Citations

Mechanical ventricular assistance has become a reliable tool for the support of children and infants with heart failure. The devices have shown efficacy both as a bridge to transplantation and as a bridge to recovery. The potential complications that may occur with long-term support have not been fully described. This article reports the occurrence of a large pseudoaneurysm associated with the ascending aorta following explantation of the EXCOR Pediatric ventricular assist device. A management strategy for this potentially lethal complication is described.

Purpose. To gather consumer input about approaches to providing energy composition information for foods on fast-food restaurant menus. Design. We asked a subset of individuals (n = 150) in an experimental study about the influence of nutrition labeling on fast-food meal choices to evaluate calorie information on mock fast-food menus in various formats. Setting. Three community sites in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, metropolitan area. Subjects. Adolescents and adults who ate fast food at least once per week were recruited. Measures. Via a series of open- and close-ended questions, participants gave feedback about several formats for providing energy composition information for foods on fast-food restaurant menus. Analysis. Means and frequencies were calculated, and χ 2 tests were conducted. Results. When asked to compare a menu that provided calorie information for each menu item with a menu that provided the number of minutes of running that would be required to burn the calories contained in each menu item, 71.0% of participants preferred the calorie information over the physical activity information. Participants also compared two approaches to providing caloric reference information on the menu (average daily calorie needs per day vs. per meal), and 61.3% preferred the calorie needs—per-meal format. Conclusion. Our results may be useful in designing approaches to providing energy composition information for foods on fast-food restaurant menus.

ABSTRACTStaphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB), a shock-inducing exotoxin synthesized byStaphylococcus aureus, is an important cause of food poisoning and is a class B bioterrorism agent. SEB mediates antigen-independent activation of a major subset of the T-cell population by cross-linking T-cell receptors (TCRs) with class II major histocompatibility complex (MHC-II) molecules of antigen-presenting cells, resulting in the induction of antigen independent proliferation and cytokine secretion by a significant fraction of the T-cell population. Neutralizing antibodies inhibit SEB-mediated T-cell activation by blocking the toxin's interaction with the TCR or MHC-II and provide protection against the debilitating effects of this superantigen. We derived and searched a set of monoclonal mouse anti-SEB antibodies to identify neutralizing anti-SEB antibodies that bind to different sites on the toxin. A pair of non-cross-reactive, neutralizing anti-SEB monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) was found, and a combination of these antibodies inhibited SEB-induced T-cell proliferation in a synergistic rather than merely additive manner. In order to engineer antibodies more suitable than mouse MAbs for use in humans, the genes encoding the VL and VH gene segments of a synergistically acting pair of mouse MAbs were grafted, respectively, onto genes encoding the constant regions of human Igκ and human IgG1, transfected into mammalian cells, and used to generate chimeric versions of these antibodies that had affinity and neutralization profiles essentially identical to their mouse counterparts. When tested in cultures of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells or splenocytes derived from HLA-DR3 transgenic mice, the chimeric human-mouse antibodies synergistically neutralized SEB-induced T-cell activation and cytokine production.

BackgroundResearch involving incapacitated persons with dementia entails complex scientific, legal, and ethical issues, making traditional surveys of layperson views on the ethics of such research challenging. We therefore assessed the impact of democratic deliberation (DD), involving balanced, detailed education and peer deliberation, on the views of those responsible for persons with dementia.MethodsOne hundred and seventy‐eight community‐recruited caregivers or primary decision‐makers for persons with dementia were randomly assigned to either an all‐day DD session group or a control group. Educational materials used for the DD session were vetted for balance and accuracy by an interdisciplinary advisory panel. We assessed the acceptability of family‐surrogate consent for dementia research (“surrogate‐based research”) from a societal policy perspective as well as from the more personal perspectives of deciding for a loved one or for oneself (surrogate and self‐perspectives), assessed at baseline, immediately post‐DD session, and 1 month after DD date, for four research scenarios of varying risk‐benefit profiles.ResultsAt baseline, a majority in both the DD and control groups supported a policy of family consent for dementia research in all research scenarios. The support for a policy of family consent for surrogate‐based research increased in the DD group, but not in the control group. The change in the DD group was maintained 1 month later. In the DD group, there were transient changes in attitudes from surrogate or self‐perspectives. In the control group, there were no changes from baseline in attitude toward surrogate consent from any perspective.ConclusionsIntensive, balanced, and accurate education, along with peer deliberation provided by democratic deliberation, led to a sustained increase in support for a societal policy of family consent in dementia research among those responsible for dementia patients.

Abstract Aberrant glycosylation is a well-described hallmark of cancer. In a previous ovarian cancer case control study that examined polymorphisms in 26 glycosylation-associated genes, we found strong statistical evidence (P = 0.00017) that women who inherited two copies of a single-nucleotide polymorphism in the UDP-N-acetylgalactosamine:polypeptide N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase, GALNT1, had decreased ovarian cancer risk. The current study attempted to replicate this observation. The GALNT1 single-nucleotide polymorphism rs17647532 was genotyped in 6,965 cases and 8,377 controls from 14 studies forming the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium. The fixed effects estimate per rs17647532 allele was null (odds ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.92-1.07). When a recessive model was fit, the results were unchanged. Test for hetero geneity of the odds ratios revealed consistency across the 14 replication sites but significant differences compared with the original study population (P = 0.03). This study underscores the need for replication of putative findings in genetic association studies. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 19(2); 600–4