Injury Patterns Associated With Electronic Scooter Crashes: An Institutional Observational Study.

With the rising popularity of electronic scooters, an increase in trauma and injuries related to these scooters has been observed. The objective of this study was to evaluate all electronic scooter-related traumas at our institution to characterize common injuries and educate the public around the safety of these scooters. We constructed a retrospective review of patients evaluated by the trauma service at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital with documented electronic scooter trauma. In our study, subjects were primarily male, typically between the ages of 24 and 64. The most commonly observed injuries were soft tissue, orthopedic, and maxillofacial in nature. Nearly half (45.1%) of subjects required admission, and thirty injuries (29.4%) required operative intervention. Alcohol use was not associated with the rate of admission or operative intervention. The benefits of easily accessible transportation offered by electronic scooters must be considered in context with the health risks when conducting future research.

Imaging Sensitivity of Quiescent Cancer Cells to Metabolic Perturbations in Bone Marrow Spheroids.

Malignant cells from breast cancer and other common cancers such as prostate and melanoma may persist in bone marrow as quiescent, non-dividing cells that remain viable for years or even decades before resuming proliferation to cause recurrent disease. This phenomenon, referred to clinically as tumor dormancy, poses tremendous challenges to curing patients with breast cancer. Quiescent tumor cells resist chemotherapy drugs that predominantly target proliferating cells, limiting success of neo-adjuvant and adjuvant therapies. We recently developed a 3D spheroid model of quiescent breast cancer cells in bone marrow for mechanistic and drug testing studies. We combined this model with optical imaging methods for label-free detection of cells preferentially utilizing glycolysis versus oxidative metabolism to investigate the metabolic state of co-culture spheroids with different bone marrow stromal and breast cancer cells. Through imaging and biochemical assays, we identified different metabolic states of bone marrow stromal cells that control metabolic status and flexibilities of co-cultured breast cancer cells. We tested metabolic stresses and targeted inhibition of specific metabolic pathways to identify approaches to preferentially eliminate quiescent breast cancer cells from bone marrow environments. These studies establish an integrated imaging approach to analyze metabolism in complex tissue environments to identify new metabolically-targeted cancer therapies.

Modeling selective elimination of quiescent cancer cells from bone marrow.

Patients with many types of malignancy commonly harbor quiescent disseminated tumor cells in bone marrow. These cells frequently resist chemotherapy and may persist for years before proliferating as recurrent metastases. To test for compounds that eliminate quiescent cancer cells, we established a new 384-well 3D spheroid model in which small numbers of cancer cells reversibly arrest in G1/G0 phase of the cell cycle when cultured with bone marrow stromal cells. Using dual-color bioluminescence imaging to selectively quantify viability of cancer and stromal cells in the same spheroid, we identified single compounds and combination treatments that preferentially eliminated quiescent breast cancer cells but not stromal cells. A treatment combination effective against malignant cells in spheroids also eliminated breast cancer cells from bone marrow in a mouse xenograft model. This research establishes a novel screening platform for therapies that selectively target quiescent tumor cells, facilitating identification of new drugs to prevent recurrent cancer.