Nanoinformatics: developing new computing applications for nanomedicine

Nanoinformatics has recently emerged to address the need of computing applications at the nano level. In this regard, the authors have participated in various initiatives to identify its concepts, foundations and challenges. While nanomaterials open up the possibility for developing new devices in many industrial and scientific areas, they also offer breakthrough perspectives for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. In this paper, we analyze the different aspects of nanoinformatics and suggest five research topics to help catalyze new research and development in the area, particularly focused on nanomedicine. We also encompass the use of informatics to further the biological and clinical applications of basic research in nanoscience and nanotechnology, and the related concept of an extended ?nanotype? to coalesce information related to nanoparticles. We suggest how nanoinformatics could accelerate developments in nanomedicine, similarly to what happened with the Human Genome and other -omics projects, on issues like exchanging modeling and simulation methods and tools, linking toxicity information to clinical and personal databases or developing new approaches for scientific ontologies, among many others

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

A Longitudinal Examination of Crossed Aphasia

OBJECTIVE: To longitudinaly examine neuropsychological performance in an adult dextral man with crossed aphasia after cerebrovascular accident. DESIGN: Case report using longitudinal neuropsychological, neurological, and radiological examinations performed in close temporal proximity to one another. SETTING: The patient was seen on both an inpatient and an outpatient basis by members of the Departments of Neurology and Radiology of the University of Miami (Fla) School of Medicine. PATIENT: Thirty-four-year-old right-handed monolingual Hispanic man without family history of lefthandedness. RESULTS: Initial neuropsychological testing revealed classic Broca's dysphasia, visual neglect, and visuospatial disturbances. The visuospatial disturbance resolved within 6 months whereas expressive language remained severely impaired. There was a dissociation between praxis and language. Mood was jovial with indifference toward his neurologic and cognitive limitations. Serial magnetic resonance imaging studies unequivocally localized the lesions to the right hemisphere, involving the right frontal, anterior parietal, and subcortical white matter. CONCLUSIONS: The clinicoanatomic correlation is compatible with the view that crossed aphasia is a "mirror" representation of that seen in cases of uncrossed aphasia. The course of recovery suggests complete lateralization of language to the right hemisphere with bilateral or crossed representation of nonverbal skills

Epidemiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients in a centre in Buenos Aires

Sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS) is considered a multifactorial disease with genetic and environmental factors causing motor neuron degeneration. OBJECTIVE: To describe the epidemiological and occupational characteristics of patients with sALS who attended the Ramos Mejía Hospital at Buenos Aires, Argentina. METHOD: We analyzed the medical records of sALS patients diagnosed between 2001 and 2008. All occupations were coded according to the International Standard Classification of Occupation (ISCO). RESULTS: 187 patients were assessed, 38.5% were women and 61.5% men. Mean age at diagnosis was 55 years. 16% of them came from rural areas; 68% of the studied population had no health insurance. 40% were employed in elementary occupations, 19 were technicians and 8 handicraftsmen. CONCLUSION: The most represented profession was elementary occupation. A large proportion of patients came from rural areas, which might suggest an increased risk of environmental exposure to an unknown agent in those regions

ICD-10-PCS extension with ICD-9 procedure codes to support integrated access to clinical legacy data

Since the creation of The International Classification of Diseases (ICD), new versions have been released to keep updated with the current medical knowledge. Migrations of Electronic Health Records (EHR) from ICD-9 to ICD-10-PCS as clinical procedure codification system, has been a significant challenge and involved large resources. In addition, it created new barriers for integrated access to legacy medical procedure data (frequently ICD-9 coded) with current data (frequently ICD-10-PCS coded). This work proposes a solution based on extending ICD-10-PCS with a subgroup of ICD-9-CM concepts to facilitate such integrated access. The General Equivalence Mappings (GEMs) has been used as foundation to set the terminology relations of these inserted concepts in ICD-10-PCS hierarchy, but due to the existence of 1-to-many mappings, advanced rules are required to seamlessly integrate both terminologies. With the generation of rules based on GEMs relationships, 2014 ICD-9 concepts were included within the ICD-10-PCS hierarchy. For the rest of the concepts, a new method is also proposed to increase 1-to-1 mappings. As results, with the suggested approach, the percentage of ICD-9-CM procedure concepts that can be mapped accurately (avoiding mappings to a large number of concepts) rise from 11.56% to 69.01% of ICD-9-Proc, through the extended ICD-10-PCS hierarchy

Diagnosis of mitochondrial disorders applying massive pyrosequencing

Mitochondrial disorders are a frequent cause of neurological disability affecting children and adults. Traditionally, molecular diagnosis of mitochondrial diseases was mostly accomplished by the use of Sanger sequencing and PCR-RFLP. However, there are particular drawbacks associated with the use of these methods. Recent multidisciplinary advances have led to new sequencing methods that may overcome these limitations. Our goal was to explore the use of a next generation sequencing platform in the molecular diagnosis of mitochondrial diseases reporting our findings in adult patients that present with a clinical-pathological diagnosis of a mitochondrial encephalomyopathy. Complete genomic sequences of mitochondrial DNA were obtained by 454 massive pyrosequencing from blood samples. The analysis of these sequences allowed us to identify two diagnostic pathogenic mutations and 74 homoplasmic polymorphisms, useful for obtaining high-resolution mitochondrial haplogroups. In summary, molecular diagnosis of mitochondrial disorders could be efficiently done from readily accessible samples, such as blood, with the use of a new sequencing platform.Fil: Kauffman, Marcelo Andres. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; Argentina. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Agudos "Ramos Mejía"; ArgentinaFil: González Morón, Dolores. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Agudos "Ramos Mejía"; ArgentinaFil: Consalvo, Damian. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Agudos "Ramos Mejía"; ArgentinaFil: Westergaard, Gaston. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Rosario. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Vazquez, Martin Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Mancini, Estefania. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Rosario. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Taratuto, Ana Lia. Fundación para la Lucha contra las Enfermedades Neurológicas de la Infancia; ArgentinaFil: Rey, Raul C.. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Agudos "Ramos Mejía"; ArgentinaFil: Kochen, Sara Silvia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; Argentina. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Agudos "Ramos Mejía"; Argentin

Uso de tecnologías de agentes para la integración de bases de datos clínicas y genéticas

El objetivo del sistema INFOGENMED es facilitar la recuperación homogénea de información, a través de Internet, proporcionando un acceso unificado a múltiples y diversas bases de datos relaciónales remotas ya existentes. La investigación desarrollada parte de la idea de que un conjunto de bases de datos heterogéneas forma un espacio de información único. La arquitectura del sistema trata de facilitar al usuario el acceso a toda la información disponible, a la que se tiene acceso a través de las bases de datos registradas en el sistema, de forma intuitiva y directa. El sistema pretende, por un lado, permitir la integración de diferentes esquemas lógicos de bases de datos relaciónales, y por otro, establecer una arquitectura distribuida estándar, no condicionada a productos propietarios, que facilite la conexión de cualquier base de datos. Como infraestructura tecnológica se propone el uso de agentes inteligentes, que dan al sistema mayor flexibilidad y eficiencia, facilitando las tareas de integración y búsquedas, aspectos desarrollados en el artículo