The study examined high-risk patients attributed to primary care practices supported by the Johns Hopkins Care Transformation Organization and participating in the Maryland Primary Care Program between December 2021 and January 2024. Investigators measured acute hospitalizations, emergency department visits, 30-day readmissions and associated acute care expenditures during the six months before and after each patient’s index date. The design allowed the researchers to compare changes among patients who engaged with chronic care management with concurrent changes among randomly sampled non-engaged patients. Because the study was observational, however, its estimates demonstrate an association between program engagement and subsequent outcomes rather than establishing that the program caused the differences.

The intervention was delivered through a multidisciplinary team that included registered nurse care managers, supported by pharmacy, behavioral health and community health worker services as clinically indicated. Chronic care management programs aim to reduce avoidable acute care utilization through improved care coordination, but the supplied study notes that evidence about their effectiveness among high-risk patients has remained mixed. An important feature of this cohort was that participants had substantially higher baseline acute care utilization than the non-engaged comparison group. Propensity-score matching was used to improve comparability when estimating the association between engagement and outcomes during the follow-up period.

In the unmatched analysis, chronic care management engagement was associated with a 54% relative reduction in hospitalizations, with an incidence rate ratio of 0.46 and a 95% confidence interval of 0.35 to 0.62. Emergency department visits were 33% lower, with an incidence rate ratio of 0.67 and a 95% confidence interval of 0.52 to 0.85. The propensity-score–matched analysis yielded an average treatment effect on the treated of −0.22 for hospitalizations, with a 95% confidence interval of −0.29 to −0.16, and −0.20 for emergency department visits, with a 95% confidence interval of −0.28 to −0.13. For 30-day readmissions, the matched estimated effect was 0.00, with a 95% confidence interval of −0.03 to 0.03; the study therefore found no significant between-group difference in readmissions.

The results connect engagement with a comprehensive care model to reduced hospitalizations, fewer emergency department visits and lower associated acute care spending in a high-risk primary care population. The clearest signals involved hospital and emergency department use rather than readmissions, for which no significant between-group difference was detected. Interpretation is limited by the observational design, the focus on one Maryland program and the marked imbalance in baseline utilization between participants and controls. Although the concurrent comparison group and propensity-score matching improved comparability, they could not eliminate all potential differences between patients or prove causation. The evidence therefore supports an association between chronic care management engagement and lower acute care utilization and expenditures, not a definitive conclusion that the program alone produced those outcomes.

Subject of Research: Chronic care management and acute care utilization among high-risk Maryland primary care patients

Article Title: Association of a Chronic Care Management Model with Health Care Costs and Utilization

Article References: Bhatla, A., Mueller, A. K., Fu, J., Norman, T., Eldridge, J., Tschudy, M. M., & Berkowitz, S. A. (2026). Association of a Chronic Care Management Model with Health Care Costs and Utilization. Journal of General Internal Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-026-10948-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11606-026-10948-9

Keywords: chronic care management, health care utilization, hospital admissions, emergency department visits, 30-day readmissions, acute care expenditures, care coordination, propensity-score matching, high-risk patients, primary care, Association, Chronic

The analysis addressed an unresolved dosing question for patients with severe HIV-associated PJP who receive adjunctive corticosteroids under clinical guidelines. Investigators categorized patients using a prespecified ratio of daily corticosteroid dose to body weight recorded in the study database. Patients receiving less than 1 mg/kg/day were assigned to the lower-dose group, while those receiving at least 1 mg/kg/day were assigned to the higher-dose group.

Because this was a retrospective study, dosing was not assigned randomly, and baseline imbalances were observed between the groups before matching. Researchers used 1:1 propensity-score matching with clinically relevant baseline covariates to reduce measured differences between the dosing groups, then evaluated balance using standardized mean differences. The procedure yielded 58 patients per group.

All-cause mortality did not differ significantly between the regimens, with log-rank p-values of 0.827 for the 28-day comparison and 0.961 for the 90-day comparison. A parsimonious propensity-score sensitivity analysis that excluded the APACHE II score and total Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score produced qualitatively similar conclusions for survival at both time points. These findings show that no survival advantage was detected with the higher-dose regimen in the matched population; they do not establish that the dosing strategies are equivalent, because the retrospective study was not designed as an equivalence or noninferiority study.

The higher-dose regimen also showed no statistically significant overall advantage on the prespecified secondary outcomes. None of these comparisons showed a statistically significant between-group difference. The study likewise identified no statistically significant overall differences in corticosteroid-related adverse events, including hyperglycemia and secondary infection.

That result means no difference was detected in the analyzed sample, rather than demonstrating that the regimens carry identical risks. Several features limit the strength and generalizability of the findings. The study was retrospective, treatment was not randomly assigned, and the matched sample was relatively small.

Propensity-score matching can address measured baseline differences but cannot eliminate all potential residual confounding. The investigators also noted that the conclusions could be sensitive to the specification of the propensity-score model, although the sensitivity analysis excluding APACHE II and total SOFA did not materially alter the survival results. Overall, among patients with severe HIV-associated PJP receiving adjunctive corticosteroids, a daily dose of at least 1 mg/kg was not associated with improved 28-day or 90-day survival compared with a dose below 1 mg/kg after matching.

