EBioMedicine

BackgroundTuberculosis (TB) and HIV co-infection cause profound immune dysregulation. Understanding how these infections alter immune cell distribution across systemic and tissue compartments is critical for improving therapeutic and vaccine strategies. MethodsFlow cytometry was used to quantify CD4 and CD8 T cells, B cells, and tissue-resident memory (TRM) T and B cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), lung tissue, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), spleen, and lung-draining hilar lym...

A critical challenge in endocrine neurosurgery is intraoperative discrimination between normal pituitary tissue and pituitary neuroendocrine tumors (PitNETs). Suggesting the universal persistence of near-infrared autofluorescence (NIRAF) in endocrine organs and inspired by routine clinical use of NIRAF for parathyroid gland identification, we discovered that pituitary NIRAF can be employed for label-free transsphenoidal surgery guidance. Ex vivo confocal spectral imaging of 33 specimens identifi...

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a progressive condition characterized by increased pulmonary arterial pressure. Endothelial cell dysfunction is one important characteristic of PH. Recently, capillary endothelial cells, including aerocytes (aCaps) and general capillary cell (gCaps), have been detected in developing lungs but their role and the regulatory mechanisms underlying PH remain poorly understood. The goal of this study was to identify changes in Caps and their effects on hypertensive pulm...

This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of quantitative analysis of {superscript 1}F-FDG positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) metabolic parameters in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT). A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical and imaging data of 44 patients with pathologically confirmed PDAC who received NACT. All patients completed standard chemotherapy regimens and underwent {superscript 1}...

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects nearly 850 million individuals globally; the prevalence of undiagnosed CKD is 60%. Taking advantage of the relationship between CKD and cardiovascular disease, we developed a deep learning (DL) model to detect CKD from parasternal long-axis (PLAX) videos using 325,377 PLAX videos from 62,818 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC). We externally validated our model in two independent cohorts of 2,224 patients at Stanford Healthcare (SHC) and 41,611 pat...

BackgroundCervical cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors of the female reproductive system. Existing treatments provide limited benefit for patients with advanced, recurrent or metastatic disease, and reliable prognostic markers are lacking. In this study we integrated multi-omic data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) database. Protein-coding genes meeting the criteria of an adjusted P value < 0.05 and |log2 fold-change| > 5 were screened; ...

In this study, we provide a comprehensive characterization of the alveolar immune landscape in patients suffering from severe acute respiratory failure, predominantly caused by pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome, conditions defined by intense pulmonary inflammation and immune dysregulation. Despite diverse underlying causes, the overall composition of alveolar immune cells was largely consistent, with neutrophils and macrophages comprising the majority of cells. However, the matura...

BackgroundEarly identification of malnutrition is critical for improving clinical outcomes in oncology patients. However, there are no established biomarkers for malnutrition screening. ObjectiveThis study aimed to identify circulating lipid species associated with malnutrition risk among oncology patients through lipidomic analysis. MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted using plasma samples from oncology patients classified as at risk (n = 90) or not at risk (n = 90) for malnutrition u...

BackgroundTuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children living with HIV (CLHIV). Poor diagnostic performance is a significant contributor. Serological assays that determine levels of Mycobacterium tuberculosis reactive antibodies inconsistently detect TB. However, antigen-specific antibody Fc receptor engagement and effector functions are promising biomarkers of TB disease. MethodsThis study evaluated serum from a well-characterized cohort of Kenyan CLHIV via tw...

BackgroundQuantitative myocardial blood flow (MBF) and myocardial flow reserve (MFR) provide incremental diagnostic and prognostic value in cardiac PET, but their widespread use is limited by the technical demands of dynamic imaging protocols. We evaluated the feasibility of using artificial intelligence (AI) to predict MBF and MFR from static and gated PET images, without the need for dynamic acquisition. MethodsA machine learning (XGBoost) model was trained on 82Rb PET multi-center dataset us...

