Publications by authors named "Anna Carrasco"

Background: Psycho-oncological services (POS) are an integral and widely recommended part of comprehensive cancer care. However, their utilisation appears to fall short of the perceived need. This study aimed to explore barriers and facilitators for the uptake of POS in the context of existing clinical structures and pathways to POS.

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Many phthalates have been identified as endocrine-disrupting chemicals because they alter hormone functions throughout the lifespan. Nationally representative biomonitoring data are available from the United States, Canada, and Europe, but data elsewhere are sparse, making extrapolations of related disease and disability burdens difficult. We therefore examined trends in urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations in non-occupationally exposed populations in countries other than the United States, Canada, and Europe, where representative data are already available at the country level.

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The upper oesophagogastrointestinal (UEGI) tract histology, intestinal morphometry and lymphocyte subpopulations of healthy people is scarcely known. In research studies of inflammation involving the UEGI tract, there is a lack of adequate healthy controls. Aims: To evaluate the histology of the UEGI tract and the duodenal lymphocyte subpopulations of healthy volunteers and patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), the latter to assess if it could replace healthy subjects.

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Introduction: Bisphenols are endocrine-disrupting chemicals known to contribute to chronic disease across the lifespan. With increased awareness of their health effects, changes in regulation and health behaviors have contributed to reductions in urinary bisphenol A (BPA) levels in the United States, Canada, and Europe. However, global trends in bisphenols outside these regions, especially bisphenol S (BPS) exposure, have been less studied.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on basic combat training (BCT) and its impact on iron levels among military recruits, highlighting that intense physical activities, restricted diets, and inadequate recovery can lead to iron deficiency, which affects overall health and performance.
  • It involved a systematic review of existing research, analyzing the prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency (ID) among recruits during their training, looking at various factors like participant demographics and training duration.
  • The review included 22 studies with over 111,000 participants, assessing the quality of studies and using meta-analyses to draw conclusions about the health risks tied to iron deficiency in this population.
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Background: The differential diagnosis between patients with celiac disease (CD) and non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is difficult when a gluten-free diet (GFD) has been initiated before the diagnostic work-up. Isolated increases in TCRγδ+ and celiac lymphogram (increased TCRγδ+ plus decreased CD3-) may enable differential diagnosis in this challenging clinical setting. This study evaluated: (1) the accuracy of %TCRγδ+ and celiac lymphogram for diagnosing CD before and after GFD and for differentiation with NCGS; (2) TCRγδ+ kinetics at baseline and after starting GFD in both CD and NCGS.

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Background: About half of people living with dementia have not received a diagnosis, delaying access to treatment, education, and support. We previously developed a tool, eRADAR, which uses information in the electronic health record (EHR) to identify patients who may have undiagnosed dementia. This paper provides the protocol for an embedded, pragmatic clinical trial (ePCT) implementing eRADAR in two healthcare systems to determine whether an intervention using eRADAR increases dementia diagnosis rates and to examine the benefits and harms experienced by patients and other stakeholders.

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Background: Patients with advanced or metastatic skin cancer have a limited life expectancy and the majority die as a result of the tumor despite modern treatment options. The preferences of these patients concerning care during their last phase of life are currently unknown.

Patients And Methods: 150 patients with advanced skin cancer (AJCC/UICC stage III or IV) were interviewed using a structured questionnaire.

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The integrin CD49a marks highly cytotoxic epidermal-tissue-resident memory (T) cells, but their differentiation from circulating populations remains poorly defined. We demonstrate enrichment of RUNT family transcription-factor-binding motifs in human epidermal CD8CD103CD49a T cells, paralleled by high RUNX2 and RUNX3 protein expression. Sequencing of paired skin and blood samples revealed clonal overlap between epidermal CD8CD103CD49a T cells and circulating memory CD8CD45RACD62L T cells.

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Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are considered innate counterparts of adaptive T cells; however, their common and unique transcriptional signatures in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (pIBD) are largely unknown. Here, we report a dysregulated colonic ILC composition in pIBD colitis that correlates with inflammatory activity, including accumulation of naive-like CD45RACD62L ILCs. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) reveals modules of genes that are shared or unique across innate and adaptive lymphocytes.

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Background: Previous studies suggested that Interleukin-10 (IL-10) depletion in Crohn's disease (CD) could predict outcome.

Aim: To determine IL-10 in blood and at different intestinal locations in patients with active CD and to assess its potential prognostic capacity to identify aggressive CD.

