Advances in nanotechnology-enabled drug delivery for combining PARP inhibitors and immunotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer.

Advanced ovarian cancer is a malignancy that spreads beyond the ovaries to the pelvis, abdomen, lungs, or lymph nodes. Effective treatment options are available to improve survival rates in patients with advanced ovarian cancer. These include radiation, surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy. Drug resistance, however, remains a significant challenge in pharmacotherapeutic interventions, leading to reduced efficacy and unfavorable patient outcomes. Combination therapy, which involves using multiple drugs with different mechanisms of action at their optimal dose, is a promising approach to circumvent this challenge and it involves using multiple drugs with different mechanisms of action at their optimal dose. In recent years, nanotechnology has emerged as a valuable alternative for enhancing drug delivery precision and minimize toxicity. Nanoparticles can deliver drugs to specific cancer cells, resulting in higher drug concentrations at the tumor site, and reducing overall drug toxicity. Nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems have the potential to improve the therapeutic effects of anti-cancer drugs, reduce drug resistance, and improve outcomes for patients with advanced ovarian cancer. This literature review aims to examine the current understanding of combining poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors and immunotherapy in treating advanced ovarian cancer and the potential impact of nanotechnology on drug delivery.

Use of machine learning to assess factors affecting progression, retention, and graduation in first-year health professions students in Qatar: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: Across higher education, student retention, progression, and graduation are considered essential elements of students' academic success. However, there is scarce literature analyzing these attributes across health professions education. The current study aims to explore rates of student retention, progression, and graduation across five colleges of the Health Cluster at Qatar University, and identify predictive factors. METHODS: Secondary longitudinal data for students enrolled at the Health Cluster between 2015 and 2021 were subject to descriptive statistics to obtain retention, progression and graduation rates. The importance of student demographic and academic variables in predicting retention, progression, or graduation was determined by a predictive model using XGBoost, after preparation and feature engineering. A predictive model was constructed, in which weak decision tree models were combined to capture the relationships between the initial predictors and student outcomes. A feature importance score for each predictor was estimated; features that had higher scores were indicative of higher influence on student retention, progression, or graduation. RESULTS: A total of 88% of the studied cohorts were female Qatari students. The rates of retention and progression across the studied period showed variable distribution, and the majority of students graduated from health colleges within a timeframe of 4-7 years. The first academic year performance, followed by high school GPA, were factors that respectively ranked first and second in importance in predicting retention, progression, and graduation of health majors students. The health college ranked third in importance affecting retention and graduation and fifth regarding progression. The remaining factors including nationality, gender, and whether students were enrolled in a common first year experience for all colleges, had lower predictive importance. CONCLUSIONS: Student retention, progression, and graduation at Qatar University Health Cluster is complex and multifactorial. First year performance and secondary education before college are important in predicting progress in health majors after the first year of university study. Efforts to increase retention, progression, and graduation rates should include academic advising, student support, engagement and communication. Machine learning-based predictive algorithms remain a useful tool that can be precisely leveraged to identify key variables affecting health professions students' performance.

Understanding and Fostering Mental Health and Well-Being among University Faculty: A Narrative Review.

In recent years, there has been increasing recognition of mental health concerns in academia, with stress, burnout, anxiety, and depression being reported among faculty members. The demanding work environment, the need to balance personal and professional duties, and the constant pressure of productivity while navigating multiple tasks of teaching, research, mentorship, professional development, and service all impact the mental health and overall well-being of faculty. Higher education institutions have structurally changed as has the research landscape. These changes as well as faculty-specific and student-specific factors coupled to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to profound effects on the mental health of academics. This paper is a narrative review of the pertinent literature describing faculty mental health and well-being. It summarizes the available evidence on factors influencing faculty mental health and shows the prevalence of anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout among faculty from various academic fields and along the whole academic ladder. Using a suggested framework that collates the efforts of leaders and faculty, the paper concludes by exploring strategies that promote work-life balance among academics and suggesting effective interventions to improve their mental health outcomes.

Attitudes and beliefs regarding the use of herbs and supplementary medications with COVID-19: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: There is growing interest in using herbs and supplementary medications to treat and/or prevent COVID-19, evidenced by multiple reports exploring their effectiveness and safety. From a health psychology perspective, the desire to use herbs and supplementary medications to prevent and/or treat COVID-19 is a health behavior which is attributed to attitudes and beliefs. This systematic review critically appraised and synthesized the data from studies investigating these attitudes and beliefs. METHODS: EMBASE, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Cochrane (library), and WebOfScience were searched from inception to December 13, 2021 for studies investigating attitudes and beliefs on the use of herbs and supplementary medications to treat and/or prevent COVID-19. RESULTS: A total of 17 articles were identified for inclusion. All except one were of cross-sectional design. Participants across most studies had a positive attitude towards using herbs and supplementary medications. They believed that herbs and supplementary medications were effective and were confident in their value in preventing and/or treating COVID-19 symptoms. The majority of included studies had significant flaws in study design and reporting, including inconsistent definitions of herbs and supplementary medications, a lack of theoretical models and conceptual frameworks underpinning the study of beliefs and attitudes, in addition to methodological issues of robustness affecting the validity and reliability of data. CONCLUSION: The use of herbs and supplementary medicines to prevent and/or treat COVID-19 could well be driven by a positive attitude stemming from beliefs of effectiveness and safety. There is a need for well-designed studies on attitudes and beliefs that are driven by health behavior theories to permit generalizability of findings and establish more conclusive relationships between beliefs, attitudes and the decision to use herbs and supplementary medications to treat and/or prevent COVID-19.

