In 2016, the Spanish Research Group on Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) (GEIDIS) established a national registry with participation of 66 hospitals to collect information on clinical characteristics ...and long-term outcomes of BPD infants into adulthood. The aim of this observational study is to examine forced spirometry data in early childhood and to assess their correlation with the respiratory support required at 36 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA). The study analyzed data from preterm infants with BPD born between January 2016 and December 2017 who underwent forced spirometry at 5–7 years of age. Statistical analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships between spirometry results, perinatal factors, and the required respiratory support at 36 weeks PMA. The study involved 143 patients with a median gestational age (GA) of 27.3 weeks (range 25.7–28.7) and a median weight of 880 g (range 740–1135). Abnormal spirometry results were observed in 39.2% (56) of the patients. Among patients diagnosed with BPD type 3, those requiring over 30% oxygen at 36 weeks PMA exhibited an increased risk of abnormal spirometry results (OR 4.48; 95% CI 1.11–18.13) compared to those requiring positive pressure with less than 30% oxygen. In addition, this subgroup had a higher risk of developing a restrictive-mixed pattern compared to those with BPD type 1 (OR 10.65; 95% CI 2.06–54.98) and BPD type 2 (OR 6.76; 95% CI 1.09–42.06). No significant differences were found in the incidence of an obstructive pattern between BPD types.
Conclusion
: The requirement of more than 30% oxygen at 36 weeks PMA serves as a risk indicator for pulmonary function impairment in school-aged children with BPD. These findings suggest persistent airway and parenchymal injury in this specific patient population, and highlight the importance of careful monitoring to evaluate their long-term effects on lung function.
What is Known:
• Premature patients with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) may present abnormalities in pulmonary function tests during school age. However, the predictive accuracy of consensus BPD severity classification remains uncertain.
What is New:
• The requirement of more than 30% oxygen at 36 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA) indicates a potential risk of pulmonary function impairment in school-aged children with BPD. Additionally, a significant correlation has been observed between a restrictive-mixed pattern with exposure to mechanical ventilation and the development of severe forms of BPD.
Early hematopoiesis is a continuous process in which hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) gradually differentiate toward specific lineages. Aging and myeloid malignant transformation are ...characterized by changes in the composition and regulation of HSPCs. In this study, we used single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to characterize an enriched population of human HSPCs obtained from young and elderly healthy individuals.
Based on their transcriptional profile, we identified changes in the proportions of progenitor compartments during aging, and differences in their functionality, as evidenced by gene set enrichment analysis. Trajectory inference revealed that altered gene expression dynamics accompanied cell differentiation, which could explain aging-associated changes in hematopoiesis. Next, we focused on key regulators of transcription by constructing gene regulatory networks (GRNs) and detected regulons that were specifically active in elderly individuals. Using previous findings in healthy cells as a reference, we analyzed scRNA-seq data obtained from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and detected specific alterations of the expression dynamics of genes involved in erythroid differentiation in all patients with MDS such as TRIB2. In addition, the comparison between transcriptional programs and GRNs regulating normal HSPCs and MDS HSPCs allowed identification of regulons that were specifically active in MDS cases such as SMAD1, HOXA6, POU2F2, and RUNX1 suggesting a role of these transcription factors (TFs) in the pathogenesis of the disease.
In summary, we demonstrate that the combination of single-cell technologies with computational analysis tools enable the study of a variety of cellular mechanisms involved in complex biological systems such as early hematopoiesis and can be used to dissect perturbed differentiation trajectories associated with perturbations such as aging and malignant transformation. Furthermore, the identification of abnormal regulatory mechanisms associated with myeloid malignancies could be exploited for personalized therapeutic approaches in individual patients.
High mass X-ray binaries are among the brightest X-ray sources in the Milky Way, as well as in nearby Galaxies. Thanks to their highly variable emissions and complex phenomenology, they have ...attracted the interest of the high energy astrophysical community since the dawn of X-ray Astronomy. In more recent years, they have challenged our comprehension of physical processes in many more energy bands, ranging from the infrared to very high energies.
In this review, we provide a broad but concise summary of the physical processes dominating the emission from high mass X-ray binaries across virtually the whole electromagnetic spectrum. These comprise the interaction of stellar winds with the high gravitational and magnetic fields of compact objects, the behaviour of matter under extreme magnetic and gravity conditions, and the perturbation of the massive star evolutionary processes by presence in a binary system.
We highlight the role of the INTEGRAL mission in the discovery of many of the most interesting objects in the high mass X-ray binary class and its contribution in reviving the interest for these sources over the past two decades. We show how the INTEGRAL discoveries have not only contributed to significantly increase the number of high mass X-ray binaries known, thus advancing our understanding of the population as a whole, but also have opened new windows of investigation that stimulated the multi-wavelength approach nowadays common in most astrophysical research fields.
We conclude the review by providing an overview of future facilities being planned from the X-ray to the very high energy domain that will hopefully help us in finding an answer to the many questions left open after more than 18 years of INTEGRAL scientific observations.
