Plos One
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The duration of storage of transfused red blood cells (RBC) has been associated with poor clinical outcomes in some studies. We sought to establish whether prolonged storage of transfused RBC in cancer patients influences overall survival (OS) or cancer recurrence. ⋯ In patients diagnosed with cancer, the duration of storage of transfused RBC had no impact on OS or cancer recurrence. This suggests that our current RBC storage policy of providing RBC of variable duration of storage for patients with malignancy is safe.
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In sepsis, the vitamin D active metabolite 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D) may play a crucial role by its action to produce cathelicidin and improve endothelial barrier function, such that a deficiency in 1,25(OH)2D is associated with poor outcome. To test our hypothesis, we performed analysis of stored plasma samples from a prospective observational study in 91 patients with sepsis, age of 59.1+/-2.0 years, 52.7% females, and 11.0% deaths at 30 days. Vitamin D status, including 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), 1,25(OH)2D, 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (24,25(OH)2D), and parathyroid hormone (PTH), were measured daily over 3 days after hospital admission. ⋯ Additionally, there was a significant negative correlation between PTH and 1,25(OH)2D in both survivors and non-survivors, suggesting a severe impairment in the effect of PTH to increase renal 1α-hydroxylase activity. In conclusion, low 1,25(OH)2D levels are associated with increased 30-day mortality in sepsis patients, likely due to impaired 25(OH)D hydroxylation and PTH insensitivity. Our data also suggest that the active metabolite 1,25(OH)2D may be an important therapeutic target in the design of sepsis clinical trials.
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Expression of oncogenic Bcr-Abl inhibits cell differentiation of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Differentiation therapy is considered to be a new strategy for treating this type of leukemia. Aclacinomycin A (ACM) is an antitumor antibiotic. ⋯ The inhibition of erythroid differentiation by p38MAPK inhibitor SB202190, p38MAPK dominant negative mutant or p38MAPK shRNA knockdown, reduced the ACM/imatinib sequential treatment-mediated growth inhibition and apoptosis. These results suggest that differentiated K562 cells induced by ACM-mediated p38MAPK pathway become more sensitive to imatinib and result in down-regulations of Bcr-Abl and anti-apoptotic proteins, growth inhibition and apoptosis. These results provided a potential management by which ACM might have a crucial impact on increasing sensitivity of CML cells to imatinib in the differentiation therapeutic approaches.
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Obesity is a major health issue. Obesity started from teenagers has become a major health concern in recent years. Intermittent fasting increases the life span. ⋯ They also had poorer exercise tolerance. However, these obese mice did not present significant learning and memory impairment or changes in brain structures or oxidative stress compared with control mice. These results suggest that intermittent fasting improves brain functions and structures and that high fat diet feeding started early in life does not cause significant changes in brain functions and structures in obese middle-aged animals.
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Nasal nitric oxide (nNO) measurement is an established first line test in the work-up for primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD). Tidal breathing nNO (TB-nNO) measurements require minimal cooperation and are potentially useful even in young children. Hand-held NO devices are becoming increasingly widespread for asthma management. Therefore, we chose to assess whether hand-held TB-nNO measurements reliably discriminate between PCD, and Healthy Subjects (HS) and included Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patients as a disease control group known to have intermediate nNO levels. ⋯ Hand-held TB-nNO discriminates significantly between PCD, CF and HS and shows promising potential as a widespread targeted case-finding tool for PCD, although further studies are warranted before implementation.