Long-Term Outcomes with Subcutaneous C1-Inhibitor Replacement Therapy for Prevention of Hereditary Angioedema Attacks

Background For the prevention of attacks of hereditary angioedema (HAE), the efficacy and safety of subcutaneous human C1-esterase inhibitor (C1-INH[SC]; HAEGARDA, CSL Behring) was established in the 16-week Clinical Study for Optimal Management of Preventing Angioedema with Low-Volume Subcutaneous C1-Inhibitor Replacement Therapy (COMPACT). Objective To assess the long-term safety, occurrence of angioedema attacks, and use of rescue medication with C1-INH(SC). Methods Open-label, randomized, parallel-arm extension of COMPACT across 11 countries. Patients with frequent angioedema attacks, either study treatment-naive or who had completed COMPACT, were randomly assigned (1:1) to 40 IU/kg or 60 IU/kg C1-INH(SC) twice per week, with conditional uptitration to optimize prophylaxis (ClinicalTrials.gov registration no. NCT02316353). Results A total of 126 patients with a monthly attack rate of 4.3 in 3 months before entry in COMPACT were enrolled and treated for a mean of 1.5 years; 44 patients (34.9%) had more than 2 years of exposure. Mean steady-state C1-INH functional activity increased to 66.6% with 60 IU/kg. Incidence of adverse events was low and similar in both dose groups (11.3 and 8.5 events per patient-year for 40 IU/kg and 60 IU/kg, respectively). For 40 IU/kg and 60 IU/kg, median annualized attack rates were 1.3 and 1.0, respectively, and median rescue medication use was 0.2 and 0.0 times per year, respectively. Of 23 patients receiving 60 IU/kg for more than 2 years, 19 (83%) were attack-free during months 25 to 30 of treatment. Conclusions In patients with frequent HAE attacks, long-term replacement therapy with C1-INH(SC) is safe and exhibits a substantial and sustained prophylactic effect, with the vast majority of patients becoming free from debilitating disease symptoms

Results of the COVID-19 mental health international for the general population (COMET-G) study.

INTRODUCTION: There are few published empirical data on the effects of COVID-19 on mental health, and until now, there is no large international study. MATERIAL AND METHODS: During the COVID-19 pandemic, an online questionnaire gathered data from 55,589 participants from 40 countries (64.85% females aged 35.80 ± 13.61; 34.05% males aged 34.90±13.29 and 1.10% other aged 31.64±13.15). Distress and probable depression were identified with the use of a previously developed cut-off and algorithm respectively. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Descriptive statistics were calculated. Chi-square tests, multiple forward stepwise linear regression analyses and Factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tested relations among variables. RESULTS: Probable depression was detected in 17.80% and distress in 16.71%. A significant percentage reported a deterioration in mental state, family dynamics and everyday lifestyle. Persons with a history of mental disorders had higher rates of current depression (31.82% vs. 13.07%). At least half of participants were accepting (at least to a moderate degree) a non-bizarre conspiracy. The highest Relative Risk (RR) to develop depression was associated with history of Bipolar disorder and self-harm/attempts (RR = 5.88). Suicidality was not increased in persons without a history of any mental disorder. Based on these results a model was developed. CONCLUSIONS: The final model revealed multiple vulnerabilities and an interplay leading from simple anxiety to probable depression and suicidality through distress. This could be of practical utility since many of these factors are modifiable. Future research and interventions should specifically focus on them

Pathological gambling in Romanian teenagers. The psychopathology and neuropathology of teenagers

This note briefly describes three performance measures that can be used in business failure prediction models: the unweighted error rate (UER), D-max and the Gini-coefficient. The use of these measures (and the mathematical relationship between them) is illustrated with numerical examples. We hope that this note may help the reader to better understand (and possibly use) these classification criteria

Novel Dialkyl Vinyl Ether Phosphonate Monomers: Their Synthesis and Alternated Radical Copolymerizations with Electron-Accepting Monomers

International audienceThree new vinyl ether monomers containing phosphonate moieties were synthesized from transetherification reaction. We showed that the yield was dependent on the spacer length between the vinyl oxy group and the phosphonate moieties: when the spacer is a single methylene side reaction may occur, leading to the formation of acetal compounds. Free-radical copolymerizations of phosphonate-containing vinyl ether monomers with maleic anhydride were carried out, leading to alternated copolymers of rather low molecular weights (from 1000 to 7000 g/mol). Both gel permeation chromatography and 31P NMR analyses enhanced possible intramolecular transfer reactions occurring from the phosphonate moieties. Kinetic investigation showed that the electron-withdrawing character of the phosphonate moieties tends to decrease the rate of copolymerization. Nevertheless, almost complete monomers conversion was reached after 30 min of reaction with dimethyl vinyloxyethylphosphonate (VEC2PMe). Then, radical copolymerization of VEC2PMe with a series of electron- accepting monomers, that is, dibutyl maleate, dibutylitaconate, itaconic anhydride, butyl maleimide, and methyl maleimide, led to a series of alternated copolymers. From kinetic investigation, we showed that the higher the electron-accepting effect, the faster the vinyl ether consumption and the higher the molecular weights

Overview of the photo annotation task in ImageCLEF@ICPR

The Photo Annotation Task poses the challenge for automated annotation of 53 visual concepts in Flickr photos and was organized as part of the ImageCLEF@ICPR contest. In total, 12 research teams participated in the multilabel classification challenge while initially 17 research groups were interested and got access to the data. The participants were provided with a training set of 5,000 Flickr images with annotations, a validation set of 3,000 Flickr images with annotations and the test was performed on 10,000 Flickr images. The evaluation was carried out twofold: first the evaluation per concept was conducted by utilizing the Equal Error Rate (EER) and the Area Under Curve (AUC) and second the evaluation per example was performed with the Ontology Score (OS). Summarizing the results, an average AUC of 86.5% could be achieved, including concepts with an AUC of 96%. The classification performance for each image ranged between 59% and 100% with an average score of 85%. In comparison to the results achieved in ImageCLEF 2009, the detection performance increased for the concept-based evaluation by 2.2% EER and 2.5% AUC and showed a slight decrease for the example-based evaluation

Predicting the flammability of polymers from theirchemical structure: An improved model based on group contributions

International audienceA new method is proposed to calculate the flammability of polymers from their chemical structure using a Van Krevelen approach. The model is inspired from a pioneering work of Lyon which assigns one flammability contribution to each chemical group. The flammability property of the whole polymer is the sum of the contributions of chemical groups constituting the polymer. Two intrinsic properties (namely heat release capacity and total heat release) measured using pyrolysis-combustion flow calorimeter are correctly predicted for almost one hundred polymers containing contributions of only 31 chemical groups. The contributions of these groups are compared and the consistency of these values is discussed. Finally some exceptions, such as, phosphorus-containing polymers, are noted