Is the pull-out force of the Meniscus Arrow in bone affected by the inward curling of the barbs during biodegradation? An in vitro study

Background: Inward curling of the barbs of Meniscus Arrows during degradation was observed in a previous study, in which swelling, distention, and water uptake by Meniscus Arrows was evaluated. This change of configuration could have consequences with respect to anchorage capacity in bone. Material/Methods: Eight non-degraded Meniscus Arrows in the original configuration were pulled out of thawed, fresh-frozen human femoral condyle, and pull-out force was measured and compared with that of 6 Meniscus Arrows after 31 days of degradation under controlled conditions. Results: No significant difference was found between the 2 groups with respect to the required pull-out force (t test), the distribution of the data, or the interaction between degradation and location, as evaluated by mann-Whitney test, and no significant difference was found between the 2 groups with respect to the degradation state or position in the coudyles, as evaluated by 2-way analysis of variance. Conclusions: Our results indicate that the decrease in barb-barb diameter during the first month of degradation of the Meniscus Arrows has no significant effect on the tensile pull-out force required for removal from human femur condyle. Further research should be undertaken to examine whether the same is true for other biodegradable devices with barbs

Sex-related differences in contemporary biomarkers for heart failure:a review

The use of circulating biomarkers for heart failure (HF) is engrained in contemporary cardiovascular practice and provides objective information about various pathophysiological pathways associated with HF syndrome. However, biomarker profiles differ considerably among women and men. For instance, in the general population, markers of cardiac stretch (natriuretic peptides) and fibrosis (galectin-3) are higher in women, whereas markers of cardiac injury (cardiac troponins) and inflammation (sST2) are higher in men. Such differences may reflect sex-specific pathogenic processes associated with HF risk, but may also arise as a result of differences in sex hormone profiles and fat distribution. From a clinical perspective, sex-related differences in biomarker levels may affect the objectivity of biomarkers in HF management because what is considered to be 'normal' in one sex may not be so in the other. The objectives of this review are, therefore: (i) to examine the sex-specific dynamics of clinically relevant HF biomarkers in the general population, as well as in HF patients; (ii) to discuss the overlap between sex-related and obesity-related effects, and (iii) to identify knowledge gaps to stimulate research on sex-related differences in HF

Reconsider radiation exposure from imaging during immune checkpoint inhibitor trials to reduce risk of secondary cancers in long-term survivors?

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have improved outcomes for patients with advanced cancers, and results in increasing numbers of long-term survivors. For registration studies, progression-free survival and disease-free survival often serve as primary endpoints. This requires repeated computed tomography (CT) scans for tumour imaging which might lead to major radiation exposure. To determine this, all immune checkpoint inhibitors trials that led to FDA approval were retrieved up to July 29, 2019. From the available protocols, imaging modalities and schedules used in each trial were identified. The anticipated cumulative number of scans made after 1, 3, 5, and 10 years study participation were calculated. The percentage of lifetime attributable cancer risk was calculated using the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII report. Fifty-one trials were identified, from which 39 protocols were retrieved. Four were adjuvant trials. All protocols required repeated chest-abdomen imaging and specified CT scans as preferred imaging modality. Median calculated cumulative numbers of chest-abdomen CT scans after 1, 3, 5, and 10 years study participation were 7, 16, 24 and 46, respectively. For ages 20-70 years at study entry, the average lifetime attributable cancer risk after 1 year of study participation ranged from 1.11 to 0.40% for men and from 1.87 to 0.46% for women. At 10 years study participation, this risk increased to a range of 5.91 to 1.96% for men and 9.64 to 2.32% for women. Given high imaging radiation exposure for long-term survivors in current ICI trials an adaptive imaging interval and imaging termination rules should be considered for long-term survivors

Photochromism in Ruddlesden-Popper copper-based perovskites:A light-induced change of coordination number at the surface

