It may thus serve as a target in pro/anti-angiogenic therapies.

A recent RCT showed similar postoperative outcomes and a reduced time to functional recovery in patients undergoing minimally invasive distal pancreatectomy (DP) compared to open approach. However, it reported very-high post-discharge readmission rates, calling for further investigation. The aim of our study was to evaluate the extent to which minimally invasive surgery impacts on postoperative readmissions following DP.

Clinical data for patients undergoing DP between 2011 and 2018 were reviewed. Primary outcome was hospital readmission at 90 days after surgery. Secondary outcomes included post-discharge emergency department (ED) visits and time to functional recovery. Regression analyses were performed to evaluate the impact of the laparoscopic approach and other perioperative factors.

Overall, 376 consecutive patients underwent DP during the study period. Laparoscopy was successfully performed in 219 (58%) patients. Overall, 62 patients (16.5%) returned to the ED after discharge, 41 (18.7%) of laparof postoperative pancreatic fistula and hemorrhage were significantly associated with post-discharge readmission within 90days.Laparoscopy reducedtimetofunctional recovery.

Hospital readmissions and ED visits following DP were not influenced by the surgical approach. A low preoperative physical status, occurrence of postoperative pancreatic fistula and hemorrhage were significantly associated with post-discharge readmission within 90 days. Laparoscopy reduced time to functional recovery.

The aim of this work was to investigate the association of maternal HbA

during mid-pregnancy with biomarkers of glucose-insulin homeostasis during early childhood (4-7years of age) and to assess whether and how offspring adiposity at birth and at age 4-7years mediates this relationship among 345 mother-child pairs in the Healthy Start Study.

The exposure was maternal HbA

(mmol/mol) measured at 20-34 gestational weeks and categorised into tertiles. The outcomes were offspring fasting glucose, 1/insulin, HOMA2-IR, and HOMA2-B at age 4-7years. The mediators were per cent fat mass (%FM) at birth, %FM at age 4-7years, and the sum of the two as a metric of cumulative adiposity. Mediation analyses were conducted via a counterfactual-based approach. All models accounted for maternal race/ethnicity, offspring age and sex.

There was a significant total effect of maternal HbA

on offspring glucose and 1/insulin. Specifically, we observed a positive trend across tertiles of HbA

and offspring glucose (p trend <0.001), and an inverse trend across tertiles of HbA

and offspring 1/insulin (p trend = 0.04). For instance, compared with offspring of women in the lowest tertile of HbA

, those whose mothers were in the second and third tertiles had 0.04mmol/l (95% CI -0.05, 0.13) and 0.17mmol/l (95% CI 0.08, 0.26) higher fasting glucose concentrations at age 4-7years, respectively. Adjustment for pre-pregnancy BMI did not appreciably change the results. We found no evidence of mediation by offspring adiposity at any life stage.

Offspring of women with higher HbA

during pregnancy had higher fasting glucose and lower insulin sensitivity by early childhood. These relationships were largely unaffected by the child’s own adiposity. Graphical abstract.

Offspring of women with higher HbA1c during pregnancy had higher fasting glucose and lower insulin sensitivity by early childhood. These relationships were largely unaffected by the child’s own adiposity. Graphical abstract.PHA is one of the leading commercially important bio-polyesteric compounds piled up as an intracellular lipid-based energy storage compound by numerous microorganisms. An indigenous Gram-positive bacterium isolated from fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) has known to potentially accumulate PHA. Various nutritional elements like carbon, nitrogen, phosphate and C/N ratio were optimized. The indigenous B.t.A102 strain grown in optimized RC medium yielded PHA of about 3.25 g/L. The extracted polymer was characterized by NMR, GC-MS, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis via TGA & DTA. The characterized PHA was used to prepare scaffold using the solvent casting method. The non-toxic nature of the composite material was evaluated on NIH/3T3 fibroblast cell lines using different staining (like Giemsa staining, AO/EB dual staining, neutral red staining) techniques and cell viability assay. This paper dealt with the optimization of the media components that increase PHA production and primary in vitro testing for its possible application as wound dressing materials.

To evaluate the clinical characteristics and prognosis of elderly nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients receiving intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT).

From June 2008 to October 2014, 148 newly diagnosed non-metastatic elderly NPC patients (aged ≥ 70years) receiving IMRT were recruited. Comorbid condition was evaluated using the age-adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Index (ACCI). Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate survival rates and the differences were compared using log-rank test. check details Hazard ratio (HR) and the associated 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using Cox proportional hazard model by means of multivariate analysis.

The median follow-up time was 66.35months. Estimated OS rate at 5years for the entire group was 61.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.542-0.703). The 5-year OS rate of RT alone group was 58.4% (95% [CI] 0.490-0.696) compared with 65.2% (95% [CI] 0.534-0.796) in CRT group (p = 0.45). In patients receiving IMRT only, ACCI score equal to 3 was correlated with superior 5- for survival outcomes.

Magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (NBI) is effective for the diagnosis of early gastric cancer (EGC). However, magnifying endoscopy is not yet popular globally because of the required level of skill and lack of availability. To overcome these problems, dual-focus endoscopy (standard- and near-focus (NF) modes) has been developed. In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic performance of NF with second-generation (2G)-NBI (NF-NBI) for the diagnosis of EGC.

This was a secondary analysis of a multicenter randomized controlled trial of 4523 high-risk patients who underwent gastroscopies at 13 institutions in Japan. Patients were randomly assigned to white-light imaging (WLI) followed by 2G-NBI or to 2G-NBI followed by WLI. Lesions suspicious for EGC, newly detected by non-magnifying WLI or 2G-NBI, were subsequently observed with NF-NBI. All detected lesions were biopsied or resected. The diagnostic performance of NF-NBI was compared with the final histology.

A total of 870 detected lesions (145 EGC, 725 non-EGC) were analyzed.