Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma: diagnostic challenges,histopathologic features and ancillary testing

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is an aggressive thyroid malignancy with high mortality rate. This malignancy arises in thyroid follicular cells either denovo or with an associated differentiated thyroid carcinoma component. Clinically, it usually presents as a rapidly enlarging mass, pain and locally compressive symptoms. Histopathologic variability and heterogeneity often pose diagnostic challenges, especially in scant and paucicellular specimens. This article describes the clinical, histopathologic and molecular features of ATC and also addresses the associated diagnostic limitations and challenges.     

Genomic variants within chromosome 14q32.32 regulate bone mass through MARK3 signaling in osteoblasts

Bone mineral density (BMD) is a highly heritable predictor of osteoporotic fracture. GWAS have identified hundreds of loci influencing BMD, but few have been functionally analyzed. In this study, we show that SNPs within a BMD locus on chromosome 14q32.32 alter splicing and expression of PAR-1a/microtubule affinity regulating kinase 3 (MARK3), a conserved serine/threonine kinase known to regulate bioenergetics, cell division, and polarity. Mice lacking Mark3 either globally or selectively in osteoblasts have increased bone mass at maturity. RNA profiling from Mark3-deficient osteoblasts suggested changes in the expression of components of the Notch signaling pathway. Mark3-deficient osteoblasts exhibited greater matrix mineralization compared with controls that was accompanied by reduced Jag1/Hes1 expression and diminished downstream JNK signaling. Overexpression of Jag1 in Mark3-deficient osteoblasts both in vitro and in vivo normalized mineralization capacity and bone mass, respectively. Together, these findings reveal a mechanism whereby genetically regulated alterations in Mark3 expression perturb cell signaling in osteoblasts to influence bone mass.     

COVID-19 Gender Disparities and Mitigation Recommendations: A Narrative Review

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has rapidly created widespread impacts on global health and the economy. Data suggest that women are less susceptible to severe illness. However, sex-disaggregated data are incomplete, leaving room for misinterpretation, and focusing only on biologic sex underestimates the gendered impact of the pandemic on women. This narrative review summarizes what is known about gender disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic, domestic, and health burdens along with overlapping vulnerabilities related to the pandemic. In addition, this review outlines recommended strategies that advocacy groups, community leaders, and policymakers should implement to mitigate the widening gender disparities related to COVID-19.     

Emergency Care EMTALA Alterations During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

The coronavirus 2019 pandemic has affected almost every aspect of health care delivery in the United States, and the emergency medicine system has been hit particularly hard while dealing with this public health crisis. In an unprecedented time in our history, medical systems and clinicians have been asked to be creative, flexible, and innovative, all while continuing to uphold the important standards in the US health care system. To continue providing quality services to patients during this extraordinary time, care providers, organizations, administrators, and insurers have needed to alter longstanding models and procedures to respond to the dynamics of a pandemic. The Emergency Medicine Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986, or EMTALA, is 1 example of where these alterations have allowed health care facilities and clinicians to continue their work of caring for patients while protecting both the patients and the clinicians themselves from infectious exposures at the same time.     

Fibroblast growth factor receptors in cancer: genetic alterations,diagnostics, therapeutic targets and mechanisms of resistance

Fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) are aberrantly activated through single-nucleotide variants, gene fusions and copy number amplifications in 5–10% of all human cancers, although this frequency increases to 10–30% in urothelial carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. We begin this review by highlighting the diversity of FGFR genomic alterations identified in human cancers and the current challenges associated with the development of clinical-grade molecular diagnostic tests to accurately detect these alterations in the tissue and blood of patients. The past decade has seen significant advancements in the development of FGFR-targeted therapies, which include selective, non-selective and covalent small-molecule inhibitors, as well as monoclonal antibodies against the receptors. We describe the expanding landscape of anti-FGFR therapies that are being assessed in early phase and randomised controlled clinical trials, such as erdafitinib and pemigatinib, which are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of FGFR3-mutated urothelial carcinoma and FGFR2-fusion cholangiocarcinoma, respectively. However, despite initial sensitivity to FGFR inhibition, acquired drug resistance leading to cancer progression develops in most patients. This phenomenon underscores the need to clearly delineate tumour-intrinsic and tumour-extrinsic mechanisms of resistance to facilitate the development of second-generation FGFR inhibitors and novel treatment strategies beyond progression on targeted therapy.Subject terms: Cancer, Cancer