispanic Cohort, Avram S Bukhbinder, Miriam Hinojosa, Kristofer Harris, Xiaojin Li, Christine M Farrell, Madison Shyer, Nathan Goodwin, Sahar Anjum, Omar Hasan, Susan Cooper, Lois Sciba, Amanda Falk Vargas, David H Hunter, Guadalupe J Ortiz, Karen Chung, Licong Cui, Guo-Qiang Zhang, Susan P Fisher-Hoch, Joseph B Mccormick, Paul E Schulz

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background:

Accurately identifying cognitive changes in Mexican American (MA) adults using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) requires knowledge of population-based norms for the MMSE, a scale which has widespread use in research settings.

Objective:

To describe the distribution of MMSE scores in a large cohort of MA adults, assess the impact of MMSE requirements on their clinical trial eligibility, and explore which factors are most strongly associated with their MMSE scores.

Methods:

Visits between 2004–2021 in the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort were analyzed. Eligible participants were ≥18 years old and of Mexican descent. MMSE distributions before and after stratification by …

Sex-Biased Autophagy As A Potential Mechanism Mediating Sex Differences In Ischemic Stroke Outcome, Brian Noh, Louise D Mccullough, Jose F Moruno-Manchon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Stroke is the second leading cause of death and a major cause of disability worldwide, and biological sex is an important determining factor in stroke incidence and pathology. From childhood through adulthood, men have a higher incidence of stroke compared with women. Abundant research has confirmed the beneficial effects of estrogen in experimental ischemic stroke but genetic factors such as the X-chromosome complement can also play an important role in determining sex differences in stroke. Autophagy is a self-degrading cellular process orchestrated by multiple core proteins, which leads to the engulfment of cytoplasmic material and degradation of cargo after autophagy …

A Longitudinal Seroepidemiology Study To Evaluate Antibody Response To Sars-Cov-2 Virus Infection And Vaccination In Children In Calgary, Canada From July 2020 To April 2022: Alberta Covid-19 Childhood Cohort (Ab3c) Study, Emily J Doucette, Joslyn Gray, Kevin Fonseca, Carmen Charlton, Jamil N Kanji, Graham Tipples, Susan Kuhn, Jessica Dunn, Payton Sayers, Nicola Symonds, Guosong Wu, Stephen B Freedman, James D Kellner

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Measurement of SARS-CoV-2 antibody seropositivity is important to accurately understand exposure to infection and/or vaccination in specific populations. This study aimed to estimate the serologic response to SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and vaccination in children in Calgary, Alberta over a two-year period.

METHODS: Children with or without prior SARS-CoV-2 infections, were enrolled in Calgary, Canada in 2020. Venous blood was sampled 4 times from July 2020 to April 2022 for SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid and spike antibodies. Demographic and clinical information was obtained including SARS-CoV-2 testing results and vaccination records.

RESULTS: 1035 children were enrolled and 88.9% completed all 4 visits; median …

Family-Level Antecedents Of Children's Patterns Of Reactivity To Interparental Conflict: Testing The Reformulation Of Emotional Security Theory, Patrick T Davies, Joanna K Pearson, Vanessa T Cao, Melissa L Sturge-Apple

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Guided by emotional security theory, this study examined the family-level antecedents of children's reaction patterns to interparental conflict in a sample of 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years; 48% Black; 16% Latinx; 56% girls) and their parents in the Northeastern United States. Behavioral observations of children's responses to interparental conflict over two annual measurement occasions assessed their tendencies to exhibit four patterns of defending against threat: secure (i.e., efficiently address direct threats), mobilizing (i.e., high reactivity to potential threat and social opportunities), dominant (i.e., directly defeat threat), and demobilizing (i.e., reduce salience as a target of hostility). …

Oncologic Outcomes After Clinically Node-Negative Salvage Laryngectomy, Jennifer H Gross, Mihir R Patel, Jeffrey M Switchenko, Tyler G Chan, H M Baddour, Azeem Kaka, Brian J Boyce, Nabil F Saba, Jonathan J Beitler, Mark El-Deiry

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

IMPORTANCE: Controversy exists regarding management of the clinically node-negative neck in patients with recurrent larynx or hypopharynx cancers who received total laryngectomy after definitive radiation with or without chemotherapy.

