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Background: Acute liver failure (ALF) has a high mortality varying from 80% to 85% with rapid progress in multi-organ system failure. Bioartificial liver (BAL) support systems have the potential to provide temporary support to bridge patients with ALF to liver transplantation or spontaneous recovery. In the past decades, several BAL support systems have been conducted in clinical trials. More recently, concerns have been raised on the renovation of high-quality cell sources and configuration of BAL support systems to provide more benefits to ALF models in preclinical experiments.
Aim: To investigate the characteristics of studies about BAL support systems for ALF, and to evaluate their effects on mortality.
Methods: Eligible clinical trials and preclinical experiments on large animals were identified on Cochrane Library, PubMed, and EMbase up to March 6, 2019. Two reviewers independently extracted the necessary information, including key BAL indicators, survival and indicating outcomes, and adverse events during treatment. Descriptive analysis was used to identify the characteristics of the included studies, and a meta-analysis including only randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies was done to calculate the overall effect of BAL on mortality among humans and large animals, respectively.
Results: Of the 30 selected studies, 18 were clinical trials and 12 were preclinical experiments. The meta-analysis result suggested that BAL might reduce mortality in ALF in large animals, probably due to the recent improvement of BAL, including the type, cell source, cell mass, and bioreactor, but seemed ineffective for humans [BAL control: relative risk (95% confidence interval), 0.27 (0.12-0.62) for animals and 0.72 (0.48-1.08) for humans]. Liver and renal functions, hematologic and coagulative parameters, encephalopathy index, and neurological indicators seemed to improve after BAL, with neither meaningful adverse events nor porcine endogenous retrovirus infection.
Conclusion: BAL may reduce the mortality of ALF by bridging the gap between preclinical experiments and clinical trials. Clinical trials using improved BAL must be designed scientifically and conducted in the future to provide evidence for transformation.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3748/wjg.v25.i27.3634 | DOI Listing |
Retina
September 2025
Department of Ophthalmology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse 15, CH-3010.
Purpose: To evaluate inter-grader variability in posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) classification in patients with epiretinal membrane (ERM) and macular hole (MH) on spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and identify challenges in defining a reliable ground truth for artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools.
Methods: A total of 437 horizontal SD-OCT B-scans were retrospectively selected and independently annotated by six experienced ophthalmologists adopting four categories: 'full PVD', 'partial PVD', 'no PVD', and 'ungradable'. Inter-grader agreement was assessed using pairwise Cohen's kappa scores.
PLoS One
September 2025
Department of Maths and Computer Science, Faculty of Science, University of Kinshasa, Kinshasa, The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Reliable and timely fault diagnosis is critical for the safe and efficient operation of industrial systems. However, conventional diagnostic methods often struggle to handle uncertainties, vague data, and interdependent multi-criteria parameters, which can lead to incomplete or inaccurate results. Existing techniques are limited in their ability to manage hierarchical decision structures and overlapping information under real-world conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFToxicol Sci
September 2025
Aquatic and Crop Resource Development, National Research Council of Canada, Halifax, NS, B3H 3Z1, Canada.
In the zebrafish larval toxicity model, phenotypic changes induced by chemical exposure can potentially be explained and predicted by the analysis of gene expression changes at sub-phenotypic concentrations. The increase in knowledge of gene pathway-specific effects arising from the zebrafish transcriptomic model has the potential to enhance the role of the larval zebrafish as a component of Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment (IATA). In this paper, we compared the transcriptomic responses of triphenyl phosphate between two standard exposure paradigms, the Zebrafish Embryo Toxicity (ZET) and General and Behavioural Toxicity (GBT) assays.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Biomed Circuits Syst
September 2025
Neuroprostheses capable of providing Somatotopic Sensory Feedback (SSF) enables the restoration of tactile sensations in amputees, thereby enhancing prosthesis embodiment, object manipulation, balance and walking stability. Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) represents a primary noninvasive technique for eliciting somatotopic sensations. Devices commonly used to evaluate the effectiveness of TENS stimulation are often bulky and main powered.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJAMA Netw Open
September 2025
Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City.
Importance: Advances in diagnostics have enabled the detection of more gastrointestinal pathogens, but misuse of diagnostics can lead to inappropriate antibiotic use and excess financial burdens. Ensuring appropriate use of diagnostics is crucial for optimizing patient care and promoting stewardship of health care resources.
Objective: To elicit parents' and clinicians' perspectives on expectations for care of pediatric diarrhea with a focus on diagnostic testing and to evaluate the potential for an electronic clinical decision support tool (ECDST) to improve appropriate use of diagnostics.