METHODS: Journals related to family medicine were identified from the subject categories: "family practice" in Scopus and "primary health care" in Web of Science. The author's instructions on the journal websites regarding the criteria for case report submissions were reviewed, and the specific requirements for case reports of each journal were recorded. Journals were excluded if family medicine was not the main aim and scope.
RESULTS: Among the 80 journals focused on family medicine, 30 (37.5%) were found to accept submissions of case reports. These reports were classified into various article types, such as case reports, patient studies, clinical case studies. The length of the main text varied between 400 and 3000 words, and some journals did not mandate an abstract. However, for those that did, abstracts typically ranged from 50 to 300 words. The number of references cited ranged from 5 to 30.
CONCLUSIONS: Less than half of the journals in the family medicine field accept case report submissions. It is advisable for authors to choose their target journal early in the preparation process, as each journal typically provides specific submission guidelines and instructions.
AIM: This study aimed to assess GI fellow knowledge of esophageal motility and manometry interpretation.
METHODS: A 6-month educational program consisting of eight didactic sessions in the form of a weekly educational email, three didactic conferences, and handouts pertaining to the Chicago Classification (v3.0) of esophageal HRM was conducted. Both pre- and post-intervention surveys were collected using SurveyMonkey®. Five questions assessed fellows' knowledge of esophageal motility and manometry, and two questions examined their self-assessment of knowledge and confidence in managing esophageal motility disorders (EMDs). Descriptive statistics and Student's t test were used for the analysis.
RESULTS: Ten GI fellows (four first-year, five second-year, and one third-year) from a single academic institution participated in the intervention. Fellows showed a trend for better knowledge of the clinical aspects of esophageal motility over HRM interpretation (P value 0.09). On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest, fellows' self-assessment of esophageal motility knowledge pre-intervention averaged 1.8 (SD 0.78) and post-intervention 2.9 (SD 0.99); P value 0.007. Fellows' confidence in managing EMDs pre-intervention averaged 1.7 (SD 0.66) and post-intervention 2.8 (SD 0.91); P value 0.04. Subgroup analyses, including fellows' self-assessment of knowledge, and fellows' confidence in managing EMDs, maintained statistically significance for level of training.
CONCLUSION: GI fellow knowledge of esophageal motility and manometry interpretation, as well as confidence in managing EMDs, improved significantly after a 6-month formal educational program.
METHODS: A comprehensive review of the literature was undertaken using Medine and Scopus databases and multiple combinations of relevant MeSH search terms. Further references were obtained from focused searches on specific issues and manual review of the reference lists of articles obtained from the primary search.
RESULTS: Nasal congestion or discharge are among the most common complaints amongst travellers and various causes are reviewed. Changes in elevation result in a pressure differential between the atmospheric pressure and the middle ear and paranasal sinuses. The effects of air travel, recreational high-altitude exposure and diving are considered. Various causes of epistaxis in travellers such as cold air exposure and recreational cocaine use are discussed. The aetiology of a discharging ear in travellers includes otitis externa. The most frequently described travel-specific aetiology of dizziness is motion sickness while mal de debarquement is a specific subtype which affects travellers and is most commonly associated with sea travel. Surgical tourism for treatment of ear, nose and throat pathology is well established and various precautions are presented for post-operative travel. Obstructive sleep apnoea is discussed from the perspective of international travel. The challenges facing travellers with hearing impairment are explored.
CONCLUSIONS: This review critically discusses the prevention, diagnosis, and management of acute and chronic ENT conditions in the travelling population. Several areas of inquiry are highlighted that require further investigation. Close communication between ENT specialists and travel medicine practitioners is recommended in the preparation of selected patients for international travel.
MAIN BODY: A total of 42 studies were included in the analysis, with a total number of 41,054 individuals (of which 10,442 were in the athlete group and 30,612 in the control group). For each study included in the analysis, the agreement of genotype frequencies with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was tested, as well as the presence of an excess or deficit of heterozygotes. Prediction intervals for the overall effect size (OR-odds ratio) was estimated. Both in the subgroups of athletes and controls, a significant difference FIS from zero was found, suggesting inbreeding or outbreeding, as well as a very wide 95% CI for FIS. A meta-analysis was conducted for dominant, codominant, and recessive inheritance models. The obtained ORs and their 95% CIs were in the range of almost negligible values or have very wide CIs. The evaluation for the recessive model showed 95% PI for the OR lies between 0.74 to 1.92. Statistically, it does not differ from zero, which means that in some 95% of studies comparable to those in the analysis, the true effect size will fall in this interval.
CONCLUSION: Despite numerous attempts to identify genetic variants associated with success in elite sports, progress in this direction remains insignificant. Thus, no sports or sports roles were found for which the C > T variant of the ACTN3 gene would be a reliable prognostic marker for assessing an individual predisposition to achieve high sports performance. The results of the present meta-analysis support the conclusion that neutral gene polymorphism-from evolutionary or adaptive point of view-is not a trait that can be selected or used as a predictive tool in sports.
