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Motivation Screening bioactive compounds in cancer cell lines receive more attention. Multidisciplinary drugs or drug combinations have a more effective role in treatments and selectively inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Results Hence, we propose a new deep learning-based approach for drug combination synergy prediction called DeepTraSynergy. Our proposed approach utilizes multimodal input including drug–target interaction, protein–protein interaction, and cell–target interaction to predict drug combination synergy. To learn the feature representation of drugs, we have utilized transformers. It is worth noting that our approach is a multitask approach that predicts three outputs including the drug–target interaction, its toxic effect, and drug combination synergy. In our approach, drug combination synergy is the main task and the two other ones are the auxiliary tasks that help the approach to learn a better model. In the proposed approach three loss functions are defined: synergy loss, toxic loss, and drug–protein interaction loss. The last two loss functions are designed as auxiliary losses to help learn a better solution. DeepTraSynergy outperforms the classic and state-of-the-art models in predicting synergistic drug combinations on the two latest drug combination datasets. The DeepTraSynergy algorithm achieves accuracy values of 0.7715 and 0.8052 (an improvement over other approaches) on the DrugCombDB and Oncology-Screen datasets, respectively. Also, we evaluate the contribution of each component of DeepTraSynergy to show its effectiveness in the proposed method. The introduction of the relation between proteins (PPI networks) and drug–protein interaction significantly improves the prediction of synergistic drug combinations. Availability and implementation The source code and data are available at https://github.com/fatemeh-rafiei/DeepTraSynergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Decompensated cirrhosis patients have a high risk of death which can be considerably reduced with liver transplantation (LT). This study aimed to simultaneously investigate the effect of some patients' characteristics on mortality among those with/without LT and also LT incident. Materials and Methods: In this historical cohort study, the information from 780 eligible patients aged 18 years or older was analyzed by the Markov multistate model; they had been listed between 2008 and 2014, needed a single organ for initial orthotopic LT, and followed at least for up to 5 years. Results: With a median survival time of 6 (5-8) years, there were 275 (35%) deaths. From 255 (33%) patients who had LT, 55 (21%) subsequently died. Factors associated with a higher risk of mortality and LT occurrence were included: higher model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.16, confidence interval [CI]: 1.09-1.24 and HR = 1.22, CI: 1.41-1.30) and ascites complication (HR = 2.34, CI: 1.74-3.16 and HR = 11.43, CI: 8.64-15.12). Older age (HR = 1.03, CI: 1.01-1.06), higher creatinine (HR = 6.87, CI: 1.45-32.56), and autoimmune disease versus hepatitis (HR = 2.53, CI: 1.12-5.73) were associated with increased risk of mortality after LT. Conclusion: The MELD and ascites are influential factors on waiting list mortality and occurrence of LT. Total life expectancy is not influenced by higher MELD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: The prediction of in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes by anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) measurement is getting increasing attention from clinicians. This study compares the relationship between serum or intrafollicular AMH levels and IVF outcomes in women with and without polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Methods: This prospective study was carried out in two university-based fertility clinics. Serum samples were collected on cycle day 3 and follicular fluid (FF) was collected on the day of oocyte retrieval from 26 women with PCOS and 42 normo-ovulatory controls. AMH levels were measured in the samples using immunoenzymatic assay. The relationship between serum or FF AMH levels and IVF outcomes, including number of oocytes retrieved, oocyte maturation rate, fertilization rate, implantation rate, high quality grade embryo rate, and biochemical and clinical pregnancy rates were further assessed. Results: Median serum basal AMH and FF AMH levels were significantly higher in the PCOS group as compared to controls, the values being 14.2 ng/mL vs. 3.2 ng/mL (PPP=.037 in control vs. r=0.529; P=.005 in PCOS). In the control group, there was a positive relationship between serum basal AMH levels and percentage of matured oocytes (r = 0.331; P=.032) and implantation rate (r=0.305; P=.05). Conclusion: Serum basal, and not intrafollicular, AMH levels may be a good predictive factor for quantitative and qualitative IVF outcomes in normo-ovulatory, but not in PCOS patients.

Cox model and traditional frailty models assume that all individuals will eventually experience the event of interest. This assumption is often overlooked, and situations will arise where it is not realistic. We introduce Compound Poisson frailty model for survival analysis to deal with populations in which some of the individuals will not experience the event of interest. This model assumes that the target population is a mixture of individuals with zero frailty and those with positive frailty. In this paper, we consider a compound Poisson frailty model for right-censored event times from a Bayesian perspective and compute the Bayesian estimator using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method, where a Gamma process prior is adopted for the baseline hazard function. Furthermore, we evaluate the approach using simulation studies and demonstrate the methodology by analyzing the data from achalasia patient cohort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal vaccination of neonates and children against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis has had a tremendous impact on the control of these infectious diseases worldwide. Immunization by the triple diphtheria, tetanus and whole cell pertussis vaccine (DTwP) has been applied in Iran for almost 50 years. Periodic assessment of immunogenicity of this vaccine is an important aspect of successful mass vaccination programs. The present study was performed to assess the antibody response against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis in a group of Iranian infants vaccinated with a local DTwP vaccine. In this prospective study, 330 infants received primary vaccination at 2, 4 and 6 months of age with DTwP vaccine manufactured by Razi Institute of Iran. Blood samples were taken 2-4 weeks after the third dose to assess seroprotection and geometric mean titers (GMT) of specific antibodies. Among the 283 infants who completed the vaccination course, 98.2% and 100% developed antibodies against diphtheria and tetanus, respectively. The GMT of antibodies to tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, were 2.09 IU/ml, 2.08 IU/ml and 8.73 EU/ml, respectively. Comparison of the results obtained from this study with those from previous studies performed in other countries revealed a similar GMT and protection rates for diphtheria and tetanus components. In the absence of well-established serological criteria, judgment about protection rate against pertussis has not been possible. A prospective vaccination study using the local DTwP vaccine in parallel to a WHO approved standard vaccine, could enable assessment of immunogenicity of the pertussis component.