Lancet
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Up to 40% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) drugs do not respond because of primary inefficacy or loss of response. Although one explanation is that immunogenicity leads to the development of anti-drug antibodies and low drug concentrations, the clinical usefulness of pharmacological monitoring is debated. Our aim was to assess whether the presence of anti-drug antibodies and non-trough drug concentrations could predict treatment response in patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with anti-TNF drugs. ⋯ MJ is a MRC Clinical Training Fellow supported by the North West England Medical Research Council Fellowship Scheme in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, which is funded by the UK Medical Research Council (grant number G1000417/94909), ICON, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and the Medical Evaluation Unit. Arthritis Research UK (grant ref 20385).
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Memory T cells are known to reside in peripheral non-lymphoid tissue, but how their presence within solid organ allografts affects transplant outcomes is not known. We have previously described how graft-versus-host (GVH) allorecognition by passenger CD4 T cells within MHC class II-mismatched bm12 heart grafts provokes antinuclear humoral autoimmunity in C57BL/6 recipient mice. Here we aimed to examine how such GVH recognition affects the alloresponse to allografts with greater mismatching. ⋯ Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship.
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Although temporal lobe surgery is an effective treatment for patients with intractable mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE), a third of patients will continue to experience seizures at 2 years after surgery. The reasons are unknown. One suggestion is that patients with abnormalities of the entorhinal cortex might have a subtype of mTLE that is resistant to surgery. We investigated the association between presurgical entorhinal cortex volume and postoperative outcome in patients with mTLE. ⋯ This work was supported by a UK Medical Research Council grant awarded to SSK.
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Strong links exist between deprivation, obesity, and dietary quality. Increasing interest has focussed on the concept of access to food and so-called food deserts, defined by a policy working group of the UK Low Income Project Team in 1995 as "areas of relative exclusion where people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy food". We aimed to establish the accessibility of food retail outlets in County Durham, a county in north-east England, UK, considering physical access, affordability, and food range and quality. ⋯ Durham County Council.
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Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma is the most common malignancy in renal transplant recipients and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Various measures have been proposed to identify recipients at increased risk of developing this cancer to allow targeted intervention. CD57 expression might represent a marker of T-cell exhaustion; we hypothesised that expression could predict development of squamous cell carcinoma in renal transplant recipients, and undertook a prospective cohort study to assess its predictive value. ⋯ Wellcome Trust, Oxford University Hospitals Research Services Committee.