Patients with cancer might be at an increased risk of infection with COVID-19 and a more severe disease course. However, different tumor types have differing susceptibility to the infection and COVID-19 phenotypes. Thus, the risk and prevalence of COVID-19 is not uniform across the different tumor types. Here, we performed a meta-analysis to estimate the risk and prevalence of COVID-19 infection in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.

A comprehensive literature search was performed up to July 25, 2020, thorough PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, CNKI, CBM, China Science, Wan Fang, and SciELO databases. The risk of COVID-19 infection in CRC patients was performed based on the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI).

A total of six studies with 204 different cancer patients with COVID-19 and 92 CRC infected patients with COVID-19 were selected. Our results showed that the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in CRC patients was 45.1% in the global population. The pooled data showed that there is no a significant risk of infection with COVID-19 in CRC patients in the global population (OR = 0.261, 95% CI 0.099-0.533, p = 0.082). However, when subgroup analysis was performed based on country of origin, we found a significant correlation in Chinese CRC patients (OR = 0.221, 95% CI 0.146-0.319, p ≤ 0.001).

This study results revealed that Chinese CRC patients harbored a higher risk of COVID-19 infection. However, more multicenter, larger sample sizes and high-quality studies are required to verify this meta-analysis result.

This study results revealed that Chinese CRC patients harbored a higher risk of COVID-19 infection. However, more multicenter, larger sample sizes and high-quality studies are required to verify this meta-analysis result.

3D printing (3DP) has gained interest in many fields of medicine including cardiology, plastic surgery, and urology due to its versatility, convenience, and low cost. However, critical care medicine, which is abundant with high acuity yet infrequent procedures, has not embraced 3DP as much as others. The discrepancy between the possible training or therapeutic uses of 3DP in critical care and what is currently utilized in other fields needs to be addressed.

This narrative literature review describes the uses of 3DP in critical care that have been documented. It also discusses possible future directions based on recent technological advances.

A literature search on PubMed was performed using keywords and Mesh terms for 3DP, critical care, and critical care skills.

Our search found that 3DP use in critical care fell under the major categories of medical education (23 papers), patient care (4 papers) and clinical equipment modification (4 papers). Medical education showed the use of 3DP in bronchoscopy, tation. However, technological advances such as point-of-care 3DP tools and the increased demand for 3DP during the recent COVID-19 pandemic may change 3DP implementation across the critical care field.

Elasticity of soft tissue provides valuable information to physicians during treatment and diagnosis of diseases. A number of approaches have been proposed to estimate tissue stiffness from the shear wave velocity. Optical coherence elastography offers a particularly high spatial and temporal resolution. However, current approaches typically acquire data at different positions sequentially, making it slow and less practical for clinical application.

We propose a new approach for elastography estimations using a fast imaging device to acquire small image volumes at rates of 831 Hz. The resulting sequence of phase image volumes is fed into a 4D convolutional neural network which handles both spatial and temporal data processing. We evaluate the approach on a set of image data acquired for gelatin phantoms of known elasticity.

Using the neural network, the gelatin concentration of unseen samples was predicted with a mean error of 0.65 ± 0.81 percentage points from 90 subsequent volumes of phase data only. We achieve a data acquisition and data processing time of under 12 ms and 22 ms, respectively.

We demonstrate direct volumetric optical coherence elastography from phase image data. The approach does not rely on particular stimulation or sampling sequences and allows the estimation of elastic tissue properties of up to 40 Hz.

We demonstrate direct volumetric optical coherence elastography from phase image data. The approach does not rely on particular stimulation or sampling sequences and allows the estimation of elastic tissue properties of up to 40 Hz.Background Critical attention to rational opioid prescribing has emerged from the opioid epidemic in North America. Individuals with chronic pain are prescribed extended release opioids in an effort to maintain stable drug levels and for more convenient dosing, though evidence to support improvements in pain or function is lacking. It has been observed that extended release opioid products are used at intervals shorter than recommended by product monographs. The need for shortened intervals has been linked with potential inter-patient variability in pharmacokinetics, among other rationale. Implications of shortened dosing intervals for extended release opioids have not been systematically studied. Objective The aim of this study was to characterize the use of extended release opioid formulations at shortened dosing intervals in a population of patients with chronic pain and high risk for opioid-related harms. Setting This study took place in the Interprofessional Pain and Addiction Recovery Clinic, a specialtshortened intervals was associated with increased daily morphine equivalent doses, thus an increased risk of opioid-related mortality. It is unlikely that of those using extended release opioids, the high proportion of use at shortened intervals is the result of inter-patient differences in metabolism alone. Further study is warranted to explore the underlying drivers and implications for people with chronic pain.Dengue virus and Zika virus are arthropod-borne flaviviruses that cause millions of infections worldwide. The co-circulation of both viruses makes serological diagnosis difficult as they share high amino acid similarities in viral proteins. Sodium butyrate Antigens are one of the key reagents in the differential diagnosis of these viruses through the detection of IgG antibodies in serological assays during the convalescent-phase of infections. Here, we report the expression of Dengue virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) antigens containing non-conserved and immunodominant amino acid sequences using the baculovirus expression vector system in insect cells. We designed DENV and ZIKV antigens based on the domain III of the E protein (EDIII) after analyzing previously reported epitopes and by multiple alignment of the most important flaviviruses. The ZIKV and DENV multi-epitope genes were designed as tandem repeats or impaired repeats separated by tetra- or hexa-glycine linkers. The biochemical analyses revealed adequate expression of the antigens.