Citations

Background: Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is common in older people and causes lacunar stroke and vascular cognitive impairment. Risk factors include old age, hypertension and variants in the genes COL4A1/COL4A2 encoding collagen alpha-1(IV) and alpha-2(IV), here termed collagen-IV, which are core components of the basement membrane. We tested the hypothesis that increased vascular collagen-IV associates with clinical hypertension and with SVD in older persons and with chronic hypertension in young and aged primates and genetically hypertensive rats. Methods: We quantified vascular collagen-IV immunolabeling in small arteries in a cohort of older persons with minimal Alzheimer pathology (N=52; 21F/31M, age 82.8±6.95 years). We also studied archive tissue from young (age range 6.2–8.3 years) and older (17.0–22.7 years) primates ( M mulatta ) and compared chronically hypertensive animals (18 months aortic stenosis) with normotensives. We also compared genetically hypertensive and normotensive rats (aged 10–12 months). Results: Collagen-IV immunolabeling in cerebral small arteries of older persons was negatively associated with radiological SVD severity (ρ: −0.427, P =0.005) but was not related to history of hypertension. General linear models confirmed the negative association of lower collagen-IV with radiological SVD ( P <0.017), including age as a covariate and either clinical hypertension ( P <0.030) or neuropathological SVD diagnosis ( P <0.022) as fixed factors. Reduced vascular collagen-IV was accompanied by accumulation of fibrillar collagens (types I and III) as indicated by immunogold electron microscopy. In young and aged primates, brain collagen-IV was elevated in older normotensive relative to young normotensive animals ( P =0.029) but was not associated with hypertension. Genetically hypertensive rats did not differ from normotensive rats in terms of arterial collagen-IV. Conclusions: Our cross-species data provide novel insight into sporadic SVD pathogenesis, supporting insufficient (rather than excessive) arterial collagen-IV in SVD, accompanied by matrix remodeling with elevated fibrillar collagen deposition. They also indicate that hypertension, a major risk factor for SVD, does not act by causing accumulation of brain vascular collagen-IV.

In the past decade, immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy significantly improved the prognosis of patients with cancer. Despite impressive and often unprecedented response rates, a significant portion of the patients fails to benefit from this treatment. Additional strategies to improve ICI efficacy are therefore needed. The widespread clinical use of ICIs has increased our knowledge on the effects of the concomitant use of commonly prescribed drugs on the outcome of ICI treatment. A particular interesting class of drugs in this context are statins. These HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, which are used to treat hypercholesterolemia and reduce the risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, are frequently used by patients with (advanced) cancer. This paper addresses the hypothesis that statins improve the efficacy of ICI therapy.

Purpose To summarise the clinical, molecular and biochemical phenotype of mannosyl-oligosaccharide glucosidase-related congenital disorders of glycosylation (MOGS-CDG), which presents with variable clinical manifestations, and to analyse which clinical biochemical assay consistently supports diagnosis in individuals with bi-allelic variants in MOGS. Methods Phenotypic characterisation was performed through an international and multicentre collaboration. Genetic testing was done by exome sequencing and targeted arrays. Biochemical assays on serum and urine were performed to delineate the biochemical signature of MOGS-CDG. Results Clinical phenotyping revealed heterogeneity in MOGS-CDG, including neurological, immunological and skeletal phenotypes. Bi-allelic variants in MOGS were identified in 12 individuals from 11 families. The severity in each organ system was variable, without definite genotype correlation. Urine oligosaccharide analysis was consistently abnormal for all affected probands, whereas other biochemical analyses such as serum transferrin analysis was not consistently abnormal. Conclusion The clinical phenotype of MOGS-CDG includes multisystemic involvement with variable severity. Molecular analysis, combined with biochemical testing, is important for diagnosis. In MOGS-CDG, urine oligosaccharide analysis via matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry can be used as a reliable biochemical test for screening and confirmation of disease.

AbstractBackgroundA specialized international multidisciplinary group of investigators wanted to determine the performance and impact of publications presented at an annual conference over a 6 year period. Specifically, the group wanted to know if the influence of the conference publications extended beyond conference publication authors and attendees. Bibliometric methods and network analyses were used to evaluate the performance and impact of 100 peer‐reviewed publications presented at the Trauma Hemostasis and Oxygenation Research (THOR) Network Remote Damage Control Resuscitation (RCDR) Symposia from 2012 to 2017 (published 2013–2018). Further analysis was performed on the affiliations of conference attendees who attended from the years of 2012 to 2017.Study Design and MethodsThis project used normative and relative bibliometric measures and social network analysis to evaluate the performance and impact of 100 peer‐reviewed publications presented at the Trauma Hemostasis and Oxygenation Research (THOR) Network RDCR Symposia from 2012 to 2017. Publication and citation data were from Elsevier Scopus, a bibliographic citation database. Metrics from Elsevier SciVal were selected for the project to normalize for group size, year of publication, and document type. A six‐year period of publications presented at the Symposia, published from 2013 to 2018, was selected for analysis. The publication and citation data were further analyzed using Elsevier SciVal and the iCite database from the National Institutes of Health Office of Portfolio Analysis. Sci2, VOSviewer, and Gephi were used for social network analyses and visualization.ResultsThe 100 publications presented at the Trauma Hemostasis and Oxygenation Research (THOR) Network Remote Damage Control Resuscitation (RCDR) Symposia from 2012 to 2017 demonstrate reach and influence beyond the authors of the THOR publications or the THOR attendees. Citations to the THOR publications were published in 10 languages and 313 unique journals, with author affiliations from 62 countries. Citation metrics for the THOR publications exceed global averages with 65% of the THOR publications being in the 25% citation percentiles. When benchmarking the THOR publications using six homogenous comparator groups, the THOR publications demonstrate higher citation metrics than any of the comparator groups with more citations per publication, a higher average of cited publications, higher FWCI and outputs in the top citation percentiles among the six groups. The Office of Portfolio Analysis (OPA) iCite database was used to calculate potential to translate for the THOR publications with 57 of the THOR publications cited by clinical articles with an average approximate potential to translate score of 65.3%.ConclusionsThe value of international groups with sharing of research and knowledge are instrumental in enhancing the uptake for best practices for in medicine and treatment of hemorrhagic shock resuscitation. The use of bibliometric methods and network analyses, along with benchmarking, demonstrated reach and impact beyond the THOR Network. Limitations include use of a single source for analysis of publication and citation; and that publication data alone does not provide a full overview of research performance. Despite these limitations, bibliometric methods, social network analyses, and benchmarking can help centers better understand their impact.