Methods: Twenty-three patients with CD were included.

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Background: We recently estimated that 36.9% of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) cases in the US may be attributable to modifiable risk factors, but it is not known whether national estimates generalize to specific states or regions.

Objective: To compare national estimates of modifiable risk factors of ADRD to California, overall and by sex and race/ethnicity, and to estimate number of cases potentially preventable by reducing the prevalence of key risk factors by 25%.

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Importance: Previous estimates suggested that 1 in 3 cases of Alzheimer disease and related dementia (ADRDs) in the US are associated with modifiable risk factors, the most prominent being physical inactivity, depression, and smoking. However, these estimates do not account for changes in risk factor prevalence over the past decade and do not consider potential differences by sex or race and ethnicity.

Objective: To update estimates of the proportion of ADRDs in the US that are associated with modifiable risk factors and to assess for differences by sex and race and ethnicity.

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Introduction: Increased patient activation is associated with improved health outcomes; however, little is known about patient activation in people with end-stage kidney disease at the start of their dialysis journey. This study aimed to measure activation status changes over the first 4 months of dialysis.

Methods: Prospective, longitudinal, and observational study.

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Article Synopsis
  • Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are flexible immune cells residing mainly in mucosal tissues, playing a role in maintaining balance and responding to inflammation based on environmental signals.
  • The study found two subsets of ILCs in tonsils, where CD45RA ILCs displayed low activity (quiescence) while CD62L ILCs exhibited similarities to naïve ILCs without fully differentiating traits.
  • Differentiation of CD62L ILCs leads to metabolic changes necessary for their immune functions, particularly in inflamed tissues like those in inflammatory bowel disease, indicating potential therapeutic targets to restore immune balance.
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Purpose: The care of older neurosurgical patients at the end life is a particularly demanding challenge. Especially, the specific needs of very old patients with glioblastoma at the end of life are at risk of being deprived of adequate care.

Methods: Based on a narrative literature review, this article aims to explore key issues of the thematic intersection of geriatric glioblastoma patients, palliative care and neurosurgery.

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Introduction: In Germany, many health care providers work in bereavement care. An epidemiological study of this field of work has not yet been conducted.

Methods: In the initial survey of this three-phase trend study the situation of grief-specific health care in Germany in 2009/2010 is examined, i.

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Tonsil hyperplasia is the most common cause of pediatric obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Despite the growing knowledge in tissue immunology of tonsils, the immunopathology driving tonsil hyperplasia and OSA remains unknown. Here we used multi-parametric flow cytometry to analyze the composition and phenotype of tonsillar innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), T cells, and B cells from pediatric patients with OSA, who had previous polysomnography.

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Background: The long-term effect of a gluten-free diet (GFD) on functional bowel disorders (FBDs) has been scarcely studied. The aim was to assess the effect of a GFD on FBD patients, and to assess the role of both the low-grade coeliac score and coeliac lymphogram in the probability of response to a GFD.

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Introduction: The study of intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) by flow cytometry is a useful tool in the diagnosis of coeliac disease (CD). Previous data showed that an increase in %TCRγδ and decrease of %CD3 IEL constitute a typical CD cytometric pattern with a specificity of 100%. However, there are no data regarding whether there are differences in the %TCRγδ related to sex, age, titers of serology, and degree of histological lesion.

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Background: Personalized medicine requires finding relationships between variables that influence a patient's phenotype and predicting an outcome. Sparse generalized canonical correlation analysis identifies relationships between different groups of variables. This method requires establishing a model of the expected interaction between those variables.

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Background: Patient safety has gained an increasing profile as a crucial element of healthcare. However, not only is there little evidence on the relevance of the term in the palliative and end-of-life care literature but also a lack of a precise and uniform definition.

Method: With a text mining approach occurrence of the term patient safety was determined in all available abstracts of 10 palliative and end-of-life care journals.

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Although the function of the circulating immune cell compartment has been studied in detail for decades, limitations in terms of access and cell yields from peripheral tissues have restricted our understanding of tissue-based immunity, particularly in humans. Recent advances in high-throughput protein analyses, transcriptional profiling, and epigenetics have partially overcome these obstacles. Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are predominantly tissue-resident, and accumulating data indicate that they have significant tissue-specific functions.

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Pain is a common symptom leading to referrals to specialized home palliative care (SHPC) services and is known to affect patients' quality of life. To date, little is known about the impact of referral source on its management. To assess changes to pain medication profile in the course of SHPC and to identify potential differences in relation to referral source.

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