Northwestern University

Nutritional Deficiencies, Complications, and Nutrition Therapy/Counseling in Pediatric Patients Using GLP-1 Receptor Agonists

Background: Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) are increasingly used to treat childhood obesity, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes. We examined nutritional deficiency incidence and nutrition therapy/counseling (NT/C) utilization among pediatric GLP-1RA users. Met...

Outer Retinal Volume on Macular OCT Predicts Two-Year Diabetic Retinopathy Progression

Purpose: To evaluate whether baseline retinal volume from macular optical coherence tomography (OCT) is associated with diabetic retinopathy (DR) progression over two years. Methods: In this longitudinal observational study, 190 eyes from 121 patients, across the DR severity spec...

Examining Trust Among Veterans from Camp Lejeune Exposed to Environmental Toxicants: A Qualitative Study

Abstract Background Serving Veterans with military environmental exposures is a top priority of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). This priority is critical for over 1 million Veterans and civilians who were exposed to contaminated drinking water at United States Marine Co...

Magnitude of Serum β-Hydroxybutyrate Elevations and Myocardial Glucose Suppression in 18F-FDG PET-CT for Cardiac Sarcoidosis

Abstract This retrospective cohort study evaluated the relationship between serum β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) levels and myocardial glucose suppression in 74 patients undergoing 18F-FDG PET/CT for suspected cardiac sarcoidosis. The average BHB concentration prior to FDG administratio...

Clinically integrated breastfeeding peer counseling to promote breastfeeding equity: Research protocol for patient-centered costs of infant feeding and lactation care

Despite national and international recommendations for exclusive breastfeeding to 6 months of age, 44% of infants receive no breastmilk at this important milestone, imposing a significant cost on the US economy vis a vis elevated cardiovascular, infectious, and metabolic disease...

High-grade astrocytoma with piloid features: a clinical and genomic analysis of prognostic factors using a large cohort

BACKGROUND: High-grade astrocytoma with piloid features (HGAP) is a recently defined tumor type that is not well-understood. Prognostic factors of clinical outcomes are not well-established. METHODS: Methylation profiling was performed on tumor samples, many at the National Cance...

Seasonal Gut Microbiome Variation Associated With Both Climate and Wildlife Tourism in Asian Elephants ( Elephas maximus )

The health, survival, and fitness of wild animals depend on their responses to seasonal variation in natural and anthropogenic environmental factors. The gut microbiome is a unique, non-invasive tool for assessing the magnitude of these responses, but few studies collect longitud...

Epithelial-mesenchymal Wnt crosstalk directs planar cell polarity in the developing cochlea

Cochlear hair cells are precisely oriented by planar cell polarity. Wnt proteins direct planar cell polarity in vertebrates, but their roles in regulating cochlear planar cell polarity remain unclear. Here, we inhibit Wnt secretion by ablating epithelial Wntless and find shortene...

Comparative integumentary fascial anatomy in mice, rats, and humans: homologies and implications for translational wound healing research

Abstract In mice, native fascia and surrounding tissues have been shown to mobilize into wounds during healing, particularly during the proliferative phase. However, comparative descriptions of integumentary fascial anatomy across commonly used research species remain limited. Th...

Perspectives on adverse events reporting in hybrid implementation science (IS) clinical trials of approved medications in Sub-Saharan Africa

Implementation science (IS) hybrid type 2 and 3 clinical trials and pure implementation research of approved medications test strategies to increase uptake of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) with well-established safety profiles. Guidance on adverse event (AE) monitoring and...

Comparing Oscillometric and Manual Mean Arterial Pressure Measurements Among Children in the Emergency Department

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate agreement among three approaches to mean arterial pressure (MAP) measurement in children. METHODS: We performed a single-center prospective study of a convenience sample of children (<18 y) presenting to a pediatric emergency department. We compared MAP agr...

The hidden redundancy in psychological trait measures: A general factor of personality (GFP) perspective

In psychology there is a plethora of different measures and constructs. However, the literature also shows that many of these measures overlap and may even sometimes be redundant. Recognizing such overlap in measures is essential for consolidation and for moving the field forward...

Ferroptosis as a target mechanism in heart and kidney disease

Ferroptosis is a distinct form of regulated cell death driven by lipid peroxidation and redox imbalance. Since its formal recognition in 2012, ferroptosis has emerged as a central pathway linking metabolic stress and oxidative injury to both physiologic and pathologic processes....

Hearing Aid Selection by Audiologists: A Qualitative Exploration of Clinical Decision Making

Purpose: There is limited evidence available to clearly guide an audiologist's selection of hearing aid technology levels. The purpose of this study was to explore the decision-making process of audiologists for hearing aid selection, with particular attention to the role of a pa...

Inpatient Dermatology and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases: Measles, Varicella, and Beyond

Abstract Purpose of Review Re-emerging infectious diseases are increasingly encountered in the inpatient setting and are important to recognize due to their transmissibility as well as their potential for morbidity and mortality. Inpatient dermatologists are well positioned to re...

Prepregnancy Diet Quality Index and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

This cohort study of US births examines the association of preconception diet quality with adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Performance of the iBox Prognostication System in African American Kidney Transplant Recipients

Background: The iBox is a validated prognostication system that predicts long-term death-censored graft loss in kidney transplant recipients, but its performance in the specific population of African American recipients has not been fully studied. Methods: We conducted a multicen...

AnExplainable AI Engineering Framework for Claims-Only First-Stage Provider Audit Triage Using SHAP-Guided Hybrid Retrieval-Augmented Generation

This study proposes an explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) engineering workflow for provider-level healthcare claim audit prioritization using SHAP-guided hybrid retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). The framework integrates provider-level claim aggregation, tree-based risk...

Astrocytes mediate the dopaminergic modulation of tonic GABAergic signaling in substantia nigra

Recent studies have implicated dopaminergic signaling within the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) in the emergence of Parkinsonian motor deficits. To better understand the mechanisms underlying this dependence, the ability of dopamine to modulate SNr neuron activity was stu...

End processing in NHEJ by Polymerase λ and PNKP is coordinated during short-range synapsis

Non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) is a major pathway of DNA double strand break (DSB) repair, capable of directly joining both damaged strands of DNA through the coordinated activities of repair factors that detect the termini, physically bridge them together, and perform the che...