Citations

ObjectiveTo describe clinical manifestations and outcomes in patients with eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) in North America.MethodsAnalysis of patients aged 18 years or older who fulfilled the 1990 American College of Rheumatology Classification Criteria for EGPA enrolled in the Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium from 2003 to 2019. Main clinical characteristics, treatments, outcomes, and accumulated damage were studied.ResultsThe cohort included 354 patients; 59% female; age at diagnosis of 50.0 (±14) years; 39% were antineutrophil cytoplasm antibody (ANCA) positive. Time from diagnosis to last follow‐up was 7.0 (±6.2) years; 49.4% had one or more relapse. Patients positive for ANCA more commonly had neurological and kidney involvement when compared with patients negative for ANCA, who had more cardiac and lung manifestations. At last study visit, only 35 (12.6%) patients had been off all therapy for more than 2 years during their follow‐up. The overall mortality rate was 4.0% and did not differ by ANCA status or cyclophosphamide use. Scores on the Vasculitis Damage Index (VDI) for 134 patients with two or more visits and more than 1 year of follow‐up increased from 1.7 (±1.8) at enrollment (3.7 [±5.1] years after diagnosis) to 3.35 (±2.1) at last follow‐up (7.5 [±5.8] years after diagnosis), mainly represented by chronic asthma (67.5%), peripheral neuropathy (49.6%), and chronic sinusitis (31.3%). Longer duration of glucocorticoid use and relapse were associated with higher VDI scores.ConclusionThis analysis describes the many clinical manifestations and varied outcomes of EGPA and highlights the ongoing need to attain more sustained, long‐term remission to limit the accrual of disease‐related damage.

Abstract Diagnosis of interstitial lung disease (ILD) requires a multidisciplinary discussion approach that includes clinicians, radiologists, and pathologists. Surgical lung biopsy (SLB) is currently the recommended standard in obtaining pathologic specimens for patients with ILD requiring a tissue diagnosis. The increased diagnostic confidence and accuracy provided by microscopic pathology assessment of SLB specimens must be balanced with the associated risks in patients with ILD. This document was developed by the SLB Working Group of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, composed of a multidisciplinary group of ILD physicians, including pulmonologists, radiologists, pathologists, and thoracic surgeons. In this document, we present an up-to-date literature review of the indications, contraindications, risks, and alternatives to SLB in the diagnosis of fibrotic ILD; outline an integrated approach to the decision-making around SLB in the diagnosis of fibrotic ILD; and provide practical information to maximize the yield and safety of SLB.

In this study we aim to examine gene–environment interactions (GxEs) between genes involved with estrogen metabolism and environmental factors related to estrogen exposure. GxE analyses were conducted with 1970 Korean breast cancer cases and 2052 controls in the case-control study, the Seoul Breast Cancer Study (SEBCS). A total of 11,555 SNPs from the 137 candidate genes were included in the GxE analyses with eight established environmental factors. A replication test was conducted by using an independent population from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC), with 62,485 Europeans and 9047 Asians. The GxE tests were performed by using two-step methods in GxEScan software. Two interactions were found in the SEBCS. The first interaction was shown between rs13035764 of NCOA1 and age at menarche in the GE|2df model (p-2df = 1.2 × 10−3). The age at menarche before 14 years old was associated with the high risk of breast cancer, and the risk was higher when subjects had homozygous minor allele G. The second GxE was shown between rs851998 near ESR1 and height in the GE|2df model (p-2df = 1.1 × 10−4). Height taller than 160 cm was associated with a high risk of breast cancer, and the risk increased when the minor allele was added. The findings were not replicated in the BCAC. These results would suggest specificity in Koreans for breast cancer risk.

INTRODUCTION: Urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) has shown promise in differentiating acute tubular necrosis (ATN) from other types of acute kidney injuries (AKIs) in cirrhosis, particularly hepatorenal syndrome (HRS). However, NGAL is not currently available in clinical practice in North America. METHODS: Urinary NGAL was measured in a prospective cohort of 213 US hospitalized patients with decompensated cirrhosis (161 with AKI and 52 reference patients without AKI). NGAL was assessed for its ability to discriminate ATN from non-ATN AKI and to predict 90-day outcomes. RESULTS: Among patients with AKI, 57 (35%) had prerenal AKI, 55 (34%) had HRS, and 49 (30%) had ATN, with a median serum creatinine of 2.0 (interquartile range 1.5, 3.0) mg/dL at enrollment. At an optimal cutpoint of 244 μg/g creatinine, NGAL distinguished ATN (344 [132, 1,429] μg/g creatinine) from prerenal AKI (45 [0, 154] μg/g) or HRS (110 [50, 393] μg/g; P < 0.001), with a C statistic of 0.762 (95% confidence interval 0.682, 0.842). By 90 days, 71 of 213 patients (33%) died. Higher median NGAL was associated with death (159 [50, 865] vs 58 [0, 191] μg/g; P < 0.001). In adjusted and unadjusted analysis, NGAL significantly predicted 90-day transplant-free survival ( P < 0.05 for all Cox models) and outperformed Model for End-Stage Liver Disease score by C statistic (0.697 vs 0.686; P = 0.04), net reclassification index (37%; P = 0.008), and integrated discrimination increment (2.7%; P = 0.02). DISCUSSION: NGAL differentiates the type of AKI in cirrhosis and may improve prediction of mortality; therefore, it holds potential to affect management of AKI in cirrhosis.