No statistically significant overall differences were identified in the prespecified secondary outcomes or recorded adverse events, but the evidence warrants cautious interpretation rather than a claim of equivalence.

Subject of Research: Corticosteroid dose and clinical outcomes in severe HIV-associated Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia

Article Title: Efficacy and safety of high-dose versus low-dose corticosteroid therapy in severe patients with HIV-associated Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia

Article References: Liu, J., Hao, J., Wang, Y., Du, C., Liu, J., & Li, A. (2026). Efficacy and safety of high-dose versus low-dose corticosteroid therapy in severe patients with HIV-associated Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia. BMC Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-026-14545-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12879-026-14545-3

Keywords: HIV, Pneumocystis jirovecii, pneumonia, corticosteroids, dose comparison, propensity-score matching, mortality, retrospective study, Efficacy, safety, high-dose, versus

The study included 76 patients with lymphoma and 30 with multiple myeloma who underwent transplantation at Shanxi Province Cancer Hospital between January 2015 and December 2023. Following propensity score matching, 53 patients received intravenous melphalan and 53 received oral melphalan. The primary endpoint was 3-year progression-free survival, and follow-up continued through September 2024.

Lymphoma patients received BEAM conditioning containing carmustine, etoposide, cytarabine and a total of 140 mg/m² melphalan on day −1. The dose was delivered as one intravenous infusion or two equal oral doses approximately 12 hours apart under fasting conditions. Multiple myeloma patients received 200 mg/m² over two days, either as two daily intravenous infusions or four divided oral doses.

Route assignment was not randomized. It reflected patient preference, financial considerations, discussion of off-label oral use and intermittent shortages of intravenous melphalan. Propensity matching addressed measured baseline factors but did not remove all imbalances, including sex distribution in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, time to transplantation in Hodgkin lymphoma and M-component type in multiple myeloma.

All matched patients achieved hematopoietic reconstitution. Among patients with lymphoma, median neutrophil engraftment took 10 days with intravenous melphalan and 12 days with oral melphalan (p = 0.025). In multiple myeloma, median platelet engraftment took 11 and 14 days, respectively (p = 0.021), while neutrophil engraftment was 11 days in both groups. Red blood cell and platelet transfusion requirements did not differ significantly.

Grade 3–4 anemia was more frequent with oral melphalan, affecting 37.74% of patients versus 18.87% with intravenous treatment (p = 0.031). Febrile neutropenia was less frequent with oral melphalan, occurring in 35.85% versus 56.60% (p = 0.032). Within the oral group, grade 3–4 anemia was associated with delayed platelet engraftment, appearing in 62.5% of patients with delayed engraftment and 21.4% of those without it (p = 0.008).

Gastrointestinal toxicity followed the opposite pattern. Diarrhea occurred in 18.87% of oral recipients and 37.74% of intravenous recipients (p = 0.031), while oral mucositis occurred in 7.55% and 33.96%, respectively (p = 0.001). Nausea or vomiting, elevated transaminases and electrolyte disorders did not differ significantly. No deaths occurred before day 100.

At day 100, complete response rates were 92.11% with intravenous melphalan and 81.58% with oral treatment in lymphoma (p = 0.123). In multiple myeloma, both groups had complete response rates of 40.00% (p = 1.000). Estimated 3-year progression-free survival was 78.9% versus 81.6% in lymphoma and 66.7% versus 73.3% in multiple myeloma; corresponding overall survival estimates were 89.5% versus 86.8% and 86.7% versus 80.0%. None of these comparisons was statistically significant.

Multivariable analyses did not identify melphalan route as an independent predictor of progression-free or overall survival. However, the retrospective single-center design, residual confounding, small subgroups, unequal follow-up in lymphoma and absence of pharmacokinetic measurements limit interpretation. Oral melphalan has reported bioavailability of 20–60%, so the observed clinical similarity does not demonstrate bioequivalence. The authors called for prospective multicenter studies with pharmacokinetic assessment.

Subject of Research: Comparative outcomes and toxicity of oral versus intravenous melphalan conditioning for autologous stem cell transplantation in lymphoma and multiple myeloma

Article Title: Oral versus intravenous melphalan for autologous stem cell transplantation conditioning in lymphoma and multiple myeloma: a retrospective cohort study

Article References: Wang, J., Guo, Y., Zhao, J., Wen, X., Su, L., Hao, Z., & Yang, J. (2026). Oral versus intravenous melphalan for autologous stem cell transplantation conditioning in lymphoma and multiple myeloma: a retrospective cohort study. Frontiers in Oncology, 16, Article 1923679. https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2026.1923679

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2026.1923679

Keywords: melphalan, autologous stem cell transplantation, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, oral administration, intravenous administration, engraftment, treatment toxicity, propensity score matching, survival outcomes, Oral, versus

Adults with type 2 diabetes initiated either GLP-1 receptor agonists or dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors between 2018 and 2022. The groups were matched at a 1:1 ratio with propensity score methods, and the analysis used Cox models to estimate associations over time. The Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery rate procedure covered six evaluated outcomes.

