Preterm birth disrupts in utero antioxidant system maturation, including glutathione metabolism, and forces infants’ transition to a relatively oxidative extrauterine environment, leading to multiple devastating complications. This study aims to describe sex-related differences and the postnatal evolution of the glutathione antioxidant system in extremely preterm infants. In a cohort of extremely preterm infants participating in the parenteral nutrition photoprotection randomized controlled study C-SMART-PN (25.8 ± 0.2 weeks of gestation; n = 30), blood samples were collected at one week of life and 36 weeks postmenstrual age. Erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase and reductase activities were measured. Female infants had higher glutathione peroxidase activity at all study time points (p < 0.05; n = 28). Glutathione reductase activity significantly increased between one week of life and 36 weeks postmenstrual age in all infants (p < 0.001; n = 25). This increase in glutathione reductase activity resulted in a significant decrease in glutathione peroxidase / glutathione reductase ratio between the two timepoints in all participants (p < 0.001; n = 26). The protective profile of higher glutathione peroxidase activity observed in female infants provides a possible mechanism for the well-documented sex-related outcome differences in extremely preterm infants. Glutathione antioxidant system continues its overall maturation during the postnatal period in this population.
The patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) is a widely used self-administered depression screening tool. Multiple Tamil translations of the PHQ-9 have been developed for different Tamil-speaking populations. This study evaluated the existing Tamil translations for their accuracy, and culturally adapted and validated the most suitable version for use among Sri Lankan Tamil speakers. Tamil translations developed for India, Singapore and Sri Lanka were evaluated for translation accuracy and cultural relevance. The Indian Tamil version which was the most accurate version was modified and culturally adapted for use in Sri Lanka and assessed in three districts where three different Tamil dialects are spoken in Sri Lanka. 898 participants responded to the survey. The culturally adapted questionnaire demonstrated good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.833) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.88). Exploratory factor analysis supported a one-factor structure explaining 55
The objective of this study was to explore the perceptions, awareness, and readiness of various healthcare stakeholders in Bangladesh regarding the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare. Specifically, the study aimed to examine the factors influencing AI adoption and to provide evidence that can support policy formulation and the effective implementation of AI-driven healthcare services in Bangladesh. The study found that stakeholders in Bangladesh’s healthcare sector generally exhibit moderate to positive perceptions and readiness toward the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The findings indicate that factors such as technological awareness, personal innovativeness, and social media influence are positively associated with AI readiness and adoption. Moreover, the dataset demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity, suggesting that respondents are receptive to AI-driven healthcare services and highlighting the potential for expanding AI applications in Bangladesh’s healthcare system.
To establish a bionic animal myopia model by altering the dietary structure of guinea pigs and assess the impact of dietary factors on myopia development. Guinea pigs were assigned to three groups: Normal Control (NC), High-Sugar (HS) group and High-Sugar High-Fat (HSF) group and fed by standard diet, high-sugar diet, and high-sugar high-fat diet respectively. Successful modeling was defined as a diopter change of -1.00 D or more or an axial length increase of 0.4 mm or greater. Post-modeling after 4 weeks, the HS and HSF groups reverted to a standard diet with the same biometric measurements. By the second week, 54 eyes in the HS group and 48 eyes in the HSF group (consist of bilateral eyes from individual guinea pigs) met the modeling criteria for refractive error and axial length. Prominent increases in vitreous chamber depth were observed in model groups. Scleral ultrastructural examination revealed abundant thin collagen fibers, uneven fiber diameters, and markedly enlarged interfiber spacing in model groups. Upon returning to a standard diet, the rate of myopic refractive shift and ocular axial elongation in the HS and HSF groups significantly slowed. A myopic animal model was established by feeding guinea pigs high-sugar and high-sugar high-fat diets, after adjusting the diet to a conventional feed significantly slowed the myopia process. Not applicable.
Abstract Objective Yam virus X (YVX; Potexvirus ecsdioscoreae ) is a positive-sense, flexuous RNA virus belonging to the family Alphaflexiviridae . It has been first reported from Guadeloupe, a French archipelago located in the Caribbean Sea. In this study, we investigated the virome in yam ( Dioscorea spp.) plant material collected in the state of Bahia (Brazil) by high-throughput sequencing (HTS) on Illumina platform. The objective of the investigation was to explore the occurrence of YVX in yam from South America, and to study its genetic diversity compared to the only one YVX genome sequence available in the GenBank public database. Results An initial investigation by HTS of bulked RNA extracts (n=23, combined into 4 pools) revealed occurrence of YVX only in samples collected in the region of Valença. Subsequent screening by RT-PCR of the individual samples composing the pool uncovered infection with YVX only in Discorea trifida. Total RNA extracts from three infected plants were individually sequenced, resulting in the assembly of three complete genome sequences of YVX, showing ~84% nucleotide identity to the reference sequence from Guadeloupe. Our results contribute to expanding the pool of sequences available for YVX, supporting detection purposes and stimulating additional investigations for future studies on YVX diversity and evolution.
