University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Wound healing and recurrence in head and neck cancer: a narrative review

There is a growing body of evidence showing that the postoperative wound healing response shares molecular machinery with tumor pathways. Within larger surgical fields such as breast or colorectal cancer, strong preclinical and clinical evidence exists demonstrating a link betwee...

Acute Alcohol-Associated Hepatitis: The Role of Liver Transplantation

Severe alcohol-associated hepatitis (AH) remains one of the most challenging syndromes in hepatology and critical care, with high short-term mortality despite advances in supportive management. Although corticosteroids remain the only guideline-endorsed pharmacologic therapy show...

Surgical and Radiographic Outcomes in Cervical Deformity Patients with High T1 Slope and High C2 Slope (HTHC) Versus Low T1 Slope and High C2 Slope (LTHC)

Study Design. Retrospective analysis of a prospective multicenter operative cervical deformity (CD) database. Objective. To determine whether T1 slope (T1S) and C2 slope (C2S) together identify distinct CD phenotypes: cervical-only versus global sagittal deformity, and to compare...

Adjuvant Systemic Hypothermia During Mechanical Thrombectomy (ReCCLAIM II): A Multicenter, Randomized, Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND: Hypothermia reduces ischemic injury in preclinical stroke models, yet translation into the clinical setting remains challenging. We aimed to assess the feasibility of inducing adjuvant systemic hypothermia among patients with large-vessel occlusion stroke during mecha...

The histone methyltransferase complex subunit RBBP5 serves as a central epigenetic regulator of proteostasis dynamics

Proteostasis is essential for cellular health, with its disruption contributing to aging, neurodegeneration, and metabolic disorders. While the upstream proteotoxic stress-sensing and protein-folding mechanisms in the ER and cytosol are well studied, the transcriptional regulatio...

Marfan Syndrome versus Loeys–Dietz Syndrome after Aortic Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Reconstructed Time-to-Event Data

Abstract Marfan syndrome (MFS) and Loeys–Dietz syndrome (LDS) are hereditary connective tissue diseases, both characterized by aortic root and vessel involvement with an increased risk of aneurysms and dissections. Despite advances in surgical techniques and improved postoperativ...

Innate allorecognition induces HSP70 in monocytes contributing to renal allograft rejection

After encountering allogeneic nonself, monocytes differentiate to DCs, which in turn activate the adaptive immune system that drives transplant rejection. The downstream mechanisms of allorecognition are largely unknown. We analyzed scRNA-seq data sets to identify transcriptional...

Cutaneous Lymphoma International Prognostic Index and Risk Stratification in Advanced Mycosis Fungoides and Sézary Syndrome

Importance Risk stratification in advanced mycosis fungoides and Sézary syndrome (MF/SS) remains suboptimal given that current TNMB (tumor, node, metastasis, blood) staging has limited prognostic value for clinically relevant outcomes. Objective To determine whether the Cutaneous...

Decline of chaperone-mediated autophagy in aging impairs macrophage clearance of senescent cells

Autophagy dysfunction and senescence are established drivers of aging, but their potential interaction remains poorly understood. Here we show that age-related decline of chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), a pathway for selective lysosomal protein degradation, changes senescent...

TESERA: morphologic subtyping and prognostic stratification of hepatocellular carcinoma from H&E whole-slide images

Background & Aims: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains among the most lethal cancers worldwide, yet few tools exist to characterize HCC biology and stratify patient risk at the point of care. We developed TESERA (Tissue Encoded Subtype Elucidation and Risk Assessment), a compu...

An immunocompetent, multifluorescent resource for real-time analysis of osteosarcoma progression, metastasis, and response to therapy

Despite substantial treatment improvements, the 5-year survival rate for metastatic osteosarcoma (OS) is still as low as 20%. Immunocompetent genetic mouse models of OS have been introduced, enabling in vivo OS studies. Here, we present the ROCCIA mouse, a quintuple-mutant extens...

The Childhood Liver Disease Research Network's prospective characterization of pediatric primary sclerosing cholangitis.

BACKGROUND: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a rare biliary fibrosing disease that leads to significant morbidity and the need for liver transplantation. The Childhood Liver Disease Research Network is conducting a prospective, observational longitudinal study to define th...

Grief in Neurosurgery: Reframing Loss and Identity Through Lived Experience.

Grief is an under-recognized yet pervasive experience in neurosurgery, arising not only from the death of patients and loved ones but also from losses related to professional identity, health, and personal relationships. Despite its relevance, grief is often conflated with burnou...

Clinical Improvement, No Improvement, and Worsening at 24 Hours Following Reperfusion in Patients With Stroke due to Large-Vessel Occlusion

BACKGROUND: Restoring blood flow to ischemic tissue is the cornerstone of acute stroke therapy and is usually beneficial. However, when reperfusion is achieved for severely injured tissue, it is often futile and may occasionally cause harm. We aim to determine the prevalence and...

Obstetric and thrombotic outcomes among pregnant patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms: a propensity score matched real-world analysis

Pregnancies complicated by BCR::ABL1-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are associated with increased maternal and thrombotic risk; however, large real-world comparative data remain limited. We performed a multicenter retrospective propensity score-matched cohort study...

The PancreaSure Multianalyte Blood Test Performs Well at Distinguishing Early-Stage Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma from High-Risk Controls: A Retrospective Secondary Analysis

Background/Objectives: Biomarkers that can facilitate early detection of pancreatic cancer and extend patient survival are a significant unmet need. PancreaSure is a serum biomarker signature that performed well at distinguishing Stage I and II pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (P...

MELD-based allocation disproportionately prioritizes alcohol-associated hepatitis for liver transplant

Early liver transplantation (LT) is increasingly being adopted as a treatment for alcohol-associated hepatitis (AAH), but the optimal strategy for incorporating AAH into the existing organ allocation framework remains unclear. This retrospective cohort study used the United Netwo...

Impact of Voice Onset Time on Phoneme Perception and Implications for a Language-Agnostic Hearing Assessment

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of native language on phoneme perception in normal-hearing (NH) adults representing the three most commonly spoken languages in the United States (English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese). Method: A prospective cross-sectio...

Spatial transcriptomics reveals atorvastatin modulates the tumor microenvironment to suppress breast cancer liver metastatic outgrowth

Metastatic breast cancer remains incurable, underscoring the need for novel therapeutic strategies. Epidemiological and preclinical evidence suggests statins suppress metastatic outgrowth, however the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We employed high-resolution spatial trans...

Epithelioid Enigma: Proximal‐Type Epithelioid Sarcoma in Cyst Fluid Cytology

Epithelioid sarcoma (ES) is a rare, aggressive soft tissue malignancy with substantial morphologic overlap with other epithelioid neoplasms, creating diagnostic difficulty in cytology specimens. We report proximal-type ES identified in cyst fluid from a lesion clinically interpre...