A cross-sectional analysis of zinc and copper levels and their relationship to cardiovascular disease risk markers in Qatar biobank participants.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Dietary intake, particularly zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) has been strongly associated with CVD. These trace elements play a crucial role in human enzyme activity, suppressing inflammation, catalyzing lipid metabolism enzymes, reducing oxidative stress, and regulating glucose metabolism. However, imbalances in these elements are linked to cardiovascular disturbances. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the association between circulating levels of Zn, Cu, and Zn/Cu ratio with CVD risk factors in the Qatari population. Bivariate logistic regression, adjusted for age, nationality, gender, and education was performed to examine the impact of Zn, Cu, and Zn/Cu ratio (as independent variables) on major CVD risk markers (as dependent variables). Participants in the highest Zn tertiles (T2 and T3) were at greater odds ratio (OR) of unfavorable metabolic functions such as elevated HbA1C [OR = 2.5, p = 0.015 (T2) and OR = 3.2, p = 0.002 (T3)], triglycerides [OR = 2.17, p = 0.015 (T2), and TyG index [OR = 2.21, p = 0.004 (T2), and OR = 2.67, p < 0.001 (T3)] compared to T1. Conversely, they had significantly lower ORs for prolonged prothrombin time [OR = 0.37, p = 0.001 (T3)]. Higher levels of Cu (T2 and T3) had higher OR for elevated HDL-C levels [OR = 1.69, p = 0.046 (T2), and OR = 2.27, p = 0.002 (T3)] and lower OR for elevated levels of triglycerides (OR = 0.4, p = 0.009, T3), diastolic blood pressure [OR = 0.41, p = 0.024 (T2), and OR = 0.47, p = 0.049 (T3)], and creatinine kinase (OR = 0.27, p = 0.014, T3) compared to T1. Higher levels of Cu (T2 and T3) were associated with a higher risk for elevated fibrinogen levels [OR = 3.1, p = 0.035 (T2), and OR = 5.04, p = 0.002 (T3)]. Additionally, higher Zn/Cu ratio (T2 and T3) were associated with lower ORs for elevated fibrinogen levels [OR = 0.3, p = 0.005 (T2), and OR = 0.27, p = 0.005 (T3)] compared to T1, indicating a lower risk of developing CVD. The study reveals a link between Zn, Cu, and the Zn/Cu ratio and cardiovascular disease risk. A higher Zn/Cu ratio may protect against CVD, while elevated Cu levels are linked to obesity, fibrinogen levels, and HbA1C. Maintaining optimal levels of these trace elements, either through diet or supplementation, may help reduce CVD risk.

The impact of digital interventions on medication adherence in paediatric populations with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, and/or anxiety: A rapid systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The growing prevalence of mental health disorders in children and adolescents coupled with poor medication adherence in the paediatric population is a major problem within healthcare systems affecting patient outcomes. Digital health interventions (DHIs) are primed to optimise medication adherence given the expansion of digital health markets and the increased usage of digital technologies by children and adolescents. OBJECTIVE: This rapid systematic review evaluates the impact of DHIs on optimising medication adherence amongst children and adolescents with mental health disorders compared to treatment as usual (TAU). METHODS: A rapid systematic search in electronic databases CINAHL Plus, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, PubMed, and Scopus was conducted. The scope of the rapid systematic search included randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies (non-randomised controlled trials) evaluating DHIs optimising medication adherence in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression and/or anxiety. Meta-analyses were conducted based on estimating pooled odds ratio (OR) and mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence interval using a random-effects model. Thematic analysis identified key avenues DHIs offer to optimise medication adherence. RESULTS: Four studies were found, with 502 participants included in the meta-analysis. An improvement in medication adherence was observed following DHIs for studies measuring dichotomous and continuous outcomes. However, the effect was not significant for the former. DHIs were shown to help bridge the gaps between patients and healthcare professionals, allowing for more frequent monitoring, communication, and assessments. CONCLUSIONS: Medication adherence amongst children and adolescents with acute or chronic ADHD, anxiety or depression may be positively impacted by DHIs, but better-powered studies with a lower risk of bias are necessary. The evidence currently remains inconclusive on DHIs improving medication adherence in children and adolescents.