METHODS: A total of 1602 thyroid nodules from four centers across two countries (Iran and Malaysia) were included for the development and validation of AI models. From each original and expanded contour, which included the peritumoral region, 2060 handcrafted and 1024 deep radiomics features were extracted to assess the effectiveness of the peritumoral region in the AI diagnosis profile. The performance of four algorithms, namely, support vector machine with linear (SVM_lin) and radial basis function (SVM_RBF) kernels, logistic regression, and K-nearest neighbor, was evaluated. The diagnostic performance of the proposed AI model was compared with two radiologists based on the American Thyroid Association (ATA) and the Thyroid Imaging Reporting & Data System (TI-RADS™) guidelines to show the model's applicability in clinical routines.
RESULTS: Thirty-five hand-crafted and 36 deep radiomics features were considered for model development. In the training step, SVM_RBF and SVM_lin showed the best results when rectangular contours 40% greater than the original contours were used for both hand-crafted and deep features. Ensemble-learning with SVM_RBF and SVM_lin obtained AUC of 0.954, 0.949, 0.932, and 0.921 in internal and external validations of the Iran cohort and Malaysia cohorts 1 and 2, respectively, and outperformed both radiologists.
CONCLUSION: The proposed AI model trained on nodule+the peripheral region performed optimally in external validations and outperformed the radiologists using the ATA and TI-RADS guidelines.
METHODS: In this experiment, pregnant rats (n = 18) were randomly separated into three groups. These groups were treated from pregnancy day (PD) 2 to PD 21. Subsequently, the male offspring of these rats were provided either a normal-diet (ND) or a TFD from 3rd postnatal week (PNW) to 14th PNW. Then, protein expression of PPAR-γ and global DNA methylation were assessed in the adult rat offspring that were exposed to in utero BPA and subjected to postnatal TFD intake.
RESULTS: The study findings have shown that there was no association between prenatal exposure to BPA and/or TFD consumption and PPAR-γ protein expression within all the study groups in the liver tissue. On the other hand, changes at the molecular level, as reflected by the global DNA hypermethylation induced by prenatal BPA and postnatal TFD intake in adult male SD rat offspring (PNW 14).
CONCLUSIONS: This study underscores the potential impact of prenatal BPA exposure and postnatal TFD intake on epigenetic regulation, as evidenced by global DNA hypermethylation, despite no observable changes in PPAR-γ protein expression. These findings suggest that early-life environmental exposures may predispose individuals to metabolic disruptions, including diabetes and obesity, in adulthood or future generations.
METHODS AND RESULTS: Fifteen clinical isolates (isolated from tracheal secretion, urine and bronchoalveolar lavage) were subjected to whole genome sequencing. Raw sequences were assembled using SPAdes and species were identified using KmerFinder 3.2. The assembled genomes were annotated using the Prokka v1.14.6. Resfinder 4.6.0 was used to determine antibiotic resistance genes. The sequences were aligned against seven housekeeping genes aka sequence tags (STs) available within the MLST database (v 2.0.9). MobileGeneticElement finder (v1.0.3) were used for profiling mobile genetic elements associated with the antibiotic resistance genes. The genomes of nosocomial A. baumannii were assembled with an average N50 of 23,480 and GC content of 38%. There were approximately 3700 CDs, 53 tRNA and 3 rRNA. About 80% of the isolates were ST2 type. The genomes possessed antibiotic resistance genes (n = 24) belonging to 17 drug classes. The predicted phenotype was multidrug resistant. Among the mobile genetic elements, 12 insertion sequences and 2 composite transposons were also found. The mode of antibiotic resistance was mostly through antibiotic inactivation in all the isolates.
CONCLUSIONS: The results imply the occurrence of multidrug resistant genes in clinical isolates of A. baumannii strains in the healthcare settings of Kuwait. A more comprehensive survey should be undertaken for antimicrobial resistance monitoring on a regular basis for surveillance, contact tracing, and potential mitigation in clinical settings.
METHODOLOGY: This prospective study compared the performance of nine commonly used PEs, including the Harris-Benedict (H-B1919), Penn State, and TAH equations, with ML models (XGBoost, Random Forest Regressor [RFR], Support Vector Regression), and DL models (Convolutional Neural Networks [CNN]) in estimating REE in critically ill patients. A dataset of 300 IC measurements from an intensive care unit (ICU) was used, with REE measured by both IC and PEs. The ML/DL models were trained using a combination of static (i.e., age, height, body weight) and dynamic (i.e., minute ventilation, body temperature) variables. A five-fold cross validation was performed to assess the model prediction performance using the root mean square error (RMSE) metric.
RESULTS: Of the PEs analysed, H-B1919 yielded the lowest RMSE at 362 calories. However, the XGBoost and RFR models significantly outperformed all PEs, achieving RMSE values of 199 and 200 calories, respectively. The CNN model demonstrated the poorest performance among ML models, with an RMSE of 250 calories. The inclusion of additional categorical variables such as body mass index (BMI) and body temperature classes slightly reduced RMSE across ML and DL models. Despite data augmentation and imputation techniques, no significant improvements in model performance were observed.
CONCLUSION: ML models, particularly XGBoost and RFR, provide more accurate REE estimations than traditional PEs, highlighting their potential to better capture the complex, non-linear relationships between physiological variables and REE. These models offer a promising alternative for guiding nutritional therapy in clinical settings, though further validation on independent datasets and across diverse patient populations is warranted.
OBJECTIVES: (1) To elucidate and categorize psychiatric nursing expertise in schizophrenia and cancer according to the five stages of Benner's nursing theory. (2) To identify stage-specific learning needs for the psychiatric nursing care of schizophrenia and cancer, and to propose tailored educational programs. (3) To clarify the differences in the roles and training of psychiatric nurses in Malaysia and Japan.
METHODS: A qualitative descriptive design was adopted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 20 psychiatric nurses in Malaysia and Japan. The data were thematically analyzed and categorized with Benner's theory.
RESULTS: Benner's five stages of proficiency were: Novices followed pre-established routines; advanced beginners focused on psychiatric symptoms and behavior; competent nurses determined and prioritized methods of care; proficient nurses flexibly adjusted care to the patient's condition; and experts lent extensive experience to the team and patients. The following learning needs were identified: Novices struggled with identifying physical and psychiatric symptoms; advanced beginners had difficulties understanding ambiguous patient statements; competent nurses needed to improve emergency response skills; proficient nurses faced ethical challenges; and experts sought to pass on their knowledge. Stage-appropriate educational programs, such as a Visual Pain and Psychiatric Symptoms Evaluation Sheet, were proposed accordingly.
DISCUSSION: Further investigations should assess the effectiveness of these educational programs, Japanese-Malaysian cultural differences, and psychiatric liaison nursing.
METHOD: This study examined the regulation of MSMO1 by miR-584-5p in breast cancer cells. Using bioinformatics and Western blotting, we confirmed MSMO1 expression in breast cancer cells and evaluated its effects on cell migration, invasion, and the AKT signaling pathway. In vivo experiments further supported these findings. The interaction between miR-584-5p and MSMO1 was validated through luciferase reporter assays, while functional studies highlighted the impact of miR-584-5p on cancer progression.
RESULT: Our findings revealed that MSMO1 is upregulated in breast cancer, enhancing cell migration and invasion. Silencing MSMO1 diminished AKT pathway activity, and luciferase assays confirmed MSMO1 as a direct target of miR-584-5p.
CONCLUSION: Overexpression of miR-584-5p suppressed migration and invasion of breast cancer cells. In summary, miR-584-5p is likely to modulate MSMO1 and subsequently regulate the AKT/ PI3K pathway, presenting a promising therapeutic target for breast cancer treatment.
METHODS: We used a global qualitative approach to survey adults over 18 from 30 countries across six World Health Organization (WHO) regions, who detailed up to three personal positive gains from COVID-19 pandemic via an open-ended question. Inductive thematic analysis was employed to identify main themes, and quantitative methods were used for demographic and regional comparisons based on the percentage of responses for each theme.
RESULTS: From 35 911 valid responses provided by 13 853 participants, six main themes (one negative theme), 39 subthemes, and 673 codes were identified. Five positive gain themes emerged, ordered by response frequency: 1) improved health awareness and practices; 2) strengthened social bonds and trust; 3) multi-dimensional personal growth; 4) resilience and preparedness building; 5) accelerated digital transformation. The percentage of responses under these themes consistently appeared in the same order across various demographic groups and economic development levels. However, there were variations in the predominant theme across WHO regions and countries, with either Theme 1, Theme 2, or Theme 3 having the highest percentage of responses. Although our study primarily focused on positive gains, unexpectedly, 12% of responses (4304) revealed 'negative gains', leading to an unforeseen theme: 'Distrust and emerging vulnerabilities.' While this deviates from our main topic, we retained it as it provides valuable insights. Notably, these 'negative gains' had a higher percentage of responses in areas like Burundi (94.1%), Rwanda (31.8%), Canada (26.9%), and in the African Region (37.7%) and low-income (43.9%) countries, as well as among non-binary individuals, those with lower education, and those facing employment challenges.
CONCLUSIONS: Globally, the identified diverse positive gains guide the domains in which health policies and practices can transform these transient benefits into enduring improvements for a healthier, more resilient society. However, variations in thematic responses across demographics, countries, and regions highlights need for tailored health strategies.