Newly recorded ankylosing spondylitis diagnoses occurred in 0.15% of patients initiating GLP-1 receptor agonists and 0.10% of those initiating dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors. The estimated hazard ratio was 1.49, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.16–1.91 and a P value of 0.001. The primary association was directionally consistent across prespecified sensitivity analyses, according to the study abstract.

Polyosteoarthritis showed a nominal association with GLP-1 receptor agonist initiation: diagnoses were recorded in 1.80% of the GLP-1 receptor agonist group and 1.73% of the comparator group, with a hazard ratio of 1.07 and a 95% confidence interval of 1.01–1.15. Its unadjusted P value was 0.031, but the association was not significant after false discovery rate adjustment, for which the adjusted P value was 0.093. Rheumatoid arthritis, other rheumatoid arthritis, gout and Sjögren’s syndrome did not differ significantly between the groups.

The authors characterized the ankylosing spondylitis finding as a potential comparative safety signal that warrants independent confirmation. The result identifies a signal for further investigation rather than a definitive clinical conclusion.

Subject of Research: Comparative safety associations of GLP-1 receptor agonists and newly recorded ankylosing spondylitis diagnoses in adults with type 2 diabetes

Article Title: GLP-1 receptor agonist initiation and newly recorded ankylosing spondylitis diagnoses in type 2 diabetes: a target trial emulation

Article References: Lu, Y.-C., Li, T.-H., Liu, Y.-F., & Tsai, M.-H. (2026). GLP-1 receptor agonist initiation and newly recorded ankylosing spondylitis diagnoses in type 2 diabetes: a target trial emulation. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-75731-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-75731-6

Keywords: GLP-1 receptor agonists, ankylosing spondylitis, type 2 diabetes, DPP-4 inhibitors, target trial emulation, observational study, drug safety, TriNetX, propensity score matching, hazard ratio, GLP-1, receptor

The new research, published in Frontiers in Endocrinology, compared ultrasound-guided thermal ablation with conventional surgical resection in patients with small papillary thyroid carcinomas confined to the danger triangle. Papillary thyroid carcinoma is the most common thyroid malignancy, accounting for more than 80 percent of all thyroid cancers, and most of these tumors are indolent—slow-growing enough that treatment decisions hinge on balancing cure against harm. The danger triangle, however, raises the stakes: its cramped geometry complicates both surgery and ablation, and earlier studies had only short-term data to justify treating tumors there with heat rather than resection.

The study team reviewed 470 patients treated at two Chinese hospitals between September 2016 and April 2020 and, after applying strict criteria, analyzed 194 of them: 103 who received thermal ablation and 91 who had surgery. Because patients were not randomized, the researchers used propensity score matching to balance the two groups on age, sex, tumor size and volume, hormone levels, and precise anatomical distances—such as how far the tumor sat from the tracheoesophageal groove. After matching, 84 patients per group remained, and the groups were statistically indistinguishable at baseline.

The ablation technique itself is a study in precision. Performed under local anesthesia and real-time ultrasound guidance, the procedure uses either radiofrequency or microwave energy delivered through a thin electrode inserted through the isthmus of the gland. To protect the recurrent laryngeal nerve, trachea, and esophagus, the team continuously infused 5 percent dextrose solution around the tumor—a technique called hydrodissection that pushes vulnerable structures at least 5 millimeters away from the heat zone. Operators then used a low-power, moving-shot technique to destroy the tumor plus a margin of at least 3 millimeters, sparing the capsule where margins could not be extended safely. Immediate contrast-enhanced ultrasound confirmed that every treated lesion showed no residual blood flow, a 100 percent technical success rate.

Surgery, by contrast, followed Chinese national consensus guidelines and included prophylactic central neck dissection in all cases—a precaution reflecting concern that tumors abutting the posterior capsule carry a higher risk of hidden lymph node spread. Most surgical patients (88 percent) underwent lobectomy; the rest had total thyroidectomy, often driven by family history of thyroid cancer. The mean incision measured about 7.2 centimeters, compared with a 1-to-2-millimeter puncture for ablation.

After a median follow-up of roughly five and a half years in both groups, the oncologic results were strikingly similar. Overall disease progression occurred in 6.0 percent of the ablation group versus 4.8 percent of the surgery group—a difference with no statistical significance. Regional lymph node metastasis appeared in 1.2 percent of ablated patients and 3.6 percent of surgical patients; local tumor progression at the treatment site occurred in 3.6 percent versus 1.2 percent. Disease-free survival was 94 percent after ablation and 95.2 percent after surgery. No patient in either group developed distant metastasis. Notably, the ablation zone vanished completely in 94 percent of treated nodules over time, with smaller T1a tumors disappearing faster (a median of 24 months) than the larger T1b tumors (36 months).

The safety picture told a different story. Total complications were nearly three times more common after surgery: 16.7 percent versus 6.0 percent, a statistically significant difference. Every major complication occurred in the surgical group—four cases of permanent hoarseness from nerve injury and two cases of permanent hypoparathyroidism, both in patients who had total thyroidectomy. In the ablation group, the only complications were five cases of transient hoarseness, all of which resolved within six months without treatment. Among the smallest tumors (T1a, one centimeter or less), the safety gap widened further: 3.0 percent complication rate for ablation versus 15.3 percent for surgery. The authors caution that this subgroup finding is exploratory, given the small number of events.

