Precision medicine (PM) aims to improve patient outcomes by stratifying or individualizing diagnosis and treatment decisions. Previous reviews found inconclusive evidence as to the cost-effectiveness of PM. The purpose of this scoping review was to describe current research findings on the cost-effectiveness of PM and to identify characteristics of cost-effective interventions.

Septic cardiomyopathy (SCM) is common in sepsis and associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Left ventricular global longitudinal strain (LV GLS), measured by speckle tracking echocardiography, allows improved identification of impaired cardiac contractility. The peripheral blood transcriptome may be an important window into SCM pathophysiology. We therefore studied the peripheral blood transcriptome and LV GLS in a prospective cohort of patients with sepsis.

There is growing interest in the use of "distributionally-sensitive" forms of economic evaluation that capture both the impact of an intervention upon average population health and the distribution of that health amongst the population. This review aims to inform the conduct of distributionally sensitive evaluations in the UK by answering three questions: (1) How averse are the UK public towards inequalities in lifetime health between socioeconomic groups? (2) Does this aversion differ depending upon the type of health under consideration? (3) Are the UK public as averse to inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups as they are to inequalities in health between neutrally framed groups? EMBASE, MEDLINE, EconLit, and SSCI were searched for stated preference studies relevant to these questions in October 2017. Of the 2155 potentially relevant papers identified, 15 met the predefined hierarchical eligibility criteria. Seven elicited aversion to inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups, and eight elicited aversion between neutrally labelled groups. We find general, although not universal, evidence for aversion to inequalities in lifetime health between socioeconomic groups, albeit with significant variation in the strength of that preference across studies. Second, limited evidence regarding the impact of the type of health upon aversion. Third, some evidence that the UK public are more averse to inequalities in lifetime health when those inequalities are presented in the context of socioeconomic inequality than when presented in isolation.

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is an increasingly used screening tool for cognitive impairment. While it has been validated in multiple settings and languages, most studies have used a biased case-control design including healthy controls as comparisons not representing a clinical setting. The purpose of the present cross-sectional study is to test the criterion validity of the MoCA for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia (MD) in an old age psychiatry cohort (n = 710). The reference standard consists of a multidisciplinary, consensus-based diagnosis in accordance with international criteria. As a secondary outcome, the use of healthy community older adults as additional comparisons allowed us to underscore the effects of case-control spectrum-bias.

Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase is a key enzyme for PHA production in microorganisms. The class IV PHA synthase is composed of two subunits: PhaC and PhaR. The PhaR subunit, which encodes the phaR gene, is only present in class IV PHA synthases. Therefore, the phaR gene is used as a biomarker for bacteria that contain a class IV PHA synthase, such as some Bacillus spp. The phaR gene was developed to screen phaR-containing Bacillus spp. The phaR screening method involved two steps: phaR gene amplification by PCR and phaR amplicon detection using a DNA lateral flow assay. The screening method has a high specificity for phaR-containing Bacillus spp. The lowest amount of genomic DNA of B. thuringiensis ATCC 10792 that the phaR screening method could detect was 10 pg. This novel screening method improves the specificity and sensitivity of phaR gene screening and reduces the time and cost of the screening process, which could enhance the opportunity to discover good candidate PHA producers. Nevertheless, the screening method can certainly be used as a tool to screen phaR-containing Bacillus spp. from environmental samples.

To evaluate the 6-month outcomes of Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK) in patients with pseudophakic bullous keratopathy (PBK) and Fuchs’ endothelial dystrophy (FED) in a single center in Turkey.

Variation in methotrexate (MTX) efficacy represents a significant barrier to early and effective disease control in the treatment of autoimmune arthritis. We hypothesize that the utilization of metabolomic techniques will allow for an improved understanding of the biochemical basis for the pharmacological activity of MTX, and can promote the identification and evaluation of novel molecular biomarkers of MTX response. In this work, erythroblastoid cells were exposed to MTX at the physiologic concentration of 1,000 nM and analyzed using three metabolomic platforms to give a broad spectrum of cellular metabolites. MTX pharmacological activity, defined as cellular growth inhibition, was associated with an altered cellular metabolomic profile based on the analysis of 724 identified metabolites. By discriminant analysis, MTX treatment was associated with increases in ketoisovaleric acid, fructose, galactose, and 2-deoxycytidine, and corresponding reductions in 2-deoxyuridine, phosphatidylinositol 32:0, orotic acid, and inosine monophosphate. Inclusion of data from analysis of folate metabolism in combination with chemometric and metabolic network analysis demonstrated that MTX treatment is associated with dysregulated folate metabolism and nucleotide biosynthesis, which is in line with its known mechanism of action. However, MTX treatment was also associated with alterations in a diversity of metabolites, including intermediates of amino acid, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism. Collectively, these findings support a robust metabolic response following exposure to physiologic concentrations of MTX. They also identify various metabolic intermediates that are associated with the pharmacological activity of MTX, and are, therefore, potential molecular biomarker candidates in future preclinical and clinical studies of MTX efficacy in autoimmune arthritis.