e19526 Background: Zanubrutinib is an oral, highly selective, next-generation Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Efficacy of zanubrutinib was compared with bendamustine + rituximab (BR) in adult patients with treatment-naïve (TN) chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the phase 3 SEQUOIA trial (NCT03336333). However, efficacy of zanubrutinib compared with other frontline CLL treatments remains unknown. The goal of this network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was to estimate the relative efficacy of zanubrutinib compared with standard frontline treatments for CLL. Methods: A total of 4 relevant RCTs were identified by a targeted literature review conducted throughout January 2022, CLL11 (NCT01010061), ALLIANCE (NCT01886872), MABLE (NCT01056510), and SEQUOIA. A feasibility assessment was performed to ensure that RCTs included within each population strata did not differ with respect to effect modifiers including presence of mutation, age, del11, and del17 status. A network was constructed for the composed 4 RCTs to compare the efficacy of zanubrutinib with bendamustine + rituximab, chlorambucil + obinutuzumab, chlorambucil + rituximab, and ibrutinib in patients with previously untreated CLL. Bayesian NMA models were conducted to simultaneously synthesize hazard ratio (HR) and 95% credible intervals (CI) for investigator-assessed progression-free survival (PFS). A constant hazard ratio was assumed in the NMA analysis. Statistical analyses were performed using codes suggested by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Results: The efficacy results of the NMA indicated a statistically significant improvement in PFS for zanubrutinib over bendamustine + rituximab (HR=0.42; [95% CI=0.27, 0.65]), chlorambucil + obinutuzumab (0.45 [0.23, 0.86]), and chlorambucil + rituximab (0.22 [0.12, 0.41]). Zanubrutinib achieved comparable PFS to ibrutinib (1.07 [0.59, 1.94]). Conclusions: This is the first NMA to compare the efficacy of zanubrutinib with all commonly utilized first-line treatment for TN CLL. Results from this indirect treatment comparison suggested that the PFS for zanubrutinib may be statistically significantly better than immunochemotherapy. Findings from this study require validation with further large scale RCTs with longer follow up time.[Table: see text]

e19514 Background: Zanubrutinib, a next-generation Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor (BTKi), demonstrated superior overall response rate and a trend toward improved progression-free survival (PFS) as compared to ibrutinib in patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the phase 3 ALPINE trial (NCT03734016) based on interim analysis. However, its comparative efficacy with other treatments is not known. The goal of this study was to estimate the relative efficacy of zanubrutinib compared with standard treatments for R/R CLL through a network meta-analysis (NMA). Methods: The efficacy of zanubrutinib from ALPINE (study of zanubrutinib and ibrutinib in patients with R/R CLL was compared to ibrutinib, acalabrutinib, bendamustine and rituximab (BR), and venetoclax + rituximab (V+R) using data from 4 RCTs. Relevant RCTs were identified using a systematic literature review. A network was constructed that composed RCTs (ALPINE, ELEVATE-RR [NCT02477696], ASCEND [NCT02970318], and MURANO [NCT02005471]). Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) models were used to simultaneously synthesize hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% credible intervals (CrIs) for investigator-assessed PFS and overall survival (OS) to estimate the relative efficacy of zanubrutinib versus comparators of interest. An assumption of constant hazard ratio was applied in the NMA analysis. Analyses were performed using well-established codes published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Decision Support Unit and were implemented with OpenBUGS (version 3.2.3). Results: The NMA suggested a significant improvement in PFS for zanubrutinib over acalabrutinib (HR=0.52, 95% CrI [0.30, 0.90]), ibrutinib (0.47, [0.29, 0.76]), and BR (0.13, [0.06, 0.26]). Zanubrutinib had a numerically better PFS than V+R (0.69, [0.32, 1.46]) while not reaching statistical significance. For OS, NMA results showed a trend favoring zanubrutinib over acalabrutinib (0.75, [0.35, 1.59]), ibrutinib (0.62, [0.31, 1.22]), and BR (0.52, [0.21, 1.24]). The difference was not statistically significant with wide CrIs, suggesting a high uncertainty as inherent limitation of the analysis. Conclusions: This NMA reports the first summary of comparative PFS of available treatments for R/R CLL. Indirect treatment comparisons suggest PFS on zanubrutinib may be superior to other BTKis and immunochemotherapies in R/R CLL patients.[Table: see text]