Haleygomez8097

BACKGROUND Efficacy of the live-attenuated herpes zoster (HZ) vaccine (ZVL) wanes substantially over time. We evaluated immunogenicity and safety of the adjuvanted recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) in previous ZVL recipients. METHODS Adults aged ≥65 years previously vaccinated with ZVL ≥5 years before (HZ-PreVac, N=215) were group-matched with ZVL-naïve individuals (HZ-NonVac, N=215) and vaccinated with RZV. Glycoprotein E (gE)-specific humoral and cell-mediated immune (CMI) responses and the correlation between them, polyfunctional gE-specific CD4 T-cell responses, safety, and confirmed HZ cases were assessed. RESULTS Through 12 months post-dose 2, anti-gE antibody concentrations, gE-specific CD4 T-cell frequencies and activation marker profiles were similar between groups. Safety outcomes were also similar. No HZ episodes were confirmed. CONCLUSIONS RZV induced strong humoral and polyfunctional CMI responses that persisted above pre-vaccination levels through 1 year post-dose 2 in adults aged ≥65 years irrespective of previous ZVL vaccination. RZV's safety profile was not impacted either. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.We presented an artificial intelligence-based model to predict annual effective dose (AED) value of health workers. Potential factors affecting AED and the results of annual blood tests were collected from 91 radiation workers. Filter-based feature selection strategy revealed that the eight factors plate, red cell distribution width (RDW), educational degree, nonacademic course in radiation protection (hour), working hours per month, department and the number of procedures done per year and work in radiology department or not (0,1) were the most important predictors for AED. The prediction model was developed using a multilayer perceptron neural network and these prediction parameters as inputs. The model provided favorable accuracy in predicting AED value while a regression model did not. There was a strong linear relationship between the predicted AED values and the measured doses (R-value =0.89 for training samples and 0.86 for testing samples). These results are promising and show that artificial neural networks can be used to improve/facilitate dose estimation process. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com.Multiple published studies and reviews have advocated the application of psychometric methods to the validation of patient experience measurement. Some such methods depend on measurement assumptions that may not be appropriate for patient experience. Rather than being the default approach for the validation of patient experience measurement, we argue that psychometric methods should be reviewed critically to determine their fit to the measurement application, and alternative approaches explored, so that the most appropriate validation methods can be identified. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press in association with the International Society for Quality in Health Care. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.BACKGROUND Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) occurs in 1-3% of all couples trying to conceive. No consensus exists regarding when to perform testing for risk factors in couples with RPL. Itacnosertib Some guidelines recommend testing if a patient has had two pregnancy losses whereas others advise to test after three losses. OBJECTIVE AND RATIONALE The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the current evidence on the prevalence of abnormal test results for RPL amongst patients with two versus three or more pregnancy losses. We also aimed to contribute to the debate regarding whether the investigations for RPL should take place after two or three or more pregnancy losses. SEARCH METHODS Relevant studies were identified by a systematic search in OVID Medline and EMBASE from inception to March 2019. A search for RPL was combined with a broad search for terms indicative of number of pregnancy losses, screening/testing for pregnancy loss or the prevalence of known risk factors. Meta-analyses were performed in case of adequly in women with two versus three pregnancy losses. We cannot exclude a difference in prevalence of chromosomal abnormalities, inherited thrombophilia and thyroid disorders following testing after two versus three pregnancy losses. The results of this systematic review may support investigations after two pregnancy losses in couples with RPL, but it should be stressed that additional studies of the prognostic value of test results used in the RPL population are urgently needed. An evidenced-based treatment is not currently available in the majority of cases when abnormal test results are present. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.A recently proposed model for the incorporation of xenobiotics of forensic interest into the human skeleton suggests nerve agent metabolites may incorporate into bone at relatively elevated concentrations based on their unique chemical properties. To test the hypothesis that nerve agent metabolites interact with bone, methods for the extraction, isolation and semi-quantitative detection of nerve agent metabolites (MPA, EMPA, IMPA, iBuMPA, CMPA and PMPA, corresponding to the nerve agents VX, Russian VX, sarin, cyclosarin and soman, respectively) from osseous tissue were developed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry with both quadrupole time-of-flight and triple quadrupole (QqQ) instruments. The optimized methods were validated on the QqQ instrument. Despite high ion suppression, the achieved limits of detection (5-20 pg/g for four analytes; 350 pg/g for the fifth analyte) were lower than many of those published for the same analytes in other biomatrices, including serum and urine. These methods were reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com.BACKGROUND Inflammation drives vascular dysfunction in HIV, but in low-income settings causes of inflammation are multiple, and include infectious and environmental factors. We hypothesised that patients with advanced immunosuppression could be stratified into inflammatory phenotypes that predicted changes in vascular dysfunction on ART. METHODS We recruited Malawian adults with CD4 less then 100 cells/ul two weeks after starting ART in the REALITY trial (NCT01825031). Carotid femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) measured arterial stiffness 2, 12, 24 and 42 weeks post-ART initiation. Plasma inflammation markers were measured by electrochemiluminescence at weeks 2 and 42. Hierarchical clustering on principal components identified inflammatory clusters. RESULTS 211 HIV-positive participants grouped into three clusters of inflammatory marker profiles representing 51 (24%) (cluster-1), 153 (73%) (cluster-2) and 7 (3%) (cluster-3) individuals. Cluster-1 showed markedly higher CD4 and CD8 T-cell expression of HLADR and PD1 vs cluster-2 and cluster-3 (all p less then 0.