Risk of HIV transmission through condomless sex in serodifferent gay couples with the HIV-positive partner taking suppressive antiretroviral therapy (PARTNER): final results of a multicentre, prospective, observational study.

Peer reviewe

Development and validation of a prognostic model predicting symptomatic hemorrhagic transformation in acute ischemic stroke at scale in the OHDSI network

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Hemorrhagic transformation (HT) after cerebral infarction is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon in the acute stage of ischemic stroke, and often results in a poor prognosis. Thus, identifying risk factors and making an early prediction of HT in acute cerebral infarction contributes not only to the selections of therapeutic regimen but also, more importantly, to the improvement of prognosis of acute cerebral infarction. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a model to predict a patient's risk of HT within 30 days of initial ischemic stroke. METHODS: We utilized a retrospective multicenter observational cohort study design to develop a Lasso Logistic Regression prediction model with a large, US Electronic Health Record dataset which structured to the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model (CDM). To examine clinical transportability, the model was externally validated across 10 additional real-world healthcare datasets include EHR records for patients from America, Europe and Asia. RESULTS: In the database the model was developed, the target population cohort contained 621,178 patients with ischemic stroke, of which 5,624 patients had HT within 30 days following initial ischemic stroke. 612 risk predictors, including the distance a patient travels in an ambulance to get to care for a HT, were identified. An area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.75 was achieved in the internal validation of the risk model. External validation was performed across 10 databases totaling 5,515,508 patients with ischemic stroke, of which 86,401 patients had HT within 30 days following initial ischemic stroke. The mean external AUC was 0.71 and ranged between 0.60-0.78. CONCLUSIONS: A HT prognostic predict model was developed with Lasso Logistic Regression based on routinely collected EMR data. This model can identify patients who have a higher risk of HT than the population average with an AUC of 0.78. It shows the OMOP CDM is an appropriate data standard for EMR secondary use in clinical multicenter research for prognostic prediction model development and validation. In the future, combining this model with clinical information systems will assist clinicians to make the right therapy decision for patients with acute ischemic stroke

Computational models in cardiology

The treatment of individual patients in cardiology practice increasingly relies on advanced imaging, genetic screening and devices. As the amount of imaging and other diagnostic data increases, paralleled by the greater capacity to personalize treatment, the difficulty of using the full array of measurements of a patient to determine an optimal treatment seems also to be paradoxically increasing. Computational models are progressively addressing this issue by providing a common framework for integrating multiple data sets from individual patients. These models, which are based on physiology and physics rather than on population statistics, enable computational simulations to reveal diagnostic information that would have otherwise remained concealed and to predict treatment outcomes for individual patients. The inherent need for patient-specific models in cardiology is clear and is driving the rapid development of tools and techniques for creating personalized methods to guide pharmaceutical therapy, deployment of devices and surgical interventions

Rare predicted loss-of-function variants of type I IFN immunity genes are associated with life-threatening COVID-19

BackgroundWe previously reported that impaired type I IFN activity, due to inborn errors of TLR3- and TLR7-dependent type I interferon (IFN) immunity or to autoantibodies against type I IFN, account for 15-20% of cases of life-threatening COVID-19 in unvaccinated patients. Therefore, the determinants of life-threatening COVID-19 remain to be identified in similar to 80% of cases.MethodsWe report here a genome-wide rare variant burden association analysis in 3269 unvaccinated patients with life-threatening COVID-19, and 1373 unvaccinated SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals without pneumonia. Among the 928 patients tested for autoantibodies against type I IFN, a quarter (234) were positive and were excluded.ResultsNo gene reached genome-wide significance. Under a recessive model, the most significant gene with at-risk variants was TLR7, with an OR of 27.68 (95%CI 1.5-528.7, P=1.1x10(-4)) for biochemically loss-of-function (bLOF) variants. We replicated the enrichment in rare predicted LOF (pLOF) variants at 13 influenza susceptibility loci involved in TLR3-dependent type I IFN immunity (OR=3.70[95%CI 1.3-8.2], P=2.1x10(-4)). This enrichment was further strengthened by (1) adding the recently reported TYK2 and TLR7 COVID-19 loci, particularly under a recessive model (OR=19.65[95%CI 2.1-2635.4], P=3.4x10(-3)), and (2) considering as pLOF branchpoint variants with potentially strong impacts on splicing among the 15 loci (OR=4.40[9%CI 2.3-8.4], P=7.7x10(-8)). Finally, the patients with pLOF/bLOF variants at these 15 loci were significantly younger (mean age [SD]=43.3 [20.3] years) than the other patients (56.0 [17.3] years; P=1.68x10(-5)).ConclusionsRare variants of TLR3- and TLR7-dependent type I IFN immunity genes can underlie life-threatening COVID-19, particularly with recessive inheritance, in patients under 60 years old