OBJECTIVE: To explore clinical and oncologic outcomes after elective neck dissection vs observation in patients who received clinically node-negative salvage total laryngectomy.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cohort study was performed from January 2009 to June 2021 at a single, high-volume tertiary care center. Follow-up was conducted through June 2021 for all patients. Survival outcomes were based on at least 2 years of follow-up. Patients aged 18 years or older with …

Risk Of Depression In A Suburban Primary Care Setting Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Carman H Whiting, Pouran Yousefi, Jude K A Des Bordes, Nahid J Rianon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Major depression is a common disorder affecting millions of adults each year. Many population-based surveys showed an increase in the number people with symptoms of depression at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim was to determine and compare the prevalence of depression risk in a primary care setting before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study based on retrospective review of medical records from a large suburban primary care clinic. Records of adults 18 years and older, seen between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2020 and who had also been screened for …

Robot-Assisted Resection Of Left Ventricular Papillary Fibroelastoma Arising From The Mitral Chordal Apparatus, Kyle G Mitchell, Blaz Podgorsek, Diego E Fiorito, Juan A Abreu, Danny Ramzy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The application of robot-assisted thoracoscopy to cardiac surgery affords an opportunity to leverage the exceptional intraoperative exposure, visualization, and dexterity of the robotic platform. Here, we report the case of a 72-year-old woman who presented to our institution for evaluation of a left ventricular mass that was identified following workup for an embolic event. We present an intraoperative video that provides technical details of the robot-assisted resection of the lesion, which was found to be a left ventricular papillary fibroelastoma arising from the mitral chordal apparatus. This case highlights the advantages provided by the robotic platform, which permitted complete, minimally …

Initial Thoracic Endovascular Aortic Repair Vs Medical Therapy For Acute Uncomplicated Type B Aortic Dissection, E Hope Weissler, Oyomoare L Osazuwa-Peters, Melissa A Greiner, N Chantelle Hardy, Panagiotis Kougias, Sean M O'Brien, Daniel B Mark, W Schuyler Jones, Eric A Secemsky, Andrew M Vekstein, Sherene Shalhub, Firas F Mussa, Manesh R Patel, Sreekanth Vemulapalli

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

IMPORTANCE: Thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) has increasingly been used for uncomplicated type B aortic dissection (uTBAD) despite limited supporting data.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether initial TEVAR following uTBAD is associated with reduced mortality or morbidity compared with medical therapy alone.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cohort study included Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services inpatient claims data for adults aged 65 years or older with index admissions for acute uTBAD from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2018, with follow-up available through December 31, 2019.

EXPOSURES: Initial TEVAR was defined as TEVAR within 30 days of admission for acute …

Population-Based Linked Longitudinal Surveillance Of Pregnant People And Their Infants: A Critical Resource For Emerging, Re-Emerging, And Persistent Threats, Van T Tong, Kate R Woodworth, Erin Blau, Neha Shinde, Amanda Akosa, Suzanne M Gilboa, Dana Meaney-Delman

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Public health emergencies, from Zika to COVID-19, have underscored the importance of addressing the needs of pregnant people and their infants. Recent events have underlined the critical role of mother-infant-linked longitudinal surveillance to characterize and assess the impacts of emerging, re-emerging, and persistent threats, including infectious diseases, on these populations. In partnership with state, local, and territorial health departments, CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities activated the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies Network (SET-NET) to capture information about pregnant people with laboratory-confirmed infection with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and their infants. SET-NET …

Predictive Modeling Using Shape Statistics For Interpretable And Robust Quality Assurance Of Automated Contours In Radiation Treatment Planning, Zachary T Wooten, Cenji Yu, Laurence E Court, Christine B Peterson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Deep learning methods for image segmentation and contouring are gaining prominence as an automated approach for delineating anatomical structures in medical images during radiation treatment planning. These contours are used to guide radiotherapy treatment planning, so it is important that contouring errors are flagged before they are used for planning. This creates a need for effective quality assurance methods to enable the clinical use of automated contours in radiotherapy. We propose a novel method for contour quality assurance that requires only shape features, making it independent of the platform used to obtain the images. Our method uses a random forest …

Chimeric Rnas Reveal Putative Neoantigen Peptides For Developing Tumor Vaccines For Breast Cancer, Brandon Mistretta, Sakuni Rankothgedera, Micah Castillo, Mitchell Rao, Kimberly Holloway, Anjana Bhardwaj, Maha El Noafal, Constance Albarracin, Randa El-Zein, Hengameh Rezaei, Xiaoping Su, Rehan Akbani, Xiaoshan M Shao, Brian J Czerniecki, Rachel Karchin, Isabelle Bedrosian, Preethi H Gunaratne

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: We present here a strategy to identify immunogenic neoantigen candidates from unique amino acid sequences at the junctions of fusion proteins which can serve as targets in the development of tumor vaccines for the treatment of breastcancer.