Efficiency metrics favored ablation across the board. The average procedure took 23 minutes versus 82 minutes for surgery. Hospital stay averaged one day versus 3.3 days. Estimated blood loss was about 2 milliliters versus nearly 20. For elderly patients or those with comorbidities, the authors argue, such a short, low-risk pathway reduces not only perioperative danger but also healthcare resource use. And because ablation preserves the gland, patients avoid lifelong thyroid hormone replacement—a meaningful quality-of-life advantage that surgery cannot offer unless only one lobe is removed.

The study’s authors are careful about what the data do and do not show. Because no formal sample size calculation was performed, the similar outcomes cannot be formally interpreted as proof of equivalence or non-inferiority—a statistical distinction that matters. The retrospective design leaves room for unmeasured confounders such as patient preference and frailty. The ablation cohort mixed radiofrequency and microwave devices, and every ablation was performed by radiologists with more than a decade of experience, limiting generalizability to lower-volume centers. Differing follow-up schedules—ablation patients were imaged more often early on—could also bias event detection. Still, the authors note that progression rates rose only slightly from their earlier three-year report (from 4.4 to 6.0 percent in the ablation group), confirming durable oncologic stability.

The significance of the work lies in where it lands. The danger triangle has been a holdout region, where the proximity of nerve, trachea, and esophagus made many clinicians reluctant to ablate. By pairing hydrodissection with low-power, short-electrode techniques and rigorous ultrasound surveillance, this study shows that the same rules that made ablation safe elsewhere in the gland can be stretched into its most hostile corner. The authors call for multicenter randomized trials to confirm the findings, but for now the message is concrete: for carefully selected patients with small papillary thyroid carcinomas in the danger triangle, a needle, some dextrose, and a steady ultrasound-guided hand can match the oncologic results of surgery while sparing the voice, the parathyroids, and most of a hospital week.

Subject of Research: Long-term comparison of thermal ablation versus surgical resection for T1N0M0 papillary thyroid carcinoma in the thyroid danger triangle

Article Title: Long term (over five-year) outcomes of thermal ablation vs surgical resection for T1N0M0 papillary thyroid carcinoma in danger triangle: a propensity-matched dual-center study

Article References: Zhang, D., Chen, S., Yang, J., Qiu, Y., Zhao, Z., Tang, L., Hu, T., Yu, M.-A., & Wu, S. (2026). Long term (over five-year) outcomes of thermal ablation vs surgical resection for T1N0M0 papillary thyroid carcinoma in danger triangle: a propensity-matched dual-center study. Frontiers in Endocrinology, 17, Article 1887923. https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2026.1887923

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fendo.2026.1887923

Keywords: papillary thyroid carcinoma, thermal ablation, radiofrequency ablation, thyroid danger triangle, propensity score matching, disease-free survival, recurrent laryngeal nerve, hydrodissection, thyroid surgery, minimally invasive treatment, lymph node metastasis, complication rates

The research team, led by Xinwei Wu, Danni Wang, Yangbin Shi and senior authors Baohui Han and Wei Zhang, analyzed the records of 512 patients with previously untreated stage III or IV EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer who began therapy between January 2017 and December 2023. Because patients were not randomly assigned to treatment groups, the investigators used propensity-score matching, a statistical technique that pairs patients across groups according to similar baseline characteristics such as age, sex, smoking history, disease stage and mutation type. After this 1:2 matching, 364 patients formed the balanced comparison cohort, allowing the team to estimate treatment effects while minimizing the confounding that plagues observational data.

The biological logic behind the two competing strategies is worth unpacking. First-generation inhibitors such as gefitinib and erlotinib reversibly block the mutated EGFR signaling hub that drives tumor growth, while second-generation drugs like afatinib bind irreversibly and target a broader family of related receptors. Third-generation inhibitors, exemplified by osimertinib, were engineered to selectively inhibit the most common sensitizing EGFR mutations while sparing the normal receptor, and to remain active against the T790M resistance mutation that frequently emerges under pressure from earlier drugs. In clinical guidelines, third-generation monotherapy is the recommended first-line standard, but in practice — particularly in health systems where the newer drug is expensive or not reimbursed — many physicians still prescribe older inhibitors in combination regimens, for example paired with chemotherapy or with a second targeted agent, in an attempt to squeeze out additional efficacy.

The access problem is far from marginal. As the authors note, as of October 2024 first-line osimertinib was not routinely reimbursed in five Asian countries, meaning that a substantial global population of patients faces exactly the choice this study examined. Direct head-to-head real-world comparisons between the two strategies had been scarce, which is what makes the new analysis a meaningful addition to the evidence base: it reflects the messy realities of clinical practice rather than the carefully curated conditions of a randomized trial.

