To report a patient with history of recurrent Bell’s Palsy who developed Bell’s Palsy 36 h after the administration of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The patient is a ...57-year-old female with past medical history of 3 episodes of Bell’s Palsy. She responded to prednisone treatment and returned to her baseline after each occurrence. Less than 36 h following the second dose of the vaccine, the patient developed a left Bell’s Palsy. The facial droop progressed in severity over the next 72 h.
Given the expedited production of the vaccine and the novelty associated with its production, there may be information pertaining to side effects and individual response that remain to be discovered. Since both the Moderna and Pfizer Vaccine trials reported Bell’s Palsy as medically attended adverse events, the association between vaccine administration and onset of symptomatic Bell’s Palsy may warrant further investigation.
Ionizing radiation causes acute radiation syndrome, which leads to hematopoietic, gastrointestinal, and cerebrovascular injuries. We investigated a population of mice that recovered from high-dose ...radiation to live normal life spans. These "elite-survivors" harbored distinct gut microbiota that developed after radiation and protected against radiation-induced damage and death in both germ-free and conventionally housed recipients. Elevated abundances of members of the bacterial taxa
and
were associated with postradiation restoration of hematopoiesis and gastrointestinal repair. These bacteria were also found to be more abundant in leukemia patients undergoing radiotherapy, who also displayed milder gastrointestinal dysfunction. In our study in mice, metabolomics revealed increased fecal concentrations of microbially derived propionate and tryptophan metabolites in elite-survivors. The administration of these metabolites caused long-term radioprotection, mitigation of hematopoietic and gastrointestinal syndromes, and a reduction in proinflammatory responses.
Crowdfunding platforms enable individuals to solicit small investments, donations, or loans over the Internet from a wide variety of funders; they have emerged as a new and potentially important ...source of funds for entrepreneurial and philanthropic initiatives. We build and present three databases for public use, including Kickstarter, Kiva, and CrowdRise, and link regional measures of Kickstarter to entrepreneurial ventures listed in Crunchbase. We find that Kickstarter projects in a region correlate with increased angel investing activity, even after instrumenting with projects that should not be of interest to investors. The paper describes scraping tools, database schema, descriptive statistics, dashboards, access for research and policy use, and general reflections on building open databases for the research community.
Abstract Thirteen Aspergillus isolates recovered from nails of 13 patients (fingernails, n = 2; toenails, n = 11) with onychomycosis were characterized. Twelve strains were identified by multilocus ...sequencing as Aspergillus spp. ( Aspergillus sydowii n = 4, Aspergillus welwitschiae n = 3, Aspergillus terreus n = 2, Aspergillus flavus n = 1, Aspergillus tubingensis n = 1, and Aspergillus unguis n = 1). Isolates of A. terreus , A. flavus , and A. unguis were also identifiable by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The 13th isolate (HKU49T ) possessed unique morphological characteristics different from other Aspergillus spp. Molecular characterization also unambiguously showed that HKU49T was distinct from other Aspergillus spp. We propose the novel species Aspergillus hongkongensis to describe this previously unknown fungus. Antifungal susceptibility testing showed most Aspergillus isolates had low MICs against itraconazole and voriconazole, but all Aspergillus isolates had high MICs against fluconazole. A diverse spectrum of Aspergillus species is associated with onychomycosis. Itraconazole and voriconazole are probably better drug options for Aspergillus onychomycosis.
Abstract The consolidation of spatial navigational memory during sleep is supported by electrophysiological and behavioral evidence. The features of sleep that mediate this ability may change with ...aging, as percentage of slow wave sleep is canonically thought to decrease with age, and slow waves are thought to help orchestrate hippocampal-neocortical dialogue that supports systems level consolidation. In this study, groups of younger and older subjects performed timed trials before and after polysomnographically recorded sleep on a 3D spatial maze navigational task. Although younger subjects performed better than older subjects at baseline, both groups showed similar improvement across pre-sleep trials. However, younger subjects experienced significant improvement in maze performance during sleep that was not observed in older subjects, without differences in morning psychomotor vigilance between groups. Older subjects had sleep quality marked by decreased amount of slow wave sleep and increased fragmentation of slow wave sleep, resulting in decreased slow wave activity. Across all subjects, frontal slow wave activity was positively correlated with both overnight change in maze performance and medial prefrontal cortical volume, illuminating a potential neuroanatomical substrate for slow wave activity changes with aging and underscoring the importance of slow wave activity in sleep-dependent spatial navigational memory consolidation.