METHOD: We mined the sequence reads of breast tumor tissue that are usually discarded as discordant paired-end reads and discovered cancer specific fusion transcripts using tissue from cancer free controls as reference. Binding affinity predictions of novel peptide sequences crossing the fusion junction were analyzed by the MHC Class I binding predictor, MHCnuggets. CD8+ T cell responses against the 15 peptides were …

Targeted Genomic Sequencing Of Tsc1 And Tsc2 Reveals Causal Variants In Individuals For Whom Previous Genetic Testing For Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Was Normal, Hannah D West, Mark Nellist, Rutger W W Brouwer, Mirjam C G N Van Den Hout-Van Vroonhoven, Luiz Gustavo Dufner De Almeida, Femke Hendriks, Peter Elfferich, Meera Raja, Peter Giles, Rosa M Alfano, Angela Peron, Yves Sznajer, Liesbeth De Waele, Anna Jansen, Marije Koopmans, Anneke Kievit, Laura S Farach, Hope Northrup, Julian R Sampson, Laura E Thomas, Wilfred F J Van Ijcken

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is caused by inactivating variants in TSC1 and TSC2. Somatic mosaicism, as well as the size and complexity of the TSC1 and TSC2 loci, makes variant identification challenging. Indeed, in some individuals with a clinical diagnosis of TSC, diagnostic testing fails to identify an inactivating variant. To improve TSC1 and TSC2 variant detection, we screened the TSC1 and TSC2 genomic regions using targeted HaloPlex custom capture and next-generation sequencing (NGS) in genomic DNA isolated from peripheral blood of individuals with definite, possible or suspected TSC in whom no disease-associated variant had been identified by previous …

Self-Administered Meditation Application Intervention For Cancer Patients With Psychosocial Distress: A Pilot Study, Gabriel Lopez, Alejandro Chaoul, Carla L Warneke, Aimee J Christie, Catherine Powers-James, Wenli Liu, Santhosshi Narayanan, Marvin Delgado-Guay, Yisheng Li, Eduardo Bruera, Lorenzo Cohen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: We explored the use of a novel smart phone-based application (APP) for delivery and monitoring of meditation to treat mood symptoms experienced by cancer patients.

METHODS: We assessed the feasibility of using a meditation delivery and tracking APP over 2-weeks and its impact on cancer patients' self-reported anxiety and depression. Outpatients reporting depression and/or anxiety were recruited and randomized to the APP or waitlist control group. Assessments included an expectancy scale, exit survey, mood rating before and after each meditation, and the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS-FS), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) …

Hepatocellular Carcinoma With Hepatic Vein And Inferior Vena Cava Invasion, Akash Shukla, Abhinav Jain

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) invades intrahepatic vessels causing tumor thrombosis. Infrequently, there is involvement of the hepatic vein (HV) and inferior vena cava (IVC). In this review, we summarize the epidemiology, classification, clinical features, and management of HCC with HV and IVC invasion. While the involvement of HV and IVC usually portends an overall poor survival, selected patients may be candidates for aggressive treatment and thus improving outcomes.

Similar Overall Expression, But Different Profiles, Of Autistic Traits, Sensory Processing, And Mental Health Between Young Adult Males And Females, Garrett Cardon

Faculty Publications

Recent trends suggest that autism is more common in females than traditionally held. Additionally, some argue that females express autistic traits differently than males. Dimensional views of autism could shed light on these issues, especially with regards to understudied behavioral areas, such as sensory processing. We examined autistic traits, sensory processing, anxiety, and related behaviors in a large sample of neurotypical young adult males and females (n = 1122; 556 female; ages 19–26). Participants completed an online survey containing questionnaires related to the above. Between groups statistical analyses, as well as within groups correlations and mediation analyses containing these constructs …