Early kinetics of SARS‐CoV‐2 viral load (VL) in plasma determined by quantitative reverse‐transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) was evaluated as a predictor of poor clinical outcome in a ...prospective study and assessed in a retrospective validation cohort. Prospective observational single‐center study including consecutive adult patients hospitalized with COVID‐19 between November 2020 and January 2021. Serial plasma samples were obtained until discharge. Quantitative RT‐PCR was performed to assess SARS‐CoV‐2 VL. The main outcomes were in‐hospital mortality, admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and their combination (Poor Outcome). Relevant viremia (RV), established in the prospective study, was assessed in a retrospective cohort including hospitalized COVID‐19 patients from April 2021 to May 2022, in which plasma samples were collected according to clinical criteria. Prospective cohort: 57 patients were included. RV was defined as at least a twofold increase in VL within ≤2 days or a VL > 300 copies/ml, in the first week. Patients with RV (N = 14; 24.6%) were more likely to die than those without RV (35.7% vs. 0%), needed ICU admission (57% vs. 0%) or had Poor Outcome (71.4% vs. 0%), (p < 0.001 for the three variables). Retrospective cohort: 326 patients were included, 18.7% presented RV. Patients with RV compared with patients without RV had higher rates of ICU‐admission (odds ratio OR: 5.6 95% confidence interval CI: 2.1–15.1); p = 0.001), mortality (OR: 13.5 95% CI: 6.3–28.7; p < 0.0001) and Poor Outcome (OR: 11.2 95% CI: 5.8–22; p < 0.0001). Relevant SARS‐CoV‐2 viremia in the first week of hospitalization was associated with higher in‐hospital mortality, ICU admission, and Poor Outcome. Findings observed in the prospective cohort were confirmed in a larger validation cohort.
Summary
Evaluation of SARS‐CoV‐2 viral load kinetics in plasma assessed by quantitative RT‐PCR as an indicator of poor prognosis in hospitalized COVID‐19 patients.
The NAPRTCS has collected clinical information on children undergoing renal transplantation since 1987 and now includes information on 12 920 renal transplants in 11 870 patients. Since the first ...data analysis in 1989, NAPRTCS reports have documented marked improvements in patient and allograft outcomes after pediatric renal transplantation in addition to identifying factors associated with both favorable and poor outcomes. The registry has served to document and influence practice patterns, clinical outcomes, and changing trends in renal transplantation and also provides historical perspective. This report highlights current practices in an era of major changes in DD kidney allocation and continuing steroid minimization. This report presents outcomes of the patients in the NAPRTCS transplant registry up to end of 2017. In particular, an increase in the cumulative incidence of late first AR has occurred in the most recent cohort, while all prior cohorts had a lower cumulative incidence of late first AR.
Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because ...standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open, and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 202 crop studies, covering 3,394 field observations, 2,552 yield measurements (i.e., berry mass, number of fruits, and fruit density kg/ha, among others), and 47,752 insect records from 48 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (32 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (34.22% counts), bumblebees (19.19%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.18%), other wild bees (13.13%), beetles (10.97%), Syrphidae (4.87%), and Bombyliidae (0.05%). Locations comprise 34 countries distributed among Europe (76 studies), North America (60), Latin America and the Caribbean (29), Asia (20), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001–2005 (21 studies), 2006–2010 (40), 2011–2015 (88), and 2016–2020 (50). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date, and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. This data set is released for non‐commercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY‐NC‐SA).
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) malignancies characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis, with increased incidence in older individuals. Here we analyze the ...transcriptome of human HSCs purified from young and older healthy adults, as well as MDS patients, identifying transcriptional alterations following different patterns of expression. While aging-associated lesions seem to predispose HSCs to myeloid transformation, disease-specific alterations may trigger MDS development. Among MDS-specific lesions, we detect the upregulation of the transcription factor DNA Damage Inducible Transcript 3 (DDIT3). Overexpression of DDIT3 in human healthy HSCs induces an MDS-like transcriptional state, and dyserythropoiesis, an effect associated with a failure in the activation of transcriptional programs required for normal erythroid differentiation. Moreover, DDIT3 knockdown in CD34
cells from MDS patients with anemia is able to restore erythropoiesis. These results identify DDIT3 as a driver of dyserythropoiesis, and a potential therapeutic target to restore the inefficient erythroid differentiation characterizing MDS patients.
Few prospective studies have assessed the safety of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) in elective endoscopy. Our primary aim was to compare the risks of endoscopy-related gastrointestinal bleeding ...and thromboembolic events in patients on DOACs or vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) in this setting. Secondarily, we examined the impact of the timing of anticoagulant resumption on the risk of delayed bleeding in high-risk therapeutic procedures.
We conducted a multicenter, prospective, observational study from January 2018 to March 2020 of 1602 patients on oral anticoagulants (1004 on VKAs and 598 on DOACs) undergoing 1874 elective endoscopic procedures. Our primary outcomes were 90-day thromboembolic events and 30-day endoscopy-related gastrointestinal bleeding. The inverse probability of treatment weighting propensity score method was used for baseline covariate adjustment.
The 2 groups had similar risks of endoscopy-related gastrointestinal bleeding (VKAs vs DOACs, 6.2% vs 6.7%; adjusted odds ratio OR, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.67-1.65) and thromboembolic events (VKAs vs DOACs, 1.3% vs 1.5%; adjusted OR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.34-2.38). In high bleeding risk procedures (n = 747), delayed anticoagulant resumption (> 48 hours or 24-48 hours vs < 24 hours) did not reduce the risk of postprocedural bleeding (10.3%, 9%, and 5.8%, respectively; adjusted P = .43). Hot and cold snare polypectomy were the most frequent high-risk interventions (41.8% and 39.8%, respectively).
In a prospective study of patients on DOACs or VKAs undergoing elective endoscopy, endoscopy-related bleeding and thromboembolic events showed similar risk. Our study suggests that early anticoagulant resumption is safe in most patients, but more data are needed for advanced high-risk therapeutic procedures.
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