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What Is This Summary About?: This is a plain-language summary of an article that reported on two studies of the medication bictegravir/emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (shortened to B/F/TAF). B/F/TAF is a single pill containing three different drugs used to treat human immunodeficiency virus (known as HIV). The drugs work together to lower the levels of HIV (called viral load) in the body and make the virus undetectable in the blood. Researchers measured whether B/F/TAF was safe and effective when taken over 5 years in over 400 people in 10 countries who had never taken HIV medication before., What Were the Results?: After 5 years, almost all (99%) of the people who took B/F/TAF had an undetectable viral load. This does not mean that they were cured, but that the levels of HIV were so low that the tests used by researchers could not detect the virus in the blood. CD4 is a type of immune system cell. HIV causes CD4 cell numbers to decrease. On average, the number of CD4 cells increased by more than 300 cells per microliter (cells/μL) of blood over 5 years. This means that the immune system was improving. HIV is able to change its genes to escape the effects of the drugs. This is known as HIV resistance to treatment. Nine people had a viral load high enough to suggest that the drugs might not be working, but no resistance to B/F/TAF was seen. Some people (less than one in three) experienced medical problems thought to be linked to B/F/TAF treatment, known as side effects. The most common side effects were headache, diarrhea, nausea, tiredness (fatigue), dizziness, and difficulty falling or staying asleep (insomnia). On average, people's body weight increased by 3 kg in the first year of taking B/F/TAF. This might be because their general health improved after starting HIV treatment. Weight gained after that time was similar to the level of weight gain expected in the general population. Very few people (less than 1 in 100) stopped taking B/F/TAF because of side effects thought to have been caused by B/F/TAF., What Do the Results Mean?: B/F/TAF was effective at treating HIV in people who had never taken HIV medication before. Most (70%) people were still taking B/F/TAF after 5 years. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT02607930 (Study 1489); NCT02607956 (Study 1490) (ClinicalTrials.gov).

Children with tracheostomies have multiple challenges with respect to achieving normal deglutition. These children may have underlying neurologic or genetic conditions that can predispose to dysphagia, but even in children without underlying comorbidities, the presence of a tracheostomy tube impacts the mechanics of swallowing, leading to difficulty with different consistencies as well as management of normal oral secretions. Intubation prior to tracheostomy also impacts sensation in the upper aerodigestive tract increasing the risk of aspiration. Occlusion of the tracheostomy with a speaking valve or cap improves outcomes in swallow and prognosis for oral feeding., Competing Interests: Disclosure The author has no relevant disclosures., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Hybrid immunity, acquired through vaccination followed or preceded by a COVID-19 infection, elicits robust antibody augmentation. We hypothesize that maternal hybrid immunity will provide greater infant protection than other forms of COVID-19 immunity in the first 6 months of life. We conducted a case-control study in Israel, enrolling 661 infants up to 6 months of age, hospitalized with COVID-19 (cases) and 59,460 age-matched non-hospitalized infants (controls) between August 24, 2021, and March 15, 2022. Infants were grouped by maternal immunity status at delivery: Naïve (never vaccinated or tested positive, reference group), Hybrid-immunity (vaccinated and tested positive), Natural-immunity (tested positive before or during the study period), Full-vaccination (two-shot regimen plus 1 booster), and Partial-vaccination (less than full three shot regimen). Applying Cox proportional hazards models to estimate the hazard ratios, which was then converted to percent vaccine effectiveness, and using the Naïve group as the reference, maternal hybrid-immunity provided the highest protection (84% [95% CI 75-90]), followed by full-vaccination (66% [95% CI 56-74]), natural-immunity (56% [95% CI 39-68]), and partial-vaccination (29% [95% CI 15-41]). Maternal hybrid-immunity was associated with a reduced risk of infant hospitalization for Covid-19, as compared to natural-immunity, regardless of exposure timing or sequence. These findings emphasize the benefits of vaccinating previously infected individuals during pregnancy to reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations in early infancy., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Natural killer cells (NKs) found during pregnancy at the maternal-fetal interface named decidual (d)NKs, show signs of education following first pregnancy, resulting in better placentation and fetus-growth, hence termed pregnancy trained dNKs (PTdNKs). Here we show that PTdNKs provide increased protection of the fetus from Fusobacterium nucleatum (FN) infection. We demonstrate that PTdNKs secrete elevated amounts of the bacteriocidal protein granulysin (GNLY) upon incubation with FN compared to dNKs derived from first pregnancies, which leads to increased killing of FN. Furthermore, we showed mechanistically that the GNLY secretion is mediated through the interaction of the FN's Fap2 protein with Gal-GalNAc present on PTdNKs. Finally, we show in vivo, using GNLY-tg mice that enhanced protection of the fetuses from FN infection is observed, as compared to wild type and that this enhance protection is NK cell dependent. Altogether, we show a new function for PTdNKs as protectors of the fetus from bacterial infection., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Kotzur et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)