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) affect more than 1% of adults over 50 and carry significant mortality risk. Current surveillance relies on intermittent imaging (ultrasound or MRI) at 6-24 month intervals, which may miss rapid growth acceleration between visits. We investigate the feasibility of continuous aneurysm diameter tracking using photoplethysmography (PPG) signals. Using a one-dimensional hemodynamic model that simulates pulse wave propagation from the heart to the digital artery, we de...

BackgroundAccurate and consistent laboratory measurements are essential for reliable diagnosis and clinical decision making. However, variability among automated analyzers can compromise diagnostic reliability and in population studies, instrument-specific differences in estimates hinder meaningful cross-study comparisons. ObjectiveTo evaluate inter-platform variability and interchangeability of laboratory parameters relevant to disease diagnosis across Beckman, Siemens and Roche automated anal...

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is an aggressive malignancy with high mortality rates, often exhibiting resistance to conventional treatments such as radiotherapy (RT) or a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy (CRT). The nerve growth factor receptor (NGFR, also known as p75NTR or CD271) is a well-established cancer stem cell marker in melanoma, where it has been linked to resistance to multiple therapies. In HNSCC, NGFR has been reported as a poor prognostic marker, with it...

ObjectiveCervical cancer is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infections; however, there are no molecularly defined subtypes, and few approved targeted therapies. We defined molecular subtypes and tested targeted agents. MethodsPublic datasets were analyzed; cell lines were treated with drugs; and donor T cells and their proliferation were measured. ResultsWe define three molecular subtypes: I, Wild type for PIK3CA/no YAP1 amplification; II, PIK3CA mutation/no YAP1 amplification; III, PIK3C...

Metastatic dissemination in lung cancer (LC) and other solid tumors is influenced not only by tumor-intrinsic biology and immune-inflammatory responses, but also by the physical properties of the vascular system through which circulating tumor cells (CTCs) migrate. Peripheral arterial disease (PAD), particularly when manifesting as aneurysmal dilation, is frequent among long-term smokers and is associated with chronic vascular inflammation and altered hemodynamics. We hypothesized that PAD-relat...

BackgroundPatients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF) require lifelong surveillance with cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) and cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). However, results are frequently stored as unstructured free-text reports, hindering large-scale analysis and research. ObjectivesThis study aimed to develop and evaluate a privacy-preserving hybrid natural language processing pipeline combining regular expressions (regex) and an on-premises large language model (LLM) ...

Background: Pressure volume (PV) loop analysis remains the gold standard for assessing the intrinsic global diastolic properties of the left ventricle (LV). Traditional fitting techniques rely on local, phase-constrained fittings and are limited due to their sensitivity to noise, landmark selection, violation of assumptions, and non-convergence. Objective: To develop and validate DIAPINN, a physics-informed neural network (PINN) framework capable of calculating intrinsic diastolic properties of ...

This research presents multimodal deep learning for structural heart disease prediction. We evaluated multiple deep learning architectures, including TCN, Simple CNN, ResNet1d18, Light transformer and Hybrid model. The models were examined across the three seeds to ensure robustness, and bootstrap confidence interval is used to measure performance differences. TCN consistently outperforms other competing architectures, achieving statistically significant improvements with stable performance acro...

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a degenerative disease of motor neurons that leads to muscle wasting, paralysis, and death, with an average life expectancy of 2-5 years. Approximately 10-15% of ALS cases are familial (fALS), typically linked to, but not always caused by identifiable inherited genetic mutations. The remaining 85-90% are considered sporadic ALS (sALS), which typically occurs without a clear family history. It is thought to result from a combination of genetic and non-geneti...

RationaleObstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is linked to cardiovascular, metabolic, and cognitive morbidity. Although COVID-19 has been associated with long-term respiratory and neurological sequelae, its role in precipitating new-onset OSA remains unclear. ObjectivesTo evaluate whether SARS-CoV-2 infection increases risk of developing OSA up to 4.5 years post-infection and how risk varies by hospitalization status, demographics, comorbidities, and vaccination status. MethodsThis retrospective coho...