Continuous cuffless blood pressure monitoring using photoplethysmography-based PPG2BP-net for high intrasubject blood pressure variations.

Continuous, comfortable, convenient (C3), and accurate blood pressure (BP) measurement and monitoring are needed for early diagnosis of various cardiovascular diseases. To supplement the limited C3 BP measurement of existing cuff-based BP technologies, though they may achieve reliable accuracy, cuffless BP measurement technologies, such as pulse transit/arrival time, pulse wave analysis, and image processing, have been studied to obtain C3 BP measurement. One of the recent cuffless BP measurement technologies, innovative machine-learning and artificial intelligence-based technologies that can estimate BP by extracting BP-related features from photoplethysmography (PPG)-based waveforms have attracted interdisciplinary attention of the medical and computer scientists owing to their handiness and effectiveness for both C3 and accurate, i.e., C3A, BP measurement. However, C3A BP measurement remains still unattainable because the accuracy of the existing PPG-based BP methods was not sufficiently justified for subject-independent and highly varying BP, which is a typical case in practice. To circumvent this issue, a novel convolutional neural network(CNN)- and calibration-based model (PPG2BP-Net) was designed by using a comparative paired one-dimensional CNN structure to estimate highly varying intrasubject BP. To this end, approximately [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] of 4185 cleaned, independent subjects from 25,779 surgical cases were used for training, validating, and testing the proposed PPG2BP-Net, respectively and exclusively (i.e., subject-independent modelling). For quantifying the intrasubject BP variation from an initial calibration BP, a novel 'standard deviation of subject-calibration centring (SDS)' metric is proposed wherein high SDS represents high intrasubject BP variation from the calibration BP and vice versa. PPG2BP-Net achieved accurately estimated systolic and diastolic BP values despite high intrasubject variability. In 629-subject data acquired after 20 minutes following the A-line (arterial line) insertion, low error mean and standard deviation of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] for highly varying A-line systolic and diastolic BP values, respectively, where their SDSs are 15.375 and 8.745. This study moves one step forward in developing the C3A cuffless BP estimation devices that enable the push and agile pull services.

Distinct predictive factors influence on achievement of early molecular response by frontline imatinib in chronic phase chronic myeloid leukemia.

To explore the factors for achieving early molecular responses (EMR; BCR-ABL1 ≤10% at 3 months, ≤1% at 6 months) by imatinib (IM), baseline characteristics including individual BCR-ABL1 transcript level, dose intensity, and IM trough level on day 29 were analyzed in 286 chronic phase chronic myeloid leukemia patients. Distinct predictive factors for achieving EMR at 3 months and 6 months were noted. Blast count at diagnosis and IM trough level on day 29 were significantly associated with an achievement of 3-month EMR. Early decline of BCR-ABL1 transcript, low Sokal risk, and mean daily dose (≥350mg/day) by 6 months were associated with an achievement of 6-month EMR. Understanding the predictive factors for EMR may provide additional information to guide clinical decisions on the changing therapies at each landmark.

Stability of DNA, RNA, cytomorphology, and immunoantigenicity in Residual ThinPrep Specimens.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of residual liquid-based preparation (LBP) sample after cytopathologic diagnosis. Cervical swab, body fluid, and thyroid fine-needle aspiration (FNA) samples preserved in ThinPrep PreservCyt solution were tested. Samples kept frozen at -80 °C and stored at room temperature were tested 12 months after the initial sample collection. Gel electrophotography of GAPDH multiplex PCR, RNA integrity number (RIN) values obtained from Agilent bioanalyzer, cytomorphologic changes, and immunohistochemical staining (cytokeratin, thyroid transcription factor-1 (TTF-1), and D2-40) were used for the evaluation of sample quality. All available samples showed successful amplification products in multiplex PCR. However, RNAs in all residual samples were degraded with low RIN values (RIN < 4). RIN values decreased rapidly when samples were stored at room temperature in LBP medium. Cytomorpholoic evaluation and immunohistochemical staining results revealed no change regardless of storage time or storage temperature. In conclusion, RNAs stored in LBP medium degraded quickly at room temperature. Residual alcohol-based LBP cytologic specimens stored at -80 °C and room temperature showed no change in DNA quality, cytomorphology, and immunoreactivity during at least one year of storage.

Akt- and MAPK-mediated activation and secretion of MMP-9 into stroma in breast cancer cells upon heregulin treatment.

Several peptides, such as epidermal growth factor (EGF), heregulin (HRG) and transforming growth factor alpha (TGFα), are ligands for EGFR family. Heregulin beta 1 (HRG-ß1) binds to ErbB-3 and -4 and plays important roles in the proliferation and tumorigenesis of breast cancer cells. We investigated proteins through which HRG treatment affects matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 activity. Breast cancer cell lines, including SK-Br3, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231, were treated with HRG-ß1. After 24 h, the activity and expression levels of MMP-9 were increased, but MMP-2 activity was not changed. The increasing rates of MMP-9 activity and expression were most prominent in the SK-Br3 cell line. Upon treatment of SK-Br3 cells with HRG-ß1, phosphorylation of Akt was increased showing a peak at 30 min after treatment, and the level decreased after 6 h. The expression levels of Akt were not changed upon HRG-ß1 treatment. Phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK-1/2), downstream molecules of Akt, was also increased by HRG-ß1 treatment. Pretreatment of LY294002, PI3K inhibitor, or PD98059, MAPK inhibitor, partially blocked the heregulin-induced MMP-9 activity. Furthermore, MMP-9 was found to be secreted in human breast cancer tissues. The present results suggest that Akt and MAPK mediate HRG-ß1 signaling to MMP-9.