International immunopharmacology
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Int. Immunopharmacol. · Sep 2020
Use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to predict SARS-CoV-2 infection from Full Blood Counts in a population.
Since December 2019 the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has been identified as the cause of the pandemic COVID-19. Early symptoms overlap with other common conditions such as common cold and Influenza, making early screening and diagnosis are crucial goals for health practitioners. The aim of the study was to use machine learning (ML), an artificial neural network (ANN) and a simple statistical test to identify SARS-CoV-2 positive patients from full blood counts without knowledge of symptoms or history of the individuals. ⋯ SARS-CoV-2 positive patients exhibit a characteristic immune response profile pattern and changes in different parameters measured in the full blood count that are detected from simple and rapid blood tests. While symptoms at an early stage of infection are known to overlap with other common conditions, parameters of the full blood counts can be analysed to distinguish the viral type at an earlier stage than current rt-PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 allow at present. This new methodology has potential to greatly improve initial screening for patients where PCR based diagnostic tools are limited.
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Int. Immunopharmacol. · Aug 2020
Hydrogen gas alleviates blood-brain barrier impairment and cognitive dysfunction of septic mice in an Nrf2-dependent pathway.
Sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE) is a cognitive impairment caused by sepsis and is related to increased morbidity and mortality. Damage to the blood-brain barrier (BBB) has been proved to be one of the important causes of SAE. Molecular hydrogen (H2) is a promising method for the treatment of SAE, yet the underlying mechanism is not clear. ⋯ We found that H2 can improve survival in septic mice, decrease escape latency and platform crossing times, decrease pro-inflammatory cytokines and oxidative product levels in the mouse cortex, and increase the expression of anti-inflammatory factors in WT, but not Nrf2-/-, mice. Moreover, H2 can also decrease brain water content, extravascular dextran, extravascular Evans blue dye, and β-catenin level, and increase ZO-1 and VE-cadherin expressions in WT mice, but not in Nrf2-/- mice. Our result shows that H2 can protect the BBB by decreasing its permeability, thereby reducing SAE and improving cognitive function, which is mediated through Nrf2 and its downstream signaling pathways.
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Int. Immunopharmacol. · Aug 2020
Meta AnalysisPredictive value of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio and platelet-lymphocyte ratio in non-small cell lung cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors: A meta-analysis.
High neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) are associated with poor prognosis in cancer patients treated with Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). However, whether this relationship exists in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients remains unclear. Thus, this meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the prognostic role of NLR and PLR in NSCLC treated with ICIs. ⋯ NLR and pre-treatment PLR could serve as prognostic biomarkers in NSCLC patients treated with ICIs. However, the value of post-treatment PLR needs further to be evaluated.
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Int. Immunopharmacol. · Aug 2020
ReviewFactors affecting tumor responders and predictive biomarkers of toxicities in cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Cancer immunotherapy has brought a great revolution in the treatment of advanced human cancer. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) that target cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and the programmed cell death protein 1 pathway (PD-1/PD-L1) have been widely administrated in the past years and demonstrated promising in a variety of malignancies. While some patients show benefit from ICIs, others do not respond or even develop resistance to these therapies. ⋯ Some of the toxicities are fatal and result in discontinuance of immunotherapy. The toxicity profile from anti-CTLA-4 to anti-PD-1/PD-L1 immunotherapies is distinct from those caused by conventional anticancer therapies, though their presentation may be similar. In order to better help clinicians recognize, monitor and manage irAEs in a growing population of cancer patients who are receiving ICI therapy, this article summarizes the FDA approved ICIs and focuses on (1) existing toxic evidence related to ICIs, (2) occurrence of irAEs, (3) factors influencing tumor responders treated with ICIs, (4) predictive biomarkers of irAEs, and (5) new potential mechanisms of resistance to ICI therapy.
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Int. Immunopharmacol. · Aug 2020
Neutrophil to CD4+ lymphocyte ratio as a potential biomarker in predicting virus negative conversion time in COVID-19.
Since December 2019, novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)-infected pneumonia (COVID-19) occurred in Wuhan, and rapidly spread throughout China. Our study aimed to evaluate the robustness of neutrophil to CD4+ lymphocyte ratio (NCD4LR) in predicting the negative conversion time (NCT) of SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 patients. ⋯ This study suggests that NCD4LR is a potential and useful biomarker for predicting the virus negative conversion time in COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, due to the NCDLR value is easily calculated, it can be widely used as a clinical biomarker for disease progression and clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients.