Molecules can be immobilized onto biomaterials by a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) coating strategy. Pentafluorophenolester groups react with amine side chains on antibodies, which can selectively ...immobilize adenoviral vectors for gene delivery of growth factors. These vectors can produce functional proteins within defined regions of biomaterials to produce customizable structures for targeted tissue regeneration.
Abstract
Polymers prepared by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) polymerization have found broad acceptance in research and industrial applications. However, their intrinsic lack of degradability has ...limited wider applicability in many areas, such as biomedical devices or regenerative medicine. Herein, we demonstrate, for the first time, a backbone‐degradable polymer directly synthesized via CVD. The CVD co‐polymerization of 2.2
para
‐cyclophanes with cyclic ketene acetals, specifically 5,6‐benzo‐2‐methylene‐1,3‐dioxepane (BMDO), results in well‐defined, hydrolytically degradable polymers, as confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy and ellipsometry. The degradation kinetics are dependent on the ratio of ketene acetals to 2.2
para
‐cyclophanes as well as the hydrophobicity of the films. These coatings address an unmet need in the biomedical polymer field, as they provide access to a wide range of reactive polymer coatings that combine interfacial multifunctionality with degradability.
Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 42 loci (P < 5 × 10-8) associated with risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). Expanded consortium efforts facilitating the discovery of ...additional susceptibility loci may capture unexplained familial risk.
We conducted a GWAS in European descent CRC cases and control subjects using a discovery-replication design, followed by examination of novel findings in a multiethnic sample (cumulative n = 163 315). In the discovery stage (36 948 case subjects/30 864 control subjects), we identified genetic variants with a minor allele frequency of 1% or greater associated with risk of CRC using logistic regression followed by a fixed-effects inverse variance weighted meta-analysis. All novel independent variants reaching genome-wide statistical significance (two-sided P < 5 × 10-8) were tested for replication in separate European ancestry samples (12 952 case subjects/48 383 control subjects). Next, we examined the generalizability of discovered variants in East Asians, African Americans, and Hispanics (12 085 case subjects/22 083 control subjects). Finally, we examined the contributions of novel risk variants to familial relative risk and examined the prediction capabilities of a polygenic risk score. All statistical tests were two-sided.
The discovery GWAS identified 11 variants associated with CRC at P < 5 × 10-8, of which nine (at 4q22.2/5p15.33/5p13.1/6p21.31/6p12.1/10q11.23/12q24.21/16q24.1/20q13.13) independently replicated at a P value of less than .05. Multiethnic follow-up supported the generalizability of discovery findings. These results demonstrated a 14.7% increase in familial relative risk explained by common risk alleles from 10.3% (95% confidence interval CI = 7.9% to 13.7%; known variants) to 11.9% (95% CI = 9.2% to 15.5%; known and novel variants). A polygenic risk score identified 4.3% of the population at an odds ratio for developing CRC of at least 2.0.
This study provides insight into the architecture of common genetic variation contributing to CRC etiology and improves risk prediction for individualized screening.
Purpose
The safety of nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) commonly used in Asia‐Pacific countries has had limited study. We assessed the risk of hospitalization for gastrointestinal events ...with loxoprofen and mefenamic acid compared with other NSAIDs in Asia‐Pacific populations.
Methods
We conducted a cohort study using a distributed network with a common data model in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. We included patients who initiated diclofenac, loxoprofen, mefenamic acid, or celecoxib and followed them until their first gastrointestinal hospitalization, switch or discontinuation of medication, disenrollment, or end of database coverage. We used Cox proportional hazards models to assess hospitalization risk.
Results
We identified 9879 patients in Japan, 70 492 in Taiwan, 263 741 in Korea, and 246 in Hong Kong who initiated an NSAID, and 44 013 patients in Australia, a predominantly Caucasian population. The incidence of gastrointestinal hospitalization was 25.6 per 1000 person‐years in Japan, 32.8 in Taiwan, 11.5 in Korea, 484.5 in Hong Kong, and 35.6 in Australia. Compared with diclofenac, the risk of gastrointestinal events with loxoprofen was significantly lower in Korea (hazards ratio, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.25‐0.54) but not in Japan (1.65; 95% CI, 0.47‐5.78). The risk of gastrointestinal events with mefenamic acid was significantly lower in Taiwan (0.45; 95% CI, 0.26‐0.78) and Korea (0.11; 95% CI, 0.05‐0.27) but not Hong Kong (2.16; 95% CI, 0.28‐16.87), compared with diclofenac.
