Biomedical Publications FROM PR

Background: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for a significant number of new lung cancer diagnoses each year, which, if identified early, may be surgically removed with curative intent. It is also the most common indication for a sublobar resection due to its equal efficacy in carefully selected patients. From the time of diagnosis to surgery, however, traditionally, there are three separate anesthesia-dependent events: (1) diagnostic bronchoscopy plus lymph node staging, (2) lung...

Nerve trauma commonly results in chronic neuropathic pain. This is by triggering the release of proinflammatory mediators from local and invading cells that induce inflammation and nociceptive neuron hyperexcitability. Even without apparent inflammation, injury sites are associated with increased inflammatory markers. This review focuses on how it might be possible to reduce neuropathic pain by reducing inflammation. Physiologically, pain is resolved by a combination of the out-migration of...

Acute kidney injury (AKI) disproportionately impacts children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where up to 85% of AKI cases occur. As for pediatric chronic kidney disease (CKD), the true burden in LMICs remains unclear, as many cases go undiagnosed early, and other children succumb without adequate treatment. Unfortunately, these disparities result from limited access to kidney replacement therapy (KRT), kidney laboratory and imaging resources, healthcare provider shortages, and...

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this prospective cohort study of children with ALL, longer duration of overweight or obesity was associated with lower OS and EFS and higher rates of relapse, underscoring the need for interventions targeting overweight or obesity during treatment of children with ALL.

INTRODUCTION: Obesity in children is a global health crisis, with 46% of children in Puerto Rico classified as overweight or obese based on Body Mass Index. This condition is linked to serious comorbidities, including early-onset type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and Metabolic-Associated Fatty Liver Disease (MAFLD), the most common liver disease in U.S. children. This study examines the relationship between body weight, liver size, and texture in children from Puerto Rico.

Background Craniomaxillofacial (CMF) trauma is a significant problem in the United States, with estimated costs of nearly one billion dollars annually. Facial fractures occur based on factors such as facial structure, the direction and intensity of the impact, and the mechanism of injury. The most frequent facial fractures include the nose, orbits, zygomatic complex, mandible, maxilla, and frontal bone. Additionally, demographic, social, cultural, and environmental factors can contribute to...

CONCLUSION: The study concludes that the coadministration of ketorolac, acetaminophen, and gabapentin is an effective opioid-sparing alternative for postoperative pain in isolated femur shaft fractures. Future research could benefit from a more diverse patient population in orthopaedic trauma to further validate our results and explore long-term outcomes.

In the mammalian olfactory bulb (OB), gap junctions coordinate synchronous activity among mitral and tufted cells to process olfactory information. In insects, gap junctions are also present in the antennal lobe (AL), a structure homologous to the mammalian OB. The invertebrate gap junction protein ShakB contributes to electrical synapses between AL projection neurons (PNs) in Drosophila. Other gap junction proteins, including innexin 7 (Inx7), are also expressed in the Drosophila AL, but little...

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Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome (HPS) type 1 (HPS-1) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by oculocutaneous albinism, platelet dysfunction, and pulmonary fibrosis (HPS-PF), the leading cause of mortality in these patients. HPS-PF manifests earlier than idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, typically between 30 and 40 years of age. The etiology and drivers of HPS-PF progression remain poorly understood, and no FDA-approved therapies exist. Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and...

Urbanisation leads to the alteration of the living environment of soil fauna and isolates them, significantly influencing the evolutionary processes of soil fauna. Faunal gut microbiota serves to bridge hosts with changing environments; thus, they are viable indicators of host adaptation. For this study, we investigated how urbanisation affects the gut microbiota and population genetics of Spirobolus bungii. The results revealed that urbanisation did not affect the genetic diversity of S. bungii...

CONCLUSION: Stressors directly linked with the disaster were most challenging to cope with. Our data highlights the impending need to address cancer patients in future emergency plans to minimize the delay in continuing cancer care.

Data analyses in particle physics rely on an accurate simulation of particle collisions and a detailed simulation of detector effects to extract physics knowledge from the recorded data. Event generators together with a geant-based simulation of the detectors are used to produce large samples of simulated events for analysis by the LHC experiments. These simulations come at a high computational cost, where the detector simulation and reconstruction algorithms have the largest CPU demands. This...

CONCLUSION: Our findings can inform future curriculum review and development, ensuring DCPs integrate TIC effectively to enhance care for trauma-exposed patients.

CONCLUSIONS: This case highlights the unusual presentation of MCC with bladder metastasis in an immunocompromised Hispanic male. The patient revealed aggressive pathology per CT and developed persistent hematuria which were managed with bilateral nephrostomy for symptom relief. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of MCC bladder metastasis in a Puerto Rican immunocompromised male, underscoring the importance of considering rare metastatic sites in MCC and tailoring treatment...

Veterinary medicine plays a key role in global public health. Food safety, disease surveillance, and the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases are among the issues that veterinary medicine addresses every day. In many rural communities of the Global South, livestock are important to local food and income, and vulnerability to the emergence and re-emergence of zoonotic diseases is high, yet veterinary services are largely absent. Documenting how livestock are managed in these areas...

The Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) is an innovative design alternative that enhances safety and operations, but its unconventional crossover maneuvers might confuse first-time drivers. The first DDI in Puerto Rico opened in 2023 at the interchange of highways PR-30 and PR-189 to improve the level of service of a conventional diamond interchange. Due to the lack of experience with a DDI in Puerto Rico, a driving simulation experiment was conducted in three phases to analyze future user...

The efficient manufacturing of cardiomyocytes from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) is essential for advancing regenerative therapies for myocardial injuries. However, ensuring cell quality during production is challenging since traditional methods are invasive, destructive, and time-consuming. In this study, we monitored cardiomyocyte differentiation of WTC11 hiPSCs by analyzing conditioned media collected at various stages using Raman spectroscopy, multivariate analysis, and...

Background Sacubitril/valsartan and sodium-glucose transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2is) are emerging classes of medications that have become key components of guideline-directed medical therapy for patients with heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction and New York Heart Association class II, III, or IV symptoms. Both sacubitril/valsartan and SGLT2is have demonstrated the ability to improve morbidity and mortality in HF patients. This analysis evaluates current prescribing trends of...