Background: Return of incidental genetic findings is recommended for pathogenic/likely pathogenic (P/LP) variants in Mendelian arrhythmia genes. The extent to which these variants are associated with arrhythmia phenotypes in unselected populations is unknown. Objective: Assess the impact of return of results (RoR) of P/LP variants in 4 arrhythmia genes in research participants not selected for cardiovascular disease. Methods: The cohort included 24,410 participants from the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics Network. Rare variants (minor allele frequency <1%) in KCNE1 , KCNH2 , KCNQ1 , and SCN5A were identified and classified according to ACMG guidelines. Arrhythmia phenotypes extracted from electronic health records (EHRs) included atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF/AFL), conduction system disease, long QT syndrome (LQTS), ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation (VT/VF), and premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). P/LP carriers’ phenotypes were compared to non-carriers using logistic regression adjusted for demographic covariates and site. Participants with P/LP variants were informed of their results and the impact of this RoR was assessed after 1 year of follow-up clinical care. Results: The participants included 53.7% females and 72.5% white individuals, with a median age of 57 years. 71 participants had a heterozygous P/LP variant in one of the 4 genes. LQTS diagnoses were associated with P/LP carrier status for all 4 genes ( KCNE1 OR 22.8, p=1.0e-4; KCNH2 OR 35.1, p=1.8e-7; KCNQ1 OR 27.3, p=3.6e-18; SCN5A OR 5.6, p=0.02). Carriers of SCN5A P/LP variants were also more likely to have PVCs (OR 4.3, p=0.003). Sensitivity analyses showed the associations predated the RoR. EHRs included a diagnosis of LQTS or Brugada Syndrome in 11/71 (16%) pre-RoR, and 16 more were diagnosed after RoR (27/71, 38%). A total of 47/71 (66%) participants had a documented arrhythmia phenotype 1 year after RoR, although 20 of these participants were not diagnosed with an inherited arrhythmia syndrome. Conclusion: Inherited arrhythmia diagnoses could be established in nearly half of participants with P/LP variants. These data indicate that return of incidental P/LP variants in these genes may facilitate the early diagnosis of arrhythmias.

Abstract Introduction Pathophysiologic responses to viral respiratory challenges such as SARS-CoV-2 may affect sleep duration, quality and concomitant cardiorespiratory function. Unobtrusive and ecologically valid methods to monitor longitudinal sleep metrics may therefore have practical value for surveillance and monitoring of infectious illnesses. We leveraged sleep metrics from Sleep Number 360 smart bed users to build a COVID-19 predictive model. Methods An IRB approved survey was presented to opting-in users from August to November 2020. COVID-19 test results were reported by 2003/6878 respondents (116 positive; 1887 negative). From the positive group, data from 82 responders (44.7±11.3 yrs.) who reported the date of symptom onset were used. From the negative group, data from 1519 responders (48.4±12.9 yrs.) who reported testing dates were used. Sleep duration, sleep quality, restful sleep duration, time to fall asleep, respiration rate, heart rate, and motion level were obtained from ballistocardiography signals stored in the cloud. Data from January to October 2020 were considered. The predictive model consists of two levels: 1) the daily probability of staying healthy calculated by logistic regression and 2) a continuous density Hidden Markov Model to refine the daily prediction considering the past decision history. Results With respect to their baseline, significant increases in sleep duration, average breathing rate, average heart rate and decrease in sleep quality were associated with symptom exacerbation in COVID-19 positive respondents. In COVID-19 negative respondents, no significant sleep or cardiorespiratory metrics were observed. Evaluation of the predictive model resulted in cross-validated area under the receiving-operator curve (AUC) estimate of 0.84±0.09 which is similar to values reported for wearable-sensors. Considering additional days to confirm prediction improved the AUC estimate to 0.93±0.05. Conclusion The results obtained on the smart bed user population suggest that unobtrusive sleep metrics may offer rich information to predict and track the development of symptoms in individuals infected with COVID-19. Support (if any):

Abstract Considerable efforts have been made to characterize active enhancer elements, which can be annotated by accessible chromatin and H3 lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac). However, apart from poised enhancers that are observed in early stages of development and putative silencers, the functional significance of cis-regulatory elements lacking H3K27ac is poorly understood. Here we show that macroH2A histone variants mark a subset of enhancers in normal and cancer cells, which we coined ‘macroH2A-Bound Enhancers’, that negatively modulate enhancer activity. We find macroH2A variants enriched at enhancer elements that are devoid of H3K27ac in a cell type-specific manner, indicating a role for macroH2A at inactive enhancers to maintain cell identity. In following, reactivation of macro-bound enhancers is associated with oncogenic programs in breast cancer and its repressive role is correlated with the activity of macroH2A2 as a negative regulator of BRD4 chromatin occupancy. Finally, through single cell epigenomic profiling, we show that the loss of macroH2A2 leads to increased cellular heterogeneity that may help to explain the role of macroH2A variants in defining oncogenic transcriptional dependencies.