Evaluating the reporting of patient-reported outcomes in surgical management of stress urinary incontinence in females: a cross-sectional analysis of randomized controlled trials

Background: Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) significantly reduces a woman’s quality of life (QoL). Use of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) is increasing in randomized control trials RCTs and standardization is paramount. We aim to evaluate completeness of reporting of RCTs for surgical management of SUI in females based on an adaptation of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement with PRO extension (CONSORT-PRO).Study Design: A literature search was conducted and returns were screened using Rayyan. After title and abstract screening, a full-text screen was conducted for final inclusions. All RCTs meeting inclusion criteria were evaluated using an adaptation of the CONSORT-PRO extension checklist and the Cochrane Collaboration risk of bias assessment tool (RoB). Completion percentages of CONSORT-PRO were calculated and a bivariate regression evaluated associations between trial characteristics and CONSORT-PRO adaptation completeness.Results: After full-text screening, 43 RCTs were included for data extraction and analysis. Mean completion percentage of the CONSORT-PRO adaptation was 50.53% (SD=15.63). A total of 38 (of 43; 88.37%) RCTs received a RoB 2.0 rating of ‘some concern’. RCTs with follow-up longer than 3 months had higher CONSORT-PRO adaptation completion of statistical significance: 3-6 months(P=0.049), 6-12 months (P=0.009), greater than 12 months (P=0.021). Reporting a conflict of interest (P<0.001) and reporting no conflict of interest (P=0.048) also had statistically significant results with higher reporting completeness when compared to studies without a conflict of interest statement.Conclusions: PROs are used as measures to understand a patient’s experience with a condition. Our results suggest CONSORT-PRO adaptation reporting completeness of RCTs about surgical management of SUI in women is suboptimal. Improving reporting completeness through adherence to the CONSORT-PRO extension checklist can better inform clinical decision making and lead to improved QoL

Global modeling of transcriptional responses in interaction networks

Motivation: Cell-biological processes are regulated through a complex network of interactions between genes and their products. The processes, their activating conditions, and the associated transcriptional responses are often unknown. Organism-wide modeling of network activation can reveal unique and shared mechanisms between physiological conditions, and potentially as yet unknown processes. We introduce a novel approach for organism-wide discovery and analysis of transcriptional responses in interaction networks. The method searches for local, connected regions in a network that exhibit coordinated transcriptional response in a subset of conditions. Known interactions between genes are used to limit the search space and to guide the analysis. Validation on a human pathway network reveals physiologically coherent responses, functional relatedness between physiological conditions, and coordinated, context-specific regulation of the genes. Availability: Implementation is freely available in R and Matlab at http://netpro.r-forge.r-project.orgComment: 19 pages, 13 figure

Enhanced Longevity by Ibuprofen, Conserved in Multiple Species, Occurs in Yeast through Inhibition of Tryptophan Import

The common non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug ibuprofen has been associated with a reduced risk of some age-related pathologies. However, a general pro-longevity role for ibuprofen and its mechanistic basis remains unclear. Here we show that ibuprofen increased the lifespan of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster, indicative of conserved eukaryotic longevity effects. Studies in yeast indicate that ibuprofen destabilizes the Tat2p permease and inhibits tryptophan uptake. Loss of Tat2p increased replicative lifespan (RLS), but ibuprofen did not increase RLS when Tat2p was stabilized or in an already long-lived strain background impaired for aromatic amino acid uptake. Concomitant with lifespan extension, ibuprofen moderately reduced cell size at birth, leading to a delay in the G1 phase of the cell cycle. Similar changes in cell cycle progression were evident in a large dataset of replicatively long-lived yeast deletion strains. These results point to fundamental cell cycle signatures linked with longevity, implicate aromatic amino acid import in aging and identify a largely safe drug that extends lifespan across different kingdoms of life.The open access fee for this work was funded through the Texas A&M University Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Fund

Coherent femtosecond pulse shaping towards the short wavelength regime

Since the advent of the first camera, flashes of light have been an integral tool in observing the world around us. Following the creation of the laser, these flashes of light have been getting temporally shorter and shorter, allowing faster and faster phenomena to be observed. Now these pulses can be as short as femtoseconds, or even a few attoseconds. Control over these short pulses also can allow observation and enable control over dynamics in matter. In the present thesis the complete characterisation of an all-reflective 4f pulse shaper is presented. A periodic spectral amplitude modulation is applied to a femtosecond Deep-UltraViolet (DUV) pulse within an open-loop shaping control scheme. The DUV pulse is produced via nonlinear frequency up-conversion from a fundamental infrared pulse. The pulses before and after this device are fully characterised in time, frequency and chirp. Transmission of the device in the DUV is also measured and data is given. Due to the all-reflective nature of the device it is capable of operating with coherent pulses at short wavelengths, such as pulses produced from a seeded free-electron laser via High-Gain Harmonic Generation (HGHG). The coherent pulses produced this way via seeding use the same DUV laser as is used to operate the pulse shaper and are generated as harmonics of the seed. The diffraction gratings in the shaper are designed such that harmonics of the seed laser follow the beampath of the DUV pulse through the pulse shaper, minimising the need for realignment. The coherent extreme-ultraviolet pulses produced from the seeded free-electron laser operating in HGHG are characterised in time and frequency by terahertz streaking. Chirp is applied to the ultraviolet seed pulse and the effect upon the output seeded free-electron laser pulse is explored with temporal pulse characterisation methods. Control over pulse shaping in the DUV and towards soft x-rays is interesting for applications such as coherent control, where dynamical processes in matter are controlled by coherent light fields

Capsular Management During Hip Arthroscopy.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Hip arthroscopy is widely used for the management of intra-articular pathology and there has been growing interest in strategies for management of the hip capsule during surgery. The hip capsule is an essential structure that provides stability to the joint and it is necessarily violated during procedures that address intra-articular pathology. This article reviews different approaches to capsular management during hip arthroscopy including anatomical considerations for capsulotomy, techniques, clinical outcomes, and the role of routine capsular repair. This article also reviews the concept of hip microinstability and its potential impact on capsular management options as well as iatrogenic complications that can occur as a result of poor capsular management. RECENT FINDINGS: Current research highlights the key functional role of the hip capsule and the importance of preserving its anatomy during surgery. Capsulotomies that involve less tissue violation (periportal and puncture-type approaches) do not appear to require routine capsular repair to achieve good outcomes. Many studies have investigated the role of capsular repair following more extensive capsulotomy types (interportal and T-type), with most authors reporting superior outcomes with routine capsular repair. Strategies for capsular management during hip arthroscopy range from conservative capsulotomy techniques aimed to minimize capsular violation to more extensive capsulotomies with routine capsule closure, all of which have good short- to mid-term outcomes. There is a growing trend towards decreasing iatrogenic capsular tissue injury when possible and fully repairing the capsule when larger capsulotomies are utilized. Future research may reveal that patients with microinstability may require a more specific approach to capsular management