Major Cardiovascular Events After COVID-19, Event Rates Post-vaccination, Antiviral or Anti-inflammatory Therapy, and Temporal Trends: Rationale and Methodology of the Corona-VTE-Network Study

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with excess risk of cardiovascular and thrombotic events in the early post-infection period and during convalescence. Despite the progress in our understanding of cardiovascular complications, uncertainty persists with respect to more recent event rates, temporal trends, association between vaccination status and outcomes, and findings within vulnerable subgroups such as older adults (aged 65 years or older), or those undergoing hemodialysis. Sex-informed findings, including results among pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as adjusted comparisons between male and female adults are similarly understudied. METHODS: Adult patients, aged ≥18 years, with polymerase chain reaction-confirmed COVID-19 who received inpatient or outpatient care at the participating centers of the registry are eligible for inclusion. A total of 10,000 patients have been included in this multicenter study, with Brigham and Women\u27s Hospital (Boston, MA) serving as the coordinating center. Other sites include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Anne Arundel Medical Center, University of Virginia Medical Center, University of Colorado Health System, and Thomas Jefferson University Health System. Data elements will be ascertained manually for accuracy. The two main outcomes are 1) a composite of venous or arterial thrombotic events, and 2) a composite of major cardiovascular events, defined as venous or arterial thrombosis, myocarditis or heart failure with inpatient treatment, new atrial fibrillation/flutter, or cardiovascular death. Clinical outcomes are adjudicated by independent physicians. Vaccination status and time of inclusion in the study will be ascertained for subgroup-specific analyses. Outcomes are pre-specified to be reported separately for hospitalized patients versus those who were initially receiving outpatient care. Outcomes will be reported at 30-day and 90-day follow-up. Data cleaning at the sites and the data coordinating center and outcomes adjudication process are in-progress. CONCLUSIONS: The CORONA-VTE-Network study will share contemporary information related to rates of cardiovascular and thrombotic events in patients with COVID-19 overall, as well as within key subgroups, including by time of inclusion, vaccination status, patients undergoing hemodialysis, the elderly, and sex-informed analyses such as comparison of women and men, or among pregnant and breastfeeding women

The Solar Energetic Particle experiment on MAVEN: first results

The Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) instrument arrived at Mars onboard the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) Mission on September 22, 2014. In order for MAVEN to determine the role that loss of volatiles to space has played through time, solar energy input to the Martian system must be characterized. An important (if infrequent and episodic) portion of this input is in the form of solar energetic particle (SEP) events. Understanding the relationship between SEP events and atmospheric escape is crucial to understanding the climate history of Mars. The SEP instrument characterizes such events at Mars by measuring energetic protons and electrons in the energy range absorbed by the upper atmosphere. Additionally, under certain conditions, SEP directly measures the flux of escaping Oxygen that has been picked up by the Solar Wind and can provide limits on this important escape mechanism. The implications of the model comparison with SEP data for the escape of neutral oxygen from Mars will be discussed. SEP takes much of its heritage from the Solid State Telescope (SST) on the THEMIS mission, consisting of 2 orthogonal dual double-ended solid-state telescopes. Proton spectra from 25 keV to 6 MeV and electron spectra from 25 keV to 1 MeV will be collected in 4 look directions at 3 measurement cadences over MAVEN’s 4.5-hour elliptical orbit: 32s far from the planet, 8s between 300 and 800 km altitude and 2s below 300 km. SEP measures particle fluxes from ~20 to ~107 cm-2 s -1 sr-1. We will present results from the first 5 months of the MAVEN science mission

Whole genome scanning as a cytogenetic tool in hematologic malignancies

Over the years, methods of cytogenetic analysis evolved and became part of routine laboratory testing, providing valuable diagnostic and prognostic information in hematologic disorders. Karyotypic aberrations contribute to the understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of disease and thereby to rational application of therapeutic modalities. Most of the progress in this field stems from the application of metaphase cytogenetics (MC), but recently, novel molecular technologies have been introduced that complement MC and overcome many of the limitations of traditional cytogenetics, including a need for cell culture. Whole genome scanning using comparative genomic hybridization and single nucleotide polymorphism arrays (CGH-A; SNP-A) can be used for analysis of somatic or clonal unbalanced chromosomal defects. In SNP-A, the combination of copy number detection and genotyping enables diagnosis of copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity, a lesion that cannot be detected using MC but may have important pathogenetic implications. Overall, whole genome scanning arrays, despite the drawback of an inability to detect balanced translocations, allow for discovery of chromosomal defects in a higher proportion of patients with hematologic malignancies. Newly detected chromosomal aberrations, including somatic uniparental disomy, may lead to more precise prognostic schemes in many diseases

Metadata record for: HIT-COVID, a global database tracking public health interventions to COVID-19

This dataset contains key characteristics about the data described in the Data Descriptor HIT-COVID, a global database tracking public health interventions to COVID-19. Contents: 1. human readable metadata summary table in CSV format 2. machine readable metadata file in JSON forma