On the primary endpoint of progression-free survival — the time a patient lives without the cancer growing or spreading — the third-generation monotherapy group clearly came out ahead. Median progression-free survival reached 20.5 months compared with 16.0 months for the combination approach, a difference that translated into a 37 percent reduction in the risk of progression or death (hazard ratio 0.63, 95 percent confidence interval 0.50 to 0.80, P less than 0.001). Importantly, the benefit was not confined to a narrow slice of patients. It held across both sexes, among smokers and never-smokers, in stage III and stage IV disease alike, in older patients, in those with good performance status, in patients with adenocarcinoma histology, in those whose tumors carried the exon 19 deletion — the most common sensitizing EGFR alteration — and in patients without brain metastases at baseline.

Tumor shrinkage, by contrast, told a different story. The objective response rate, which measures the proportion of patients whose tumors shrink measurably, was 63.1 percent with third-generation monotherapy versus 59.6 percent with combination therapy, a difference that was not statistically significant. The disease control rate — encompassing responses plus stable disease — was essentially identical at 99.2 percent and 99.5 percent. In other words, both strategies could suppress the cancer effectively in the short term; what separated them was durability, the length of time that control lasted before resistance emerged and the disease resumed its advance.

The most provocative finding concerned overall survival. Median overall survival was 46.1 months with third-generation monotherapy and 41.6 months with the combination strategy, a gap of four and a half months that nonetheless failed to reach statistical significance (hazard ratio 0.95, 95 percent confidence interval 0.72 to 1.26, P equal to 0.721). The explanation, the authors argue, lies in the sequencing patterns captured in the data: among patients who started on the older combination, 70.5 percent went on to receive a third-generation inhibitor in a later line of treatment after progression. Those who made that switch lived significantly longer than those who did not. In effect, the newer drug delivered much of its survival benefit even when it arrived second — a phenomenon that blurs the difference between the two initial strategies when the endpoint is measured over the entire course of care.

Tolerability data added a further consideration. Adverse-event-related discontinuation and dose reduction were both more frequent in the combination therapy group, suggesting that stacking an older EGFR inhibitor with additional agents extracts a price in side effects and treatment interruptions. For a therapy intended to be taken continuously for many months, the ability of patients to stay on the drug at full intensity is not a trivial matter; it shapes both quality of life and the effective dose delivered to the tumor over time.

The authors’ conclusion is carefully calibrated. Their findings support third-generation EGFR inhibitors as the preferred first-line option where they are accessible, reinforcing existing guideline recommendations with real-world evidence. At the same time, they acknowledge that for selected patients — particularly in settings with limited reimbursement or high out-of-pocket costs — first- or second-generation combination therapy remains a reasonable alternative, especially given that later switching to a third-generation drug can still be associated with extended survival. The retrospective design and the reliance on propensity-score matching mean residual confounding cannot be excluded, and the sequencing effect on overall survival complicates any simple interpretation of the survival endpoint. Still, for clinicians and health policymakers weighing the cost of expanding access to newer targeted agents, the study offers a quantified answer: the newer drug buys more time before progression, with fewer treatment-limiting side effects, and its benefit persists even when it is deployed later in the treatment sequence.

Beyond the immediate clinical question, the study speaks to a broader tension in modern oncology: the gap between what trials demonstrate in ideal conditions and what patients actually receive across diverse health systems. As targeted therapies proliferate, sequencing has become as consequential as selection, and evidence like this — drawn from hundreds of consecutive real patients over seven years — helps illuminate how the order of the queue shapes outcomes. For the growing number of countries still negotiating reimbursement for third-generation EGFR inhibitors, the message from Shanghai is that the wait carries a measurable cost in progression-free time, even if clever sequencing can partially, but not entirely, recover the ground later.

Subject of Research: Comparative effectiveness of first-/second-generation versus third-generation EGFR-TKI therapy in untreated advanced EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer

Article Title: Comparative effectiveness of first-/second-generation EGFR-TKI combination therapy versus third-generation EGFR-TKI monotherapy in untreated locally advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutant NSCLC: a real-world, retrospective study in China

Article References: Wu, X., Wang, D., Shi, Y., Liu, B., Qian, F., Zhao, T., Lu, J., Zhang, Y., Lou, Y., Han, B., & Zhang, W. (2026). Comparative effectiveness of first-/second-generation EGFR-TKI combination therapy versus third-generation EGFR-TKI monotherapy in untreated locally advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutant NSCLC: a real-world, retrospective study in China. BMC Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-026-05340-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12916-026-05340-7

Keywords: EGFR-mutant NSCLC, EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors, osimertinib, third-generation TKI monotherapy, combination therapy, progression-free survival, overall survival, propensity-score matching, real-world evidence, targeted therapy sequencing, lung cancer, drug reimbursement

The study drew on 4,209 volunteers recruited between January 2022 and December 2023 through the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Loudi Hospital), including 2,898 women and 1,311 men. All participants were healthy controls screened to exclude active immune disorders, malignancies, recent infections, and immunosuppressive therapy. Researchers measured ten immune parameters in peripheral blood using flow cytometry, covering total T cells, CD4+ and CD8+ T cell subsets, the CD4/CD8 ratio, B cells, natural killer cells, NKT cells, and expression of the checkpoint molecule PD-1 on several cell types.