Myocardial infarction (MI) is accompanied by profound metabolic remodeling, yet the integrated circulating metabolic phenotype remains incompletely defined. Objective: We performed untargeted serum metabolomics to identify the coordinated metabolic signature of MI. Results: A total of 264 differential metabolites were identified (199 upregulated, 65 downregulated). Key alterations included L-lactic acid, lipid species, and acylcarnitines, indicating disturbances in glycolysis, phospholipid remodeling, and fatty acid oxidation. Metabolite set enrichment and pathway mapping highlighted solute transport, purine catabolism, and nucleotide metabolism. Conclusions: MI is characterized by a coordinated serum metabolic signature involving energy failure, phospholipid remodeling, and purine–nucleotide turnover, supporting the potential of circulating metabolite panels for biomarker development.
Community pharmacists play a key role in cancer prevention, early detection, and patient counseling, but evidence on oncology knowledge and practices in Yemen is limited. This study assessed community pharmacists’ cancer knowledge, perceived counseling barriers, and interest in oncology education. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 458 community pharmacy personnel in three Yemeni cities using a structured questionnaire. Participants were predominantly male (93.4
Studies have identified language-based differences in the quality and safety of care in Canada. This suggests that language could be relevant to broader patterns of health care access and quality, including medication use. This study used pan-Canadian anonymized, population-level home care data collected between January 1, 2010 and March 31, 2023 to examine the relationship between primary language, polypharmacy and hyper-polypharmacy across jurisdictions. Most reported English as their primary language (86.5
While viral suppression is the central goal of antiretroviral therapy (ART), persistent disparities in treatment outcomes exist. Understanding whether the predictors of suppression differ by sex is essential for tailoring interventions and achieving equitable care in high-burden settings like Zambia. Among 384 participants (130 males, 254 females), suppression was higher in females (91.7
Research on climate-related migration requires methodological approaches that capture both livelihood change and the household decision-making processes through which mobility is negotiated. In dry-zone agrarian contexts, migration is often temporary, selective, or constrained, complicating attempts to infer mobility outcomes directly from climatic stress alone. This paper presents a mixed-methods research design used to investigate climate-related migration among smallholder farming households in Sri Lanka’s dry zone. The study integrates a household survey (n = 500) with semi-structured narrative interviews to examine livelihood pressures, migration experiences, and household decision-making. Illustrative empirical findings show that households exposed to similar environmental and livelihood pressures adopted diverse mobility pathways, including temporary migration, seasonal mobility, and remaining in place under constrained immobility. The paper outlines the key methodological decisions underpinning the research design. It reflects on fieldwork challenges, including interpreting slow-onset climatic stress, measuring temporary and circular mobility, limitations in recall, and the ethical and analytical complexities of studying non-migration. It argues that integrating quantitative and qualitative methods is essential to avoid deterministic interpretations of climate–migration relationships and to make constrained immobility and diverse household mobility pathways empirically visible. Although grounded in Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the methodological insights apply to climate–migration research in comparable agrarian settings.
Timely diagnosis and treatment of primary bone sarcoma are important determinants of patient outcomes. However, substantial delays remain a major challenge in low-resource settings. Previous studies have associated prolonged diagnostic delays with adverse oncologic outcomes, including advanced-stage and metastatic disease at presentation. This study aimed to characterize delay patterns and factors associated with time to treatment initiation (TTI) among patients with primary bone sarcoma treated at a tertiary referral center in Ethiopia. A retrospective cohort study was conducted among 212 patients with histologically confirmed primary bone sarcoma treated between January 2021 and January 2025. Patient delay (symptom onset to first healthcare contact), diagnostic delay (first healthcare contact to histopathological diagnosis), and TTI (histopathological diagnosis to initiation of definitive treatment) were assessed. Delay intervals were summarized using medians and interquartile ranges (IQR). Bivariate comparisons were performed using the Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests, and factors independently associated with TTI were evaluated using multivariable gamma regression. The median patient delay was 3 months (IQR: 2–5 months), diagnostic delay was 35 days (IQR: 26–45 days), TTI was 23 days (IQR: 18–27 days), and the median total symptom interval was 161 days (IQR: 126–220 days). Most patients presented with Enneking stage IIB disease (67.5
Researchers are increasingly using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to support tasks such as literature review, academic writing, programming, data interpretation, and knowledge synthesis. We developed a Rapid Assessment Method for Responsible Use of Generative AI in Scientific Research (RAM-GenAI) to provide a practical approach for evaluating responsible practices in low- and middle-income settings like Uganda. Rather than presenting long checklists of many individual requirements, RAM-Gen AI have five major areas of assessment. These are groups related to the principles of responsible GenAI use. They includes, transparency of AI use, verification of AI-generated outputs, data responsibility, human oversight, and reproducibility of AI-assisted research workflows. Each domain contains assessment criteria designed to identify strengths, risks, and areas requiring improvement. RAM-GenAI developed provides researchers and institutions with a practical approach for evaluating responsible GenAI practices before, during, or after AI-assisted research activities.
