The top 100 cited papers in the field of iron deficiency in humans: A bibliometric study

Worldwide, iron deficiency is a common form of micronutrient deficiency with a high individual and societal cost. There are considerable knowledge and practice gaps in the diagnosis and treatment of iron deficiency. Bibliometric analysis examines the published body of knowledge of a subject in an objective fashion. The Web of Science Core Collection was searched to retrieve the 100 most cited papers on the topic of iron deficiency, and the key metrics of each paper were extracted. A keyword study was performed using VOSviewer 1.6.10 software, which provided a visual mapping of the network of keyword cooccurrences. The papers were published between 1964 and 2017 and were cited an average of 636 times. They were contributed by authors from 119 different countries/regions, with the largest contributing country being the United States. 29 institutions contributed at least 6 publications each, and 4 researchers authored or coauthored at least 5 papers. Keyword analysis suggests that the most cited topics could be grouped into 4 categories: (1) epidemiologic research of the global burden of iron deficiency, (2) clinical aspects of iron deficiency anemia, (3) iron metabolism, and (4) the impact of iron deficiency on children. Identification of the most impactful studies in the field of iron deficiency may be helpful to practitioners interested in improving their knowledge base. Compared to bibliometric studies performed on other topics, the medical literature of iron deficiency is mature, as evidenced by the high citation rate of the top 100 papers. Despite the high worldwide prevalence of iron deficiency, the top cited papers are dominated by a relatively small number of countries and institutions. Interestingly, however, the most cited authors in this study do not overlap with the most cited institutions

Integrating genealogical and dynamical modelling to infer escape and reversion rates in HIV epitopes

The rates of escape and reversion in response to selection pressure arising from the host immune system, notably the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) response, are key factors determining the evolution of HIV. Existing methods for estimating these parameters from cross-sectional population data using ordinary differential equations (ODE) ignore information about the genealogy of sampled HIV sequences, which has the potential to cause systematic bias and over-estimate certainty. Here, we describe an integrated approach, validated through extensive simulations, which combines genealogical inference and epidemiological modelling, to estimate rates of CTL escape and reversion in HIV epitopes. We show that there is substantial uncertainty about rates of viral escape and reversion from cross-sectional data, which arises from the inherent stochasticity in the evolutionary process. By application to empirical data, we find that point estimates of rates from a previously published ODE model and the integrated approach presented here are often similar, but can also differ several-fold depending on the structure of the genealogy. The model-based approach we apply provides a framework for the statistical analysis of escape and reversion in population data and highlights the need for longitudinal and denser cross-sectional sampling to enable accurate estimate of these key parameters

Mast cell leukemia with prolonged survival on PKC412/midostaurin

Mast cell leukemia (MCL) is a rare and aggressive form of systemic mastocytosis. There are approximately 50 reported cases since 1950s. MCL is refractory to cytoreduction chemotherapy and the average survival is only six months. We report a MCL case in a 71 year-old woman with high tumor load at the initial presentation in 2005, who did not respond to either interleukin-2 or dasatinib therapy. After enrolled in a clinical trial of PKC412 (or Midostaurin) with a daily dose of 100 mg, the patient responded well to PKC412 and became transfusion independent in three months. Since then, her disease had been stably controlled. This is the first report of a high-tumor-load MCL case which achieved prolonged survival (101 months) by PKC 412. The 101-month overall survival is the longest among reported MCL cases in the English literature

A transient benign lymph node-based proliferation of T-cells simulating non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a patient with psoriasis treated with tumor necrosis factor alpha and CD11a antagonists

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Therapeutic biologic agents are uncommonly associated with lymphoma.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report a patient with psoriasis treated with the biologic agents efalizumab (Raptiva^®) and etanercept (Enbrel^®), who developed painless lymphadenopathy with peripheral lymphocytosis during treatment, simulating a non-Hodgkin lymphoma clinically and pathologically. Lymphocytosis and lymphadenopathy spontaneously remitted following cessation of etanercept therapy and have not recurred.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Distinction between clinically benign lymphoid proliferations related to antipsoriasis therapy and malignant lymphoma avoids the unnecessary use of anti-lymphoma chemotherapy.</p