Because raw immune measurements rarely follow a normal distribution, the team applied Box-Cox transformations and Tukey’s method to remove outliers before analysis, leaving between 4,123 and 4,204 reference individuals per parameter. Age-related trends were then examined with sex-stratified smooth curves and non-parametric tests, and a 1:1 propensity score matching procedure was used to build age-balanced male and female cohorts for direct comparison.

The headline finding is a sharp sexual dimorphism in B cell dynamics. In women, the proportion of CD19+ B cells rose with age, while in men it fell, producing opposite trajectories that the authors link tentatively to hormonal regulation and X-chromosome-encoded immune genes. After age matching, women had significantly higher B cell percentages than men, but a stratified analysis showed this gap was not significant before age 50 and only emerged after menopause, pointing to the postmenopausal window as the critical period.

T cell subsets told an equally striking story. In women, CD4+ helper T cells and the CD4/CD8 ratio climbed to a peak in the 55-to-59-year age group, while CD8+ cytotoxic T cells declined steadily across the lifespan. The authors describe this as a “scissor-like” pattern that closely parallels the abrupt drop in estrogen levels around menopause. Because hormone levels were not directly measured, they caution that this mechanistic interpretation remains speculative, but the timing of the immune shift aligns closely with the typical age of menopause as defined by the STRAW+10 staging framework.

PD-1, an immune checkpoint molecule best known as the target of modern cancer immunotherapies, showed a complex, cell-type-specific pattern. Women had lower PD-1 expression on CD4+ T cells and NK cells but higher PD-1 on CD8+ T cells, and the proportion of CD8+ PD-1+ cells showed a transient peak in the 60-to-64-year group. The authors suggest this may mark a window of heightened functional dysregulation in cytotoxic immunity, with potential relevance for how immune checkpoint status should be interpreted across demographic groups.

Innate immunity shifted as well. Natural killer cell percentages increased with age in both sexes, but the rise was markedly steeper in men, and the fraction of NK cells expressing PD-1 declined significantly with age in women. NKT cells, by contrast, showed no significant age-related trend. After age matching, women had higher NK cell and NKT cell proportions than men, alongside their higher CD4/CD8 ratios, reinforcing the picture of two distinct immune aging trajectories.

The findings carry practical implications. Because women generally mount stronger vaccine responses but suffer more autoimmune disease, and because PD-1 expression shapes anti-tumor immunity and postoperative infection risk, the authors argue that both sex and reproductive stage should be factored into studies of immune aging and into interventions such as vaccination strategies for middle-aged women. The observed B cell persistence in older women may represent a distinctive adaptive feature of female immunosenescence, though its consequences for humoral immunity remain to be tested.

The study has clear limitations. It is cross-sectional, so it captures age-related differences between individuals rather than tracking immune changes within the same person over time. Without menstrual records or hormone measurements, the researchers could not formally stage participants under STRAW+10 and instead used age groups as an approximation, meaning the 50-to-54-year group inevitably mixes perimenopausal and early postmenopausal women. The authors call for longitudinal studies that pair hormone monitoring with systematic reproductive staging to confirm whether the menopausal transition itself drives the immune shifts observed here.

Even with those caveats, the scale of the cohort and the consistency of the sex differences make a strong case that immunosenescence is not a single process but two, diverging sharply at midlife. For a field in which clinical trial populations and reference ranges have historically skewed male, the message is that middle-aged women may need their own immunological yardsticks, and that menopause deserves a place alongside chronological age as a variable in immune research.

Subject of Research: Sex differences in lymphocyte subset changes during the menopausal transition and immunosenescence

Article Title: Dynamic Shifts in Lymphocyte Subsets During the Menopausal Transition and Sexual Dimorphism in Immunosenescence

Article References: Xuan, C., He, L., Bohan, Z., Junming, X., Qingchao, L., & Junting, H. (2026). Dynamic Shifts in Lymphocyte Subsets During the Menopausal Transition and Sexual Dimorphism in Immunosenescence. Immunity, Inflammation and Disease, 14(10), Article e70558. https://doi.org/10.1002/iid3.70558

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/iid3.70558

Keywords: immunosenescence, menopause, lymphocyte subsets, PD-1, T cells, B cells, natural killer cells, sexual dimorphism, flow cytometry, estrogen, immune aging, propensity score matching

The analysis drew on unit-level data from the fourth and fifth rounds of the National Family Health Survey, conducted in 2015-16 and 2019-21 respectively, covering a total of 14,542 tribal households across Odisha. This period is analytically valuable because it straddles the launch of the Ujjwala scheme, allowing researchers to compare clean fuel adoption before and after the policy intervention. The headline number is stark: clean cooking fuel use among tribal households rose from just 5.3 percent in the fourth round to 12.6 percent in the fifth. That is a substantial relative improvement, yet it means that nearly nine out of ten tribal households in the state still relied on traditional biomass such as firewood, dung and crop residues for their daily cooking, with all the health and environmental burdens that entails.

To understand why some households made the switch and others did not, the researchers estimated binary probit and logit models, standard econometric techniques for modelling a binary outcome such as whether or not a household uses a clean fuel. Because these models produce coefficients that are not directly interpretable as probabilities, the team also calculated marginal effects, the change in the probability of adoption associated with each factor. The models were estimated separately for the two survey rounds and for rural and urban subsamples, and the results were statistically robust, with Wald chi-square tests significant at the one percent level and pseudo R-squared values indicating strong explanatory power.

