University of Health Sciences Antigua

Associations Among Preoperative Intrusive Thoughts, Postoperative Pain Intensity, and Thirst Within the Biopsychosocial Model: An Observational Study

Background/Objectives: This study aimed to examine the associations of preoperative intrusive thoughts with postoperative pain intensity and thirst discomfort within a biopsychosocial framework. As a secondary exploratory objective, the study sought to estimate direct and indirec...

Dysplastic Nevus Terminology in Contemporary Literature: A Descriptive Content Analysis

Background: The term dysplastic nevus (DN) remains included in current World Health Organization classification and embedded in routine diagnostic practice, despite longstanding debate regarding its diagnostic reproducibility, biological specificity, and clinical relevance. Howev...

Yield of Low Serum Vitamin B12 Results in General Pediatric Outpatient Practice: Age-Specific Patterns and Associations with Testing Indications and Recorded Clinical Features

Background/Objectives: Serum vitamin B12 testing is frequently ordered in pediatric outpatient practice, either routinely or incidentally as part of broad laboratory panels or in response to symptoms and nutritional concerns; however, how the yield of low serum vitamin B12 result...

Retinal Microvascular and Peripapillary Profiles in Mild Autonomous Cortisol Secretion Versus Nonfunctioning Adrenal Adenomas

Background/Objectives: Mild autonomous cortisol secretion (MACS) is associated with increased cardiometabolic morbidity, but its relationship with the retinal microcirculation is unknown. We compared retinal and peripapillary microvascular parameters between MACS and nonfunctioni...

Limited Discriminatory Performance of Preoperative Systemic Inflammatory Indices for Tumor Stage Assessment in Gastric Cancer: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background:Systemic inflammatory indices are widely investigated as accessible biomarkers in gastric cancer, primarily for prognostic assessment.Their ability to discriminate tumor stage before treatment remains uncertain.This study evaluated the diagnostic performance of preoper...

Association of fetal venous diameter and volume flow measurements with late‐onset fetal growth restriction: A prospective case–control study

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the diagnostic utility of venous diameter (d) and volume flow (Q) measurements of the umbilical vein (UmbV), ductus venosus (DV), inferior vena cava (IVC), and subdiaphragmatic vestibulum (SDV) in fetuses with late-onset fetal growth restriction...

Serum FGF-21 levels and stature in children and adolescents with celiac disease on a gluten-free diet

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate stature in patients with celiac disease (CD) adherent to a gluten-free diet (GFD), determine the prevalence of growth hormone deficiency (GHD), and assess the associations between stature and serum insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), insulin-like growth...

Comparative Prognostic Value of the Preoperative Prognostic Nutritional Index and Gustave Roussy Immune Score After Curative-Intent Gastrectomy for Gastric Cancer

Background/Objectives: We compared the prognostic performance of preoperative prognostic nutritional index (PNI) and Gustave Roussy Immune Score (GRIm-s) after curative-intent gastrectomy. Methods: This retrospective cohort included 168 patients, including five postoperative in-h...

Perceived Organizational Support and Nurses' Job Performance: The Indirect Roles of Burnout and Quiet Quitting

Perceived organizational support is an important organizational resource that may shape nurses' psychological well-being, workplace engagement, and performance-related outcomes. This study examined the relationship between perceived organizational support and nurses' job performa...

Beyond Screening Populations: Context-Dependent Performance of Lung Cancer Risk Assessment Strategies in a Diagnostically Enriched Cohort

Background/Objectives: Lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography has been shown to reduce disease-specific mortality, but optimal strategies for identifying high-risk individuals remain debated. This retrospective, single-center cohort study examined the context-dep...

Effect of iTBS and rTMS Combined with Robotic Rehabilitation on Ambulation and Lower Extremity Motor Function in Chronic SCI Patients

Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) combined with robotic rehabilitation on ambulation and lower-extremity motor function in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). Desi...

Limited Incremental Value of Six Haemogram-Derived Inflammatory Indices for Detecting Endometrial Carcinoma and Intraepithelial Neoplasia in Abnormal Uterine Bleeding: A Case–Control Study

Background/Objectives: Haemogram-derived inflammatory indices are proposed as inexpensive markers of endometrial neoplasia, but almost all supporting evidence is prognostic, from women already known to have carcinoma. We compared six indices head-to-head and asked whether any imp...

Guideline-grounded retrieval versus unconfigured generation in obstructive sleep apnea: a pilot comparison of notebookLM and ChatGPT for AASM v3.0 PSG scoring-rule questions

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in sleep medicine, but their reliability for polysomnography (PSG) scoring-rule tasks that require up-to-date guideline knowledge remains uncertain. This pilot study compared response quality when identical AASM v3.0 PSG scoring-...

Barriers to research engagement among medical students in Türkiye: the role of environmental factors

Abstract Background Medical student participation in structured research activities during undergraduate education appears to remain limited and the factors underlying this limited participation are not yet fully understood. Existing validated questionnaires were not suitable for...

The effect of women’s e-health literacy on their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding vulvar cancer and self-examination: a cross-sectional study

This study aimed to investigate the impact of women’s e-health literacy on their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding vulvar cancer and vulvar self-examination. This study was a community-based cross-sectional. This study was performed between November 7, 2024, and Janua...

Neonatal Niemann–Pick type C: a case series integrating clinical findings, structural modeling and ACMG-based variant interpretation

Abstract Background Niemann–Pick disease type C (NPC) is a rare autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disorder that can present in the neonatal period with cholestasis and hepatosplenomegaly, making early diagnosis challenging. We report a case series of three neonates evaluated...

Lipoedema in an adolescent male following valproate discontinuation: a case report

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Synthesis, Biological Evaluation, Molecular Docking and DFT Studies of Electronically Tuned Benzylidene-Based Schiff Bases

Inspired by the medicinally relevant stilbene scaffold, a series of six electronically tuned benzylidene-based Schiff base derivatives were designed, synthesized, and characterized by FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and ESI-MS analyses. The biological properties of the synthesized compou...

Association of Gastric Microbiota with Gastric Cancer in Patients Infected with Helicobacter pylori

Background: The association between Helicobacter pylori and the resident gastric microbiota plays a critical role in gastric carcinogenesis; however, the specific microbial alterations accompanying the transition from chronic inflammation to malignancy remain to be fully elucidat...

Relationship Between Health Literacy and Rational Drug Use in Primary Care

Aim: To determine health literacy and rational drug use levels among adults attending a primary care family health center, quantify their association, and identify independent predictors using multivariable regression analysis. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with...