Functional and psychosocial impact of COVID-19 pandemic on rheumatic patients’ quality of life in Saudi Arabia

Quality of Life Research - The COVID-19 pandemic might add to the stressors experienced by people living with rheumatic diseases. This study aimed to examine rheumatic patients’ functional...     

Treatment of multiple adjacent RT 1 gingival recessions with the modified coronally advanced tunnel (MCAT) technique and a collagen matrix or palatal connective tissue graft: 9-year results of a split-mouth randomized clinical trial

Clinical Oral Investigations - To evaluate t he long-term outcomes following treatment of RT 1 multiple adjacent gingival recessions (MAGR) using the modified coronally advanced tunnel (MCAT) with...     

静吸复合麻醉对特重度烧伤患者凝血功能障碍的影响

目的收集特重度烧伤(总TBSA50%以上或三度TBSA20%以上或伴有严重并发症者)患者围术期凝血指标(APTT、PT、FIB、DD和PLT)，分析静吸复合麻醉对患者凝血功能的影响及其临床意义。 方法选取近3年内蒙古医科大学第三附属医院烧伤外科收治的特重度烧伤患者148例，根据入院14 d内的预后分为死亡组和生存组，生存组男性129例，女性9例；年龄24~59岁，平均(43.30±12.90)岁。死亡组男性8例，女性2例；年龄26~63岁，平均(46.19±15.41)岁。收集入院时(T0)，术前(早晨入手术室前，T1)，术毕(送至PACU未拔除气管导管前，T2)及术后2 d(T3)4个时间点的凝血指标，比较两组凝血指标动态差异。 结果死亡组休克期输液量、累计血浆、红细胞输入量显著高于生存组(P<0.01)。T0时，生存组的FIB(1.78±0.32)显著高于死亡组(1.26±0.07)(P<0.05)；T2时，两组APTT、PT均显著缩短(P<0.05)，生存组的FIB(3.86±0.40)显著高于死亡组(2.45±1.02)(P<0.05)；T3时，死亡组PLT显著低于生存组(P<0.01)。 结论特重度烧伤患者在围手术期易出现高凝状态，并且这可能导致患者死亡。静吸复合麻醉和围术期大量液体复苏会促进患者的高凝状态。     

CD19 + CD21lo/neg cells are increased in systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) represents a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The purpose of this study was to examine recirculating lymphocytes from SSc patients for potential biomarkers of interstitial lung disease (ILD). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated from patients with SSc and healthy controls enrolled in the Vanderbilt University Myositis and Scleroderma Treatment Initiative Center cohort between 9/2017–6/2019. Clinical phenotyping was performed by chart abstraction. Immunophenotyping was performed using both mass cytometry and fluorescence cytometry combined with t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding analysis and traditional biaxial gating. This study included 34 patients with SSc-ILD, 14 patients without SSc-ILD, and 25 healthy controls. CD21^lo/neg cells are significantly increased in SSc-ILD but not in SSc without ILD (15.4 ± 13.3% vs. 5.8 ± 0.9%, p = 0.002) or healthy controls (5.0 ± 0.5%, p < 0.0001). While CD21^lo/neg B cells can be identified from a single biaxial gate, tSNE analysis reveals that the biaxial gate is comprised of multiple distinct subsets, all of which are increased in SSc-ILD. CD21^lo/neg cells in both healthy controls and SSc-ILD are predominantly tBET positive and do not have intracellular CD21. Immunohistochemistry staining demonstrated that CD21^lo/neg B cells diffusely infiltrate the lung parenchyma of an SSc-ILD patient. Additional work is needed to validate this biomarker in larger cohorts and longitudinal studies and to understand the role of these cells in SSc-ILD.

     

Multiscale quantification of morphological heterogeneity with creation of a predictor of longer survival in glioblastoma

Intratumor heterogeneity is a main cause of the dismal prognosis of glioblastoma (GBM). Yet, there remains a lack of a uniform assessment of the degree of heterogeneity. With a multiscale approach, we addressed the hypothesis that intratumor heterogeneity exists on different levels comprising traditional regional analyses, but also innovative methods including computer-assisted analysis of tumor morphology combined with epigenomic data. With this aim, 157 biopsies of 37 patients with therapy-naive IDH-wildtype GBM were analyzed regarding the intratumor variance of protein expression of glial marker GFAP, microglia marker Iba1 and proliferation marker Mib1. Hematoxylin and eosin stained slides were evaluated for tumor vascularization. For the estimation of pixel intensity and nuclear profiling, automated analysis was used. Additionally, DNA methylation profiling was conducted separately for the single biopsies. Scoring systems were established to integrate several parameters into one score for the four examined modalities of heterogeneity (regional, cellular, pixel-level and epigenomic). As a result, we could show that heterogeneity was detected in all four modalities. Furthermore, for the regional, cellular and epigenomic level, we confirmed the results of earlier studies stating that a higher degree of heterogeneity is associated with poorer overall survival. To integrate all modalities into one score, we designed a predictor of longer survival, which showed a highly significant separation regarding the OS. In conclusion, multiscale intratumor heterogeneity exists in glioblastoma and its degree has an impact on overall survival. In future studies, the implementation of a broadly feasible heterogeneity index should be considered.