Abstract Objective Datasets for automatic analysis of laryngeal endoscopic images are scarce, particularly those providing detailed anatomical annotations beyond the glottal area. The BAGLS dataset previously introduced a large collection of laryngoscopic images with expert annotations of the glottal area. To facilitate research on more detailed anatomical modeling and segmentation tasks, we introduce BAGLS-VF, an extension of the BAGLS dataset that includes additional annotations of the left and right vocal folds. Data description BAGLS-VF contains 59,250 videolaryngoscopic frames with pixel-level annotations of three anatomical structures: glottal area, left vocal fold, and right vocal fold. The dataset is derived from the original BAGLS dataset and was semi-automatically annotated by a trained rater using a standardized annotation protocol. Images originate from high-speed videolaryngoscopic recordings of subjects undergoing clinical examination and cover a wide range of anatomical variability and imaging conditions. In line with the original BAGLS dataset, the images are predominantly grayscale (approximately 97% of the underlying recordings) with a small proportion of RGB recordings (approximately 3%); the segmentation masks are provided as RGB-encoded label images in which the three anatomical regions are stored as separate colour channels. BAGLS-VF is intended to support research in medical image segmentation, laryngeal biomechanics, and computer-assisted diagnosis.
Hospital billing data can provide safety and effectiveness insights on medical devices. However, hospital data follow patients longitudinally in the same hospital only. Comparison of outcome risks (e.g., readmission and revision) in hospital versus claims data is important to understand any potential loss of data capture when evaluating outcomes for devices using hospital data. The objective of this study was to evaluate accuracy of hospital databases for long-term patient follow-up by type of endpoint using cervical fusion surgery as an example. The study included 150,459 and 62,752 patients in the claims and hospital databases, respectively. Cohort balancing was performed using propensity score methods. Risks of readmission at 90 and revision at 365-days post-surgery were 11.9
To investigate the association between serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels and the clinical profile as well as complications in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). A total of 185 participants were enrolled, including 35 healthy controls, 111 T2DM patients without complications, and 39 T2DM patients with complications. Serum BDNF levels declined progressively across groups (18.1→13.5→10.2 ng/mL, P < 0.001). BDNF was moderately negatively correlated with HbA1c (ρ=−0.41, P < 0.001) and weakly positively correlated with MoCA scores (ρ = 0.18, P = 0.013). Multivariable regression confirmed that diabetic complications (β=−2.05, P = 0.021) and higher HbA1c (β=−1.03, P < 0.001) were independently associated with lower BDNF. Participants in the lowest BDNF quartile had elevated odds of complications (OR = 16.67, 95
This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of anti-CMV IgG and anti-CMV IgM antibodies among women with spontaneous abortion in Lahj Governorate, Yemen. An analytical cross-sectional study was among 110 women with spontaneous abortion. Five milliliters of blood were collected from women, sera were separated, and anti-CMV IgG and IgM were determined using a Cobas® e 411 analyzer that is based on electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA). The data were entered and then analyzed using SPSS. Associations were assessed using the chi-square test, and prevalence ratios (PR) with 95
This study aimed to determine the prevalence, clinical characteristics, coronary angiographic patterns, and factors associated with acute heart failure among patients with Wellens syndrome in a Vietnamese acute coronary syndrome cohort. Among 938 patients admitted with acute coronary syndrome, 50 patients (5.3
Analyzing surface electromyography in the presence of transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation requires the filtering of electrical stimulation artifacts. Limitations of previous filtering approaches include the use of a uniform filter and excessive removal of muscle activity of interest. Here, we adapted a prior filtering strategy to create a stimulation artifact-specific filter and assessed the filter’s performance for removing stimulation artifact while preserving muscle activity. Six individuals with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) stood and walked with exoskeleton assistance while surface electromyography signals were recorded from the muscles of each participant’s weaker leg. In the same session, muscle activity was recorded with and without transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation during standing and walking. In quiet standing with exoskeleton assistance, the differences in muscle activity between the stimulation conditions were calculated to create a stimulation artifact-specific filter that was customized and tuned for each participant and muscle. Our results show that this stimulation artifact-specific filter could remove stimulation artifacts while largely preserving even very low amplitude muscle activity in participants with SCI during exoskeleton-assisted standing and walking. By updating a previously developed stimulation filter, we created a stimulation artifact-specific filter that effectively removes stimulation artifacts from weak surface electromyography signals. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03509558, registration date: 2018-04-26.
This single-center retrospective cohort study aimed to explore the risk factors for severe and recurrent spontaneous epistaxis, including long-term oral anticoagulants (OAC), age, and hypertension. Among the 100 participants, 23
Urine collection from neonates can be difficult. We therefore designed a study to compare success rates and effectiveness of different urine collection methods in neonates. Urine collection by compress and by sponge methods were unsuccessful and not further evaluated. Data was obtained from 23 neonates for analysis of effectiveness of the other methods of urine collection. The cotton wool pad achieved the most measurable samples of urine (82