Ruddlesden-Popper organic-inorganic hybrid copper-based perovskites have been studied for decades owing to a variety of interesting properties, such as thermochromism and piezochromism, and the mechanisms behind these phenomena have been explained. Another possible property of these materials that has seldomly been investigated is photochromism. In this work, the photochromic properties of bis(phenethylammonium) tetrachlorocuprate (also known as phenethylammonium copper chloride) are reported for the first time. This material has attracted scientific interest owing to the fact that it shows both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic behavior. This work highlights the difference in stability between two Ruddlesden-Popper copper-based perovskites - with phenethylammonium (PEA) or methylammonium (MA) as the cations - during external stimuli. Various techniques, such as Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, combined with optical studies, were used to investigate the underlying photochemical processes at a molecular level. It is found that for the PEA compound, ultraviolet illumination causes a color change from yellow to brown. This is the result of two independent events, namely a Cu2+ reduction reaction and a transition from an octahedral copper-chloride structure to square-planar CuCl42-. After illumination, the material (brown color) is unstable in air, which is evident from a color change back to yellow. Interestingly, the similar compound bis(methylammonium) tetrachlorocuprate does not display photochromic behavior, which is attributed to the different nature of the two organic cations

Defect ferromagnetism induced by lower valence cation doping:Li-doped SnO(2)nanoparticles

To explore the role of Li in establishing room-temperature ferromagnetism in SnO2, the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of Li-doped SnO(2)compounds were studied for different size regimes, from nanoparticles to bulk crystals. Li-doped nanoparticles show ferromagnetic ordering plus a paramagnetic contribution for particle sizes in the range of 16-51 nm, while pure SnO(2)and Li-doped compounds below and above this particular size range are diamagnetic. The magnetic moment is larger for compositions where the Li substitutes for Sn than for compositions where Li prevalently occupies interstitial sites. The observed ferromagnetic ordering in Li-doped SnO(2)nanoparticles is mainly due to the holes created when Li substitutes at a Sn site. Conversely, Li acts as an electron donor and electrons from Li may combine with holes to decrease ferromagnetism when lithium mainly occupies interstitial sites in the SnO(2)lattice

Co-occurrence of diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer: quantifying age patterns in the Dutch population using health survey data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The high prevalence of chronic diseases in Western countries implies that the presence of multiple chronic diseases within one person is common. Especially at older ages, when the likelihood of having a chronic disease increases, the co-occurrence of distinct diseases will be encountered more frequently. The aim of this study was to estimate the age-specific prevalence of multimorbidity in the general population. In particular, we investigate to what extent specific pairs of diseases cluster within people and how this deviates from what is to be expected under the assumption of the independent occurrence of diseases (i.e., sheer coincidence).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used data from a Dutch health survey to estimate the prevalence of pairs of chronic diseases specified by age. Diseases we focused on were diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer. Multinomial P-splines were fitted to the data to model the relation between age and disease status (single versus two diseases). To assess to what extent co-occurrence cannot be explained by independent occurrence, we estimated observed/expected co-occurrence ratios using predictions of the fitted regression models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Prevalence increased with age for all disease pairs. For all disease pairs, prevalence at most ages was much higher than is to be expected on the basis of coincidence. Observed/expected ratios of disease combinations decreased with age.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Common chronic diseases co-occur in one individual more frequently than is due to chance. In monitoring the occurrence of diseases among the population at large, such multimorbidity is insufficiently taken into account.</p

Transcriptional effects of copy number alterations in a large set of human cancers

Copy number alterations (CNAs) can promote tumor progression by altering gene expression levels. Due to transcriptional adaptive mechanisms, however, CNAs do not always translate proportionally into altered expression levels. By reanalyzing >34,000 gene expression profiles, we reveal the degree of transcriptional adaptation to CNAs in a genome-wide fashion, which strongly associate with distinct biological processes. We then develop a platform-independent method-transcriptional adaptation to CNA profiling (TACNA profiling)-that extracts the transcriptional effects of CNAs from gene expression profiles without requiring paired CNA profiles. By applying TACNA profiling to >28,000 patient-derived tumor samples we define the landscape of transcriptional effects of CNAs. The utility of this landscape is demonstrated by the identification of four genes that are predicted to be involved in tumor immune evasion when transcriptionally affected by CNAs. In conclusion, we provide a novel tool to gain insight into how CNAs drive tumor behavior via altered expression levels