The determinants that emerged tell a consistent story. Urban residence substantially increased the likelihood of clean fuel use: in the fifth round, the marginal effect of urban living was 8.2 percentage points, meaning urban tribal households were considerably more likely to cook with LPG than their rural counterparts, reflecting better supply chains, distribution networks and market access. Female-headed households were also more likely to adopt clean fuels, an effect that grew stronger between the two survey rounds, consistent with the idea that women, who bear the primary burden of cooking and fuel collection, are powerful agents of transition when they control household decisions. Education mattered in a graded fashion: primary education raised adoption modestly, secondary education more strongly, and higher education most strongly of all, with a marginal effect of 6.2 percentage points in the recent round.

Wealth was the single most powerful predictor. Households classified as rich had a marginal effect of 47.6 percentage points relative to poor households in the fifth round, while middle-wealth households showed an effect of 16.4 points. This gradient underscores a central tension in clean cooking policy: a free LPG connection does not by itself overcome the recurring costs of refills, which many poor households find prohibitive. The finding that larger family size reduced the probability of adoption, with a marginal effect of minus 2.4 percentage points per additional member, likely reflects the economics of cooking volume, since bigger families need more fuel and biomass remains effectively free even when its true cost, measured in smoke and labour, is enormous.

Two other negative determinants deserve attention because they speak to the specific livelihoods of tribal communities. Ownership of agricultural land reduced adoption probability by 1.7 percentage points, and ownership of livestock or farm animals reduced it by 2.2 points. These assets tie households to agrarian routines in which biomass is readily available and often collected as a by-product of farm work, lowering the perceived need to purchase fuel. Even more striking was the effect of cooking location: households that cooked outdoors were 11 percentage points less likely to use clean fuel than those with a separate kitchen room. Outdoor cooking, common in many tribal settlements, appears to reduce the perceived health benefits of switching, since smoke disperses in open air, and it also reflects housing conditions that limit the practical use of LPG stoves.

To isolate the effect of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana itself, the researchers employed a Propensity Score Matching combined with a Difference-in-Differences design, a quasi-experimental approach that compares below-poverty-line households eligible for the scheme with comparable non-eligible households before and after the intervention. The matching step constructs a counterfactual group of households statistically similar in observable characteristics, while the difference-in-differences step nets out time trends that would have occurred regardless of the policy. The results indicated a significantly higher increase in LPG adoption among below-poverty-line households during the PMUY period, providing credible evidence that the scheme did accelerate the transition among its intended beneficiaries rather than merely subsidising households that would have switched anyway.

The study also examined LPG adoption before and after the COVID-19 lockdown using the fifth-round data, with a treatment variable identifying PMUY households and an interaction term capturing the differential post-lockdown change. The interaction was positive and significant, with a marginal effect of 12.9 percentage points in the pre-COVID specification and 14.4 points in the post-COVID specification, again suggesting that the scheme’s beneficiaries gained ground relative to others. Yet the authors caution that connection-based targets are not the same as sustained use. A household that receives a free cylinder and regulator may revert to biomass once the first refills must be purchased at market prices, a pattern of partial or stacked fuel use that has been documented across the Global South and that limits the health dividends of LPG programmes.

The health stakes of this transition are considerable. Burning solid biomass indoors releases fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide and other pollutants at concentrations far exceeding safe guidelines, and the burden falls disproportionately on the women and children who spend the most time near the cookstove. Respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular strain and low birth weight are among the documented consequences of household air pollution. For tribal communities, which already face elevated poverty and reduced access to healthcare, the persistence of biomass cooking represents a compounding disadvantage, which is precisely why the slow pace of transition documented in Odisha matters beyond the state’s borders.

The authors conclude that the path forward requires integrated, context-sensitive policy interventions that extend beyond connection-based targets. Affordability of refills, reliability of supply in remote and forested districts, behavioural change campaigns that address cooking habits and cultural preferences, and women’s empowerment within tribal communities all emerge as necessary ingredients of a genuine transition. The Odisha evidence suggests that the Ujjwala scheme opened a door that had long been closed to the poorest tribal households, but that walking through it, cylinder after cylinder, year after year, depends on incomes, infrastructure and social dynamics that a single subsidy cannot supply. As India pursues its broader clean energy ambitions, the kitchen, the study reminds us, remains one of the hardest places to change.

Subject of Research: Determinants of clean cooking fuel adoption among tribal households in Odisha under India's Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

Article Title: Clean cooking fuel transitions among tribal households in Odisha under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

Article References: Naik, D., Bera, R., Mohapatra, M., Behera, R. R., & Behera, R. R. (2026). Clean cooking fuel transitions among tribal households in Odisha under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04857-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04857-4

Keywords: clean cooking fuel, LPG, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, tribal households, Odisha, energy transition, NFHS, household air pollution, energy access, probit model, propensity score matching, women's empowerment

The study, published in Scientific Reports, drew on five biennial waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) between 2014 and 2022, a nationally representative panel survey of adults aged 45 and older. The research team, led by Gyeong-min Lee and Jae-hyun Kim of Dankook University together with colleagues at Gachon University and Seoul National University, set out to answer two questions with direct policy consequences. First, does the multidimensional Active Ageing Index (AAI) follow different trajectories across the retirement transition in metropolitan versus non-metropolitan areas? Second, do the individual characteristics that push retirees into ‘low active ageing’ differ by region?

