Assessing the needs of patients with breast cancer and their families across various treatment phases using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation model: a text-mining approach to online health communities.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to assess the different needs of patients with breast cancer and their families in online health communities at different treatment phases using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model. METHODS: Using Python, breast cancer-related posts were collected from two online health communities: patient-to-patient and patient-to-doctor. After data cleaning, eligible posts were categorized based on the treatment phase. Subsequently, an LDA model identifying the distinct need-related topics for each phase of treatment, including data preprocessing and LDA topic modeling, was established. Additionally, the demographic and interactive features of the posts were manually analyzed. RESULTS: We collected 84,043 posts, of which 9504 posts were included after data cleaning. Early diagnosis and rehabilitation treatment phases had the highest and lowest number of posts, respectively. LDA identified 11 topics: three in the initial diagnosis phase and two in each of the remaining treatment phases. The topics included disease outcomes, diagnosis analysis, treatment information, and emotional support in the initial diagnosis phase; surgical options and outcomes, postoperative care, and treatment planning in the perioperative treatment phase; treatment options and costs, side effects management, and disease prognosis assessment in the non-operative treatment phase; diagnosis and treatment options, disease prognosis, and emotional support in the relapse and metastasis treatment phase; and follow-up and recurrence concerns, physical symptoms, and lifestyle adjustments in the rehabilitation treatment phase. CONCLUSION: The needs of patients with breast cancer and their families differ across various phases of cancer therapy. Therefore, specific information or emotional assistance should be tailored to each phase of treatment based on the unique needs of patients and their families.

Salmonella enterica serovar Choleraesuis vector delivering SaoA antigen confers protection against Streptococcus suis serotypes 2 and 7 in mice and pigs.

Streptococcus suis is one of the major pathogens that cause economic losses in the swine industry worldwide. However, current bacterins only provide limited prophylactic protection in the field. An ideal vaccine against S. suis should protect pigs against the clinical diseases caused by multiple serotypes, or at least protect against the dominant serotype in a given geographic region. A new recombinant Salmonella enterica serotype Choleraesuis vaccine vector, rSC0011, that is based on the regulated delayed attenuation system and regulated delayed antigen synthesis system, was developed recently. In this study, an improved recombinant attenuated Salmonella Choleraesuis vector, rSC0016, was developed by incorporating a sopB mutation to ensure adequate safety and maximal immunogenicity. In the spleens of mice, rSC0016 colonized less than rSC0011. rSC0016 and rSC0011 colonized similarly in Peyer's patches of mice. The recombinant vaccine rSC0016(pS-SaoA) induced stronger cellular, humoral, and mucosal immune responses in mice and swine against SaoA, a conserved surface protein that is present in many S. suis serotypes, than did rSC0011(pS-SaoA) without sopB or rSC0018(pS-SaoA), which is an avirulent, chemically attenuated vaccine strain. rSC0016(pS-SaoA) provided 100% protection against S. suis serotype 2 in mice and pigs, and full cross-protection against SS7 in pigs. This new vaccine vector provides a foundation for the development of a universal vaccine against multiple serotypes of S. suis in pigs.

Live attenuated Salmonella enterica serovar Choleraesuis vaccine vector displaying regulated delayed attenuation and regulated delayed antigen synthesis to confer protection against Streptococcus suis in mice.

Salmonella enterica serotype Choleraesuis (S. Choleraesuis) and Streptococcus suis (S. suis) are important swine pathogens. Development of a safe and effective attenuated S. Choleraesuis vaccine vector would open a new window to prevent and control pig diseases. To achieve this goal, the mannose and arabinose regulated delayed attenuated systems (RDAS), Δpmi and ΔPcrp::TT araC PBADcrp, were introduced into the wild type S. Choleraesuis strain C78-3. We also introduced ΔrelA::araC PBADlacI TT to achieve regulated delayed antigen synthesis and ΔasdA to constitute a balanced-lethal plasmid system. The safety and immunogenicity of the resulted RDAS S. Choleraesuis strain rSC0011 carrying 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6-PGD) of S. suis serotype 2 (SS2) were evaluated in vitro and in vivo. Compared with the wild type parent strain C78-3 and vaccine strain C500, a live attenuated S. Choleraesuis vaccine licensed for piglet in China, the results showed that the survival curves of the vaccine strain rSC0011 were similar to those of strains C78-3 and C500 at the early stage of infection, but lower than those of C78-3 and higher than those of C500 at the later stage in both porcine alveolar macrophages and peripheral porcine monocytes. The LD50 of the RDAS strains rSC0011 by oral route in mice was close to that of C500 and 10,000-fold higher than that of C78-3. Similar results were achieved by intraperitoneal (i.p.) route, suggesting that the RDAS strains rSC0011 achieved similar attenuation as C500. However, the RDAS strain rSC0011 was superior to C500 in colonization of Peyer's patches. Adult mice orally immunized with strain rSC0011 carrying a plasmid expression 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6-PGD) gene from SS2 developed strong immune responses against 6-PGD and Salmonella antigens, and conferred high protection against i.p. challenge with SS2.