Plos One
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Routine blood tests are an integral part of clinical medicine and in interpreting blood test results clinicians have two broad options. (1) Dichotomise the blood tests into normal/abnormal or (2) use the actual values and overlook the reference values. We refer to these as the "binary" and the "non-binary" strategy respectively. We investigate which strategy is better at predicting the risk of death in hospital based on seven routinely undertaken blood tests (albumin, creatinine, haemoglobin, potassium, sodium, urea, and white blood cell count) using tree models to implement the two strategies. ⋯ Dichotomising routine blood test results is less accurate in predicting in-hospital mortality than using actual test values because it underestimates the risk of death in patients who died. Further research into the use of actual blood test values in clinical decision making is required especially as the infrastructure to implement this potentially promising strategy already exists in most hospitals.
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Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) dynamics in the cervical spinal subarachnoid space (SSS) have been thought to be important to help diagnose and assess craniospinal disorders such as Chiari I malformation (CM). In this study we obtained time-resolved three directional velocity encoded phase-contrast MRI (4D PC MRI) in three healthy volunteers and four CM patients and compared the 4D PC MRI measurements to subject-specific 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The CFD simulations considered the geometry to be rigid-walled and did not include small anatomical structures such as nerve roots, denticulate ligaments and arachnoid trabeculae. ⋯ This study represents the first comparison of 4D PC MRI measurements to CFD of CSF flow in the cervical SSS. The results highlight the utility of 4D PC MRI for evaluation of complex CSF dynamics and the need for improvement of CFD methodology. Future studies are needed to investigate whether integration of fine anatomical structures and gross motion of the brain and/or spinal cord into the computational model will lead to a better agreement between the two techniques.
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Placenta accreta/increta/percreta is associated with major pregnancy complications and is thought to be becoming more common. The aims of this study were to estimate the incidence of placenta accreta/increta/percreta in the UK and to investigate and quantify the associated risk factors. ⋯ Women with both a prior caesarean delivery and placenta praevia have a high incidence of placenta accreta/increta/percreta. There is a need to maintain a high index of suspicion of abnormal placental invasion in such women and preparations for delivery should be made accordingly.
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Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and TNF receptor superfamily (TNFR)-mediated immune response play an essential role in the pathogenesis of severe sepsis. Studies examining associations of TNF and lymphotoxin-α (LTA) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with severe sepsis have produced conflicting results. The objective of this study was to investigate whether genetic variation in TNF, LTA, TNFRSF1A and TNFRSF1B was associated with susceptibility to or death from severe sepsis in Chinese Han population. ⋯ Our findings suggested that the functional TNF gene SNP rs1800629 was strongly associated with susceptibility to severe sepsis, but not with lethality in Chinese Han population.
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Links between synaptic plasticity in the lateral amygdala (LA) and Pavlovian fear learning are well established. Neuropeptides including gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) can modulate LA function. GRP increases inhibition in the LA and mice lacking the GRP receptor (GRPR KO) show more pronounced and persistent fear after single-trial associative learning. ⋯ However, administration of GRP or the GRPR antagonist (D-Phe(6), Leu-NHEt(13), des-Met(14))-Bombesin (6-14) did not affect amygdala LTP in brain slices, nor did they affect the expression of conditioned fear following intra-amygdala administration. GRPR KO mice also failed to show differences in fear expression and extinction after multiple-trial fear conditioning, and there were no differences in conditioned taste aversion or gustatory neophobia. Collectively, our data indicate that GRP/GRPR signaling modulates amygdala physiology in a paradigm-specific fashion that likely is insufficient to generate therapeutic effects across amygdala-dependent disorders.