Conclusions
Compared with diclofenac, loxoprofen was associated with a lower risk of gastrointestinal hospitalizations in Korea and mefenamic acid with a lower risk in Taiwan and Korea.
The goal of the Asian Pharmacoepidemiology Network is to study the effectiveness and safety of medications commonly used in Asia using databases from individual Asian countries. An efficient ...infrastructure to support multinational pharmacoepidemiologic studies is critical to this effort.
We converted data from the Japan Medical Data Center database, Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database, Hong Kong's Clinical Data Analysis and Reporting System, South Korea's Ajou University School of Medicine database, and the US Medicare 5% sample to the Observational Medical Outcome Partnership common data model (CDM).
We completed and documented the process for the CDM conversion. The coordinating center and participating sites reviewed the documents and refined the conversions based on the comments. The time required to convert data to the CDM varied widely across sites and included conversion to standard terminology codes and refinements of the conversion based on reviews. We mapped 97.2%, 86.7%, 92.6%, and 80.1% of domestic drug codes from the USA, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea to RxNorm, respectively. The mapping rate from Japanese domestic drug codes to RxNorm (70.7%) was lower than from other countries, and we mapped remaining unmapped drugs to Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System codes. Because the native databases used international procedure coding systems for which mapping tables have been established, we were able to map >90% of diagnosis and procedure codes to standard terminology codes.
The CDM established the foundation and reinforced collaboration for multinational pharmacoepidemiologic studies in Asia. Mapping of terminology codes was the greatest challenge, because of differences in health systems, cultures, and coding systems.
To determine the association between incident proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use and Clostridium difficile infections across multiple countries Method: National data covering the total population in ...Australia and Korea, the Canadian population over 65 years and a 3 million person random sample data set from Taiwan were assessed, as were data from a worker insurance population and a hospital inpatient/outpatient population in Japan. Sequence symmetry analysis was used to assess the association with oral vancomycin dispensing as the outcome of interest.
54,957 patients were included. Positive associations were observed in Australia; adjusted sequence ratio (ASR) 2.48 (95% CI 1.90, 3.12), Korea ASR 2.15 (95%CI 2.11, 2.19), Canada ASR 1.45 (95% CI 1.16, 1.79), Japan hospital dataset ASR 3.21 (95%CI 2.12, 4.55) and Japan worker insurance dataset ASR 5.40 (95% CI 2.73, 8.75). The pooled result was ASR 2.40 (95%CI 1.88, 3.05) and 3.16 (95%CI 1.95, 5.10) when limited to Japan, Korean and Taiwan. Results did not vary by individual PPI. The temporal analysis showed effects within the first two weeks of PPI initiation.
Our study confirms the association between PPI initiation and C. difficile infections across countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
The auction principles, clearance, settlement, and depository (CSD) facilities of the Chinese stock market are described. An autoregressive model is found to characterize the time series properties ...of stock returns and volatility in the Shanghai market reasonably well. The extremely high volatility of the market is explained well by its lagged volatilities along with trading volumes. Further scrutiny reveals that trading volumes and volatility are endogenous in a vector autoregressive process (VAR) system for the Shanghai Composite Index (SHCI). Foreign shares are found to behave differently from domestic shares in several respects.
The authors correctly point out that careful selection of punctal plug size may lower the risk of this complication. Because there is still no ideal way to select silicone plugs for punctum that vary ...considerably in size, surgeons would often have to decide, when ¡perfect fit¡ does not exist, to insert either an oversized or undersized punctal plug.
Despite significant univariate correlations found between pachymetry change in day 1 and nucleus color with central cell loss, only nucleus color remained statistically significant after multiple ...regression analysis (Table 1).1 The lack of independent predictability of pachymetry change for central cell loss suggests possible confounding effect of nucleus color.
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