Cell-based influenza vaccines can solve the problem of the frequent occurrence of egg adaptation-associated antigenic changes observed in egg-based vaccines. Seed viruses for cell-based vaccines can be prepared from clinical specimens by cell culture; however, clinical samples risk harboring respiratory viruses other than influenza virus. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the patterns of co-infection in clinical samples and explore whether cell culture technology can selectively propagate influenza viruses from samples containing other respiratory viruses.

Tracking stress-induced brain activity and connectivity dynamically and examining activity/connectivity-associated recovery ability after stress might be an effective way of detecting stress vulnerability.

A variation in the 3 prime untranslated regions (3′-UTRs) affects the binding of microRNA (miRNA) to the breast cancer (BC) susceptibility gene 1 (BRCA1) gene, and thus regulate its expression. In this study, the consequences of a variation in the miRNA-binding site (rs8176318G>T) in the 3′-UTRs of BRCA1 and its association with the risk of BC were investigated.

The transition from land to sea by the ancestor of cetaceans approximately 50 million years ago was an incredible evolutionary event that led to a series of morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptations. During this transition, bone microstructure evolved from the typical terrestrial form to the specialized structure found in modern cetaceans. While the bone microstructure of mammals has been documented before, investigations of its genetic basis lag behind. The increasing number of cetaceans with whole-genome sequences available may shed light on the mechanism underlying bone microstructure evolution as a result of land to water transitions.

The risk of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) and coronary artery disease (CAD) is an important and inadequately addressed issue. Our aim is to examine the impact of DM on risk of PAD in patients with different degrees of CAD characterized by coronary angiography (CAG).

Over two-thirds of older Australians use different types/levels of aged care at some point in later life. Our aims were to estimate transitional probabilities and to identify risk factors influencing the movement between different levels of long-term care.

To determine the potential risk factors for injury, estimate the annual injury rate and examine the safety perceptions, and use of personal protective equipment among small-scale gold miners in Ghana.

To increase access to voluntary family planning (FP) services, Nigerian policymakers are debating how to task share injectable contraceptive services to drug shop owners known as Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors (PPMVs). Task sharing FP services to drug shops is a promising practice, but information is needed on how to ensure high quality FP services. This analysis assesses the effects of job aids on PPMVs' knowledge of injectable contraceptives 9 months after receiving a standardized training.

Despite the growing evidence base supporting intensive lifestyle and medical treatments for severe obesity, patient engagement in specialist obesity services is difficult to achieve and poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, we aimed to develop a model for predicting non-completion of a specialist multidisciplinary service for clinically severe obesity, termed the Metabolic Rehabilitation Programme (MRP).

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of percutaneous hemiepiphysiodesis for gradual correction of symptomatic juvenile hallux valgus (HV) deformity.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) which may significantly impact on the affected individual's life. ADHD is acknowledged to have a high heritability component (70-80%). Recently, a meta-analysis of GWAS (Genome Wide Association Studies) has demonstrated the association of several independent loci. Our main aim here, is to apply PASCAL (pathway scoring algorithm), a new gene-based analysis (GBA) method, to the summary statistics obtained in this meta-analysis. PASCAL will take into account the linkage disequilibrium (LD) across genomic regions in a different way than the most commonly employed GBA methods (MAGMA or VEGAS (Versatile Gene-based Association Study)). In addition to PASCAL analysis a gene network and an enrichment analysis for KEGG and GO terms were carried out. Moreover, GENE2FUNC tool was employed to create gene expression heatmaps and to carry out a (DEG) (Differentially Expressed Gene) analysis using GTEX v7 and BrainSpan data.

Tembusu virus (TMUV) usually affects adult ducks, causing a severe drop of egg production. It has also been shown to be pathogenic in commercial Pekin ducklings below 7 weeks of age. Here, we report a TMUV-caused neurological disease in young egg-type ducklings and the pathogenicity of the egg-type duck-origin TMUV isolates in meat-type Pekin ducklings.

To explore the relationship between FABP4 and FABP6 expression and the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC) and their potential as biomarkers in the diagnosis of CRC.