“Engyodontium album” is an environmental saprobic mould and an emerging opportunistic pathogen able to cause both superficial and systemic infections. In this study, we isolated a mould from the skin ...lesion biopsy specimen of the right shin in a patient who received renal transplantation for end-stage renal failure with prednisolone, tacrolimus, and azathioprine immunosuppressant therapy. Histology of the skin biopsy showed mild squamous hyperplasia and neutrophilic infiltrate in the epidermis, active chronic inflammation in the dermis, and fat necrosis in the subcutis, with numerous fungal elements within the serum crusts. On Sabouraud glucose agar, the fungus grew as white, cobweb-like, floccose colonies. Microscopically, conidiogenous cells were arranged in whorls of one to seven at wide angles, with zigzag-shaped terminal fertile regions and smooth, hyaline, oval, apiculate conidia. DNA sequencing showed the mould isolate belonged to “E. album” but matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation–time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) failed to identify the isolate. Phylogenetic analyses based on the internal transcribed spacer region, 28S nuclear ribosomal DNA, and β-tubulin gene and MALDI-TOF MS coupled with hierarchical cluster analysis showed that “E. album” is distantly related to other Engyodontium species and should be transferred to a novel genus within the family Cordycipitaceae, for which the name Parengyodontium album gen. et comb. nov. is proposed. Three potential cryptic species within this species complex were also revealed. Antifungal susceptibility testing showed posaconazole and voriconazole had high activities against all clinical P. album isolates and may be better drug options for treating P. album infections.
Traditionally viewed as poorly plastic, neutrophils are now recognized as functionally diverse; however, the extent and determinants of neutrophil heterogeneity in humans remain unclear. We performed ...a comprehensive immunophenotypic and transcriptome analysis, at a bulk and single-cell level, of neutrophils from healthy donors and patients undergoing stress myelopoiesis upon exposure to growth factors, transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC-T), development of pancreatic cancer and viral infection. We uncover an extreme diversity of human neutrophils in vivo, reflecting the rates of cell mobilization, differentiation and exposure to environmental signals. Integrated control of developmental and inducible transcriptional programs linked flexible granulopoietic outputs with elicitation of stimulus-specific functional responses. In this context, we detected an acute interferon (IFN) response in the blood of patients receiving HSC-T that was mirrored by marked upregulation of IFN-stimulated genes in neutrophils but not in monocytes. Systematic characterization of human neutrophil plasticity may uncover clinically relevant biomarkers and support the development of diagnostic and therapeutic tools.
Aims
Nearly 60% of the world's population lives in Asia but little is known about the characteristics and outcomes of Asian patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) compared ...to other areas of the world.
Methods and results
We pooled two, large, global trials, with similar design, in 13 174 patients with HFrEF (patient distribution: China 833, India 1390, Japan 209, Korea 223, Philippines 223, Taiwan 199 and Thailand 95, Western Europe 3521, Eastern Europe 4758, North America 613, and Latin America 1110). Asian patients were younger (55.0–63.9 years) than in Western Europe (67.9 years) and North America (66.6 years). Diuretics and devices were used less, and digoxin used more, in Asia. Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist use was higher in China (66.3%), the Philippines (64.1%) and Latin America (62.8%) compared to Europe and North America (range 32.8% to 49.6%). The rate of cardiovascular death/heart failure hospitalization was higher in Asia (e.g. Taiwan 17.2, China 14.9 per 100 patient‐years) than in Western Europe (10.4) and North America (12.8). However, the adjusted risk of cardiovascular death was higher in many Asian countries than in Western Europe (except Japan) and the risk of heart failure hospitalization was lower in India and in the Philippines than in Western Europe, but significantly higher in China, Japan, and Taiwan.
Conclusion
Patient characteristics and outcomes vary between Asia and other regions and between Asian countries. These variations may reflect several factors, including geography, climate and environment, diet and lifestyle, health care systems, genetics and socioeconomic influences.
PDF
