Design and implementation of a mobile app for the pharmacotherapeutic follow-up of patients diagnosed with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases: eMidCare

BackgroundPharmacotherapeutic management of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID) has become more complex due to the development of new treatments, such as biological therapies. Mobile health, especially apps, can provide IMID patients with greater autonomy and facilitate communication with healthcare professionals. Our objective was to design and implement an app for remote monitoring and communication with IMID patients.MethodsA multidisciplinary group was created to design and develop an app for IMID patients in a tertiary hospital. The app functionalities were identified through a focus group with IMID patients and through an observational, descriptive study of available apps for IMID patients at App Store and Play Store platforms. Once the app was designed and developed, we offered the app to IMID patients who initiated a new biological therapy. The inclusion period was from December 2020 to August 2021. We performed an observational, longitudinal study to assess the app’s impact on medication safety, communication, satisfaction, and usability.ResultsWe designed an app (eMidCare®) with the following modules: My Medication, My Questionnaires, Adverse Events, Useful Information, Messages, and Patient Profile. A total of 85 patients were installed with the app. The median (range) follow-up time for app use was 123 (5-270) days. In the My Medication module, 100% of patients registered their biological therapy and 25.9% also used this module to record each dose of medication administered. A total of 82 adverse events (AEs) were registered. Thirty-two percent of the patients registered at least 1 AE. The most frequent AEs were fatigue, injection site reaction, headache, and nausea. Fifty-two percent of patients used the Messages module to communicate with healthcare professionals. The most frequent messages concerned doubts about managing AEs (26.2%) and drug interactions (18.9%). The satisfaction survey yielded a median (range) score of 9.1 (7-10) out of 10.ConclusionsWe developed an app, eMidCare®, which reminds patients to take their medication, enables them to record AEs, and helps them communicate with healthcare professionals. Approximately one-third of the patients registered the administration of the biological therapies and registered at least 1 AE. The most used and most satisfactory functionality was communication with health professionals

Genetic manipulation of LKB1 elicits lethal metastatic prostate cancer

Gene dosage is a key defining factor to understand cancer pathogenesis and progression, which requires the development of experimental models that aid better deconstruction of the disease. Here, we model an aggressive form of prostate cancer and show the unconventional association of LKB1 dosage to prostate tumorigenesis. Whereas loss of Lkbl alone in the murine prostate epithelium was inconsequential for tumorigenesis, its combination with an oncogenic insult, illustrated by Pten heterozygosity, elicited lethal metastatic prostate cancer. Despite the low frequency of LKB1 deletion in patients, this event was significantly enriched in lung metastasis. Modeling the role of LKB1 in cellular systems revealed that the residual activity retained in a reported kinase-dead form, LKB1(K781), was sufficient to hamper tumor aggressiveness and metastatic dissemination. Our data suggest that prostate cells can function normally with low activity of LKB1, whereas its complete absence influences prostate cancer pathogenesis and dissemination

Kinetics of immune responses elicited after three mRNA COVID-19 vaccine doses in predominantly antibody-deficient individuals

Mass vaccination campaigns reduced COVID-19 incidence and severity. Here, we evaluated the immune responses developed in SARS-CoV-2-uninfected patients with predominantly antibody-deficiencies (PAD) after three mRNA-1273 vaccine doses. PAD patients were classified based on their immunodeficiency: unclassified primary antibody-deficiency (unPAD, n = 9), common variable immunodeficiency (CVID, n = 12), combined immunodeficiency (CID, n = 1), and thymoma with immunodeficiency (TID, n = 1). unPAD patients and healthy controls (HCs, n = 10) developed similar vaccine-induced humoral responses after two doses. However, CVID patients showed reduced binding and neutralizing titers compared to HCs. Of interest, these PAD groups showed lower levels of Spike-specific IFN-γ-producing cells. CVID individuals also presented diminished CD8+T cells. CID and TID patients developed cellular but not humoral responses. Although the third vaccine dose boosted humoral responses in most PAD patients, it had limited effect on expanding cellular immunity. Vaccine-induced immune responses in PAD individuals are heterogeneous, and should be immunomonitored to define a personalized therapeutic strategies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Measurement of χ c1 and χ c2 production with s√ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

The prompt and non-prompt production cross-sections for the χ c1 and χ c2 charmonium states are measured in pp collisions at s√ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using 4.5 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. The χ c states are reconstructed through the radiative decay χ c → J/ψγ (with J/ψ → μ + μ −) where photons are reconstructed from γ → e + e − conversions. The production rate of the χ c2 state relative to the χ c1 state is measured for prompt and non-prompt χ c as a function of J/ψ transverse momentum. The prompt χ c cross-sections are combined with existing measurements of prompt J/ψ production to derive the fraction of prompt J/ψ produced in feed-down from χ c decays. The fractions of χ c1 and χ c2 produced in b-hadron decays are also measured