Circulating Tumor DNA as a Prognostic Biomarker for Selecting Participants to Early Phase Clinical Trials.

Introduction: Patients with advanced solid tumors may be considered for early phase clinical trials investigating the safety, tolerability, and dosing of experimental therapies. Optimizing participant selection is critical to maximize clinical benefit and meet trial endpoints with fewer participants. One in six participants does not meet routine life expectancy requirements (>3 months), highlighting the need for improved prognostication.

iMer, a naturally occurring MERTK splice variant, binds to GAS6 to decrease platelet activation and thrombus formation.

Unopposed platelet activation can be associated with pathologic thrombosis. An intact growth arrest-specific gene 6 (GAS6)/Mer receptor tyrosine kinase (MERTK) signaling pathway contributes importantly to potentiating platelet activation triggered by molecular agonists ex vivo and thrombus stabilization in vivo. We describe, herein, the inhibition of platelet function and stable thrombus formation conferred by iMer, a naturally occurring MERTK splice variant, that acts as a GAS6 decoy receptor and decreases phosphorylation of MERTK.

Postoperative Antimicrobial Prophylaxis Use and Outcomes in Pectus Excavatum Repair.

Importance: Postoperative antimicrobial prophylaxis (PAP) is frequently used following pectus excavatum repair and accounts for the highest relative burden of potentially avoidable postoperative antibiotic days among pediatric general surgical procedures.

Objective: To evaluate the association of postoperative antibiotic prophylaxis with postoperative rates of surgical site infections, reoperation, and readmission in children undergoing pectus excavatum repair who did and did not receive postoperative antibiotic prophylaxis.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study included children aged younger than 18 years undergoing pectus excavatum repair from January 2021 to December 2023 at 141 hospitals participating in the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program-Pediatric.

Developing an Approach to Health-Related Social Needs Screening Across Settings in a Pediatric Health System.

Increasingly, health-related social needs (HRSNs) screening is being implemented across multiple settings within a single hospital or across health care systems, including outpatient clinics, emergency departments, and inpatient units. This rise in HRSN screening is driven in part by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' and The Joint Commission's health equity regulatory and accreditation requirements, effective January 1, 2023. These requirements necessitate intentionality in the development and coordination of hospital and health care system-wide processes to meaningfully implement screening and address reported HRSNs.

Loss of chromium(III) from mixed Cr(III),Fe(III) serum Transferrins.

Trivalent chromium has been shown to be transported in vivo from the bloodstream to the tissues via endocytosis by transferrin (Tf), the major iron transport protein in the blood. Recent in vitro studies using Cr(III)-Tf have shown that under physiologically relevant conditions, the binding of Cr(III) to Tf and the loss of Cr(III) from the Cr(III)-Tf/Tf receptor complex are rapid. However, the major form of transferrin in the bloodstream is monoferric Tf.