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Barry Fraser posted an update 2 days, 1 hour ago
Children with congenital gastrointestinal malformations had small-sized cognitive impairment (d=-0.435, p<0.001; 95% CI -0.567 to -0.302), medium-sized motor impairment (d=-0.610, p<0.001; 95% CI -0.769 to -0.451) and medium-sized language impairment (d=-0.670, p<0.001; 95% CI -0.914 to -0.425). Patients with short bowel syndrome had worse motor outcome. Neurodevelopmental outcome was related to the number of surgeries and length of total hospital stay, while no relations were observed with gestational age, birth weight, age and sex.
This study shows that children with congenital gastrointestinal malformations exhibit impairments in neurodevelopmental outcome, highlighting the need for routine screening of neurodevelopment during follow-up.
This study shows that children with congenital gastrointestinal malformations exhibit impairments in neurodevelopmental outcome, highlighting the need for routine screening of neurodevelopment during follow-up.
To evaluate the accuracy of neonatal MRI and general movements assessment (GMA) in predicting neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants with hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE).
Secondary analyses of a randomised controlled trial (RCT).
Tertiary neonatal intensive care unit in India.
Fifty infants with HIE were included in an RCT of therapeutic hypothermia (25 cooled and 25 non-cooled). C59 All infants underwent brain MRI at day 5, GMA at 10-15 weeks and outcome assessments including Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, third edition, at 18 months. Associations between patterns of brain injury, presence/absence of fidgety movements (FMs) and outcomes were assessed.
Seventeen of 47 (36%) had adverse outcome (5 (21%) cooled vs 12 (52%) non-cooled, p=0.025). Eight infants died (four before an MRI, another three before GMA). Two developed severe cerebral palsy and seven had Bayley-III motor/cognitive composite score <85. Twelve (26%) had moderately/severely abnormal MRI and nine (23%) had absent FMs. The positive predictive value (95% CI) of an adverse outcome was 89% (53% to 98%) for moderate/severe basal ganglia and thalami (BGT) injury, 83% (56% to 95%) for absent/equivocal signal in the posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC) and 67% (38% to 87%) for absent FMs. Negative predictive values (95% CI) were 85% (74% to 92%) for normal/mild BGT injury, 90% (78% to 96%) for normal PLIC and 86% (74% to 93%) for present FMs.
Neonatal MRI and GMA predicted outcomes with high accuracy in infants with HIE. The GMA is a feasible low-cost method which can be used alone or complementary to MRI in low-resource settings to prognosticate and direct follow-up.
CTRI/2013/05/003693.
CTRI/2013/05/003693.Plants synthesize many diverse small molecules that affect function of the mammalian central nervous system, making them crucial sources of therapeutics for neurological disorders. A notable portion of neuroactive phytochemicals are lysine-derived alkaloids, but the mechanisms by which plants produce these compounds have remained largely unexplored. To better understand how plants synthesize these metabolites, we focused on biosynthesis of the Lycopodium alkaloids that are produced by club mosses, a clade of plants used traditionally as herbal medicines. Hundreds of Lycopodium alkaloids have been described, including huperzine A (HupA), an acetylcholine esterase inhibitor that has generated interest as a treatment for the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Through combined metabolomic profiling and transcriptomics, we have identified a developmentally controlled set of biosynthetic genes, or potential regulon, for the Lycopodium alkaloids. The discovery of this putative regulon facilitated the biosynthetic reconstitution and functional characterization of six enzymes that act in the initiation and conclusion of HupA biosynthesis. This includes a type III polyketide synthase that catalyzes a crucial imine-polyketide condensation, as well as three Fe(II)/2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase (2OGD) enzymes that catalyze transformations (pyridone ring-forming desaturation, piperidine ring cleavage, and redox-neutral isomerization) within downstream HupA biosynthesis. Our results expand the diversity of known chemical transformations catalyzed by 2OGDs and provide mechanistic insight into the function of noncanonical type III PKS enzymes that generate plant alkaloid scaffolds. These data offer insight into the chemical logic of Lys-derived alkaloid biosynthesis and demonstrate the tightly coordinated coexpression of secondary metabolic genes for the biosynthesis of medicinal alkaloids.The 14-day rule restricts the culturing of human embryos in vitro for the purposes of scientific research for no longer than 14 days. Since researchers recently developed the capability to exceed the 14-day limit, pressure to modify the rule has started to build. Sophia McCully argues that the limit should be extended to 28 days, listing numerous potential benefits of doing so. We contend that McCully has not engaged with the main reasons why the Warnock Committee set such a limit, and these still remain valid. As a result, her case for an extension of the 14-day rule is not persuasive.
Patients with HER2-positive (HER2
) metastatic breast cancer (MBC) have poor prognoses. Pyrotinib has shown promising antitumor activity in MBC to improve progression-free survival (PFS). However, findings based on real-world data to analyze whether pyrotinib affects overall survival (OS) remain scarce.
This real-world study is an exploratory analysis of brain metastasis (BM) and the final update of our preceding study of 168 patients with HER2
MBC. PFS, OS, tumor mutation burden (TMB), clinical benefit rate (CBR), and overall response rate (ORR) were analyzed.
Pyrotinib treatment led to a median PFS time of 8.00 months and a median OS of 19.07 months in the 168 participants. High TMB was associated with poor OS (
= 0.0072) and PFS (
= 0.0028). In the 39 patients with BM, the median PFS and OS were 8.67 and 13.93 months, respectively. The surgery/radiation (S/R) group of patients with BM had prolonged survival (PFS 9.97 vs. 7.73 months
= 0.19; OS 20.67 vs. 12.43 months
= 0.021) compared with the no surgery/no radiation group (NS/NR).