Bmc Med
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Targeted therapy is the key for improving overall survival while decreasing the undesirable adverse effects of cancer treatment. Patients who received matched targeted therapies showed dramatically improved overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) compared to those without matched therapies. ⋯ The development of cutting-edge technologies, such as next-generation sequencing, has enabled us to identify more actionable targets. In this special issue of BMC Medicine, a collection of highly translational and clinical oncology papers presented a series of studies on targeted therapies for a variety of cancer types, aiming to bridge the gap between genomic testing and precision medicine and spark innovations on improving the efficacy of targeted therapies.
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Subnational heterogeneity in immunity to measles can create pockets of susceptibility and result in long-lasting outbreaks despite high levels of national vaccine coverage. The elimination status defined by the World Health Organization aims to identify countries where the virus is no longer circulating and can be verified after 36 months of interrupted transmission. However, since 2018, numerous countries have lost their elimination status soon after reaching it, showing that the indicators defining elimination may not be associated with lower risks of outbreaks. ⋯ Local vaccine uptake was a reliable indicator of the intensity of transmission in France, even if it only describes yearly coverage in a given age group, and ignores population movements. Therefore, spatiotemporal variations in vaccine coverage, caused by disruptions in routine immunisation programmes, or lower trust in vaccines, can lead to large increases in both local and cross-regional transmission. The incidence indicator used to define the elimination status was not associated with a lower number of local transmissions in France, and may not illustrate the risks of imminent outbreaks. More detailed models of local immunity levels or subnational seroprevalence studies may yield better estimates of local risk of measles outbreaks.
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Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax) is the dominant Plasmodium spp. causing the disease malaria in low-transmission regions outside of Africa. These regions often feature high proportions of asymptomatic patients with sub-microscopic parasitaemia and relapses. Naturally acquired antibody responses are induced after Plasmodium infection, providing partial protection against high parasitaemia and clinical episodes. However, previous work has failed to address the presence and maintenance of such antibody responses to P. vivax particularly in low-transmission regions. ⋯ Our work provides new insights into the development and maintenance of naturally acquired immunity to P. vivax and will guide the potential use of serology to indicate immune status and/or identify populations at risk.
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Dynamic modeling is commonly used to evaluate direct and indirect effects of interventions on infectious disease incidence. The risk of secondary outcomes (e.g., death) attributable to infection may depend on the underlying disease incidence targeted by the intervention. Consequently, the impact of interventions (e.g., the difference in vaccination and no-vaccination scenarios) on secondary outcomes may not be proportional to the reduction in disease incidence. Here, we illustrate the estimation of the impact of vaccination on measles mortality, where case fatality ratios (CFRs) are a function of dynamically changing measles incidence. ⋯ To assess the consequences of health interventions, impact estimates should consider the effect of "no-intervention" scenario assumptions on model parameters, such as measles CFR, in order to project estimated impact for alternative scenarios according to intervention strategies and investment decisions.