The Active Ageing Index, built on standards proposed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, is not a simple health score. In this Korean adaptation it combined three domains — health, participation and security — measured through eleven indicators. Health captured self-rated health, psychological distress on the CES-D10 scale, functional limitations in daily and instrumental activities, and chronic disease burden. Participation included labor force involvement, caregiving for family or grandchildren, volunteering and membership in social, religious or civic groups. Security rested on equivalized household income, pension status and homeownership. Each domain was normalized to a scale of zero to one using the United Nations Development Programme formula familiar from the Human Development Index, and the total AAI was their mean.

Because retirees are not a random cross-section of society, the team first had to make the regional comparison fair. From an initial pool of 8,238 respondents, they identified 4,801 people aged 55 or older who experienced retirement during the study period — 58.5 percent of those with complete key variables. Event-aligned analysis required an identifiable retirement wave and at least one AAI observation at the retirement wave and an adjacent time point, leaving 1,307 eligible retirees. Propensity score matching, using 1:1 nearest-neighbor matching with a caliper of 0.25, then balanced metropolitan residents of Seoul, Gyeonggi-do and Incheon against everyone else, producing a matched repeated-measures sample of 872 participants split evenly between the two groups. Metropolitan and non-metropolitan retirees, who differed in age, smoking and physical activity before matching, were statistically indistinguishable afterward.

The statistical machinery then turned to trajectories. Using piecewise generalized estimating equation models with region-by-time interactions, the researchers aligned each person’s data around their own retirement date: one wave before, the retirement wave itself, and up to two waves after. The results showed a clear dip at the transition itself. The pre-retirement time coefficient was negative and highly significant (β = −0.0925, p < 0.001), meaning total AAI fell from the wave before retirement to the retirement wave. After that, the index was stable: the post-retirement slope was essentially flat and not statistically significant (β = 0.0032, p = 0.315). Crucially, neither the main effect of metropolitan residence nor any region-by-time interaction approached significance, indicating that the shape of the trajectory was the same in the capital region and elsewhere.

But here the study delivers its most technically instructive twist. Labor force participation is one of the indicators inside the AAI’s participation domain — which means the index and the event of retirement overlap conceptually. Drop out of work, and your AAI drops partly by definition. In a sensitivity analysis that removed labor force participation from the participation domain, the retirement-wave decline in the revised total AAI shrank to statistical insignificance (β = −0.0076, p = 0.218). The apparent cliff, in other words, was largely a measurement artifact of the index’s construction. Yet something genuinely important survived: the revised participation index showed a significant negative post-retirement slope (β = −0.0196, p = 0.012), suggesting that non-work engagement — caregiving, volunteering, social groups — continues to erode after people leave employment. Retirement may not damage overall active ageing so much as slowly hollow out its participatory core.

The second analysis shifted from trajectories to risk. Among matched retirees whose AAI was at or above 0.5 at the retirement wave, the team used Cox proportional hazards models to examine who crossed below that midpoint threshold first. During follow-up, 170 of 553 participants transitioned to low active ageing while 383 were censored. Kaplan–Meier curves with log-rank tests showed no difference between regions (χ² = 0.443, p = 0.506), and metropolitan residence itself carried no elevated hazard (HR = 1.122, 95% CI 0.827–1.521, p = 0.460). Interactions between region and individual characteristics were likewise non-significant across the board.

Two individual factors did stand out with striking consistency. Retirees aged 75 and older faced a 70 percent higher hazard of transitioning to low active ageing than those aged 55 to 64 (HR = 1.698, 95% CI 1.080–2.669, p = 0.022). Regular physical activity, meanwhile, cut the hazard by roughly 30 percent (HR = 0.695, 95% CI 0.509–0.949, p = 0.022). The proportional hazards assumption held, verified with Schoenfeld residuals. In plain terms: getting older is dangerous for active ageing, and moving your body is protective — regardless of your postal code.

The authors are careful about what the null regional findings do and do not mean. The absence of significant interactions does not prove that place never matters for ageing well; it shows that the crude KLoSA metropolitan/non-metropolitan distinction failed to capture measurable heterogeneity in aligned AAI change. International research, including studies from China showing sharp east-versus-west differences and European sub-national AAI comparisons, suggests that finer-grained contextual features — local services, transport, community resources and social capital — may drive place-based differences that broad geographic labels obscure. The study’s event-aligned design also carries limits: KLoSA’s biennial rhythm means retirement timing is known only to the survey wave, only one pre-retirement observation exists, and the authors explicitly caution that changes around retirement should not be read as causal effects of retirement itself.

For a nation that crossed into super-aged status in 2025, with adults 65 and older now 20.3 percent of the population, the implications are pointed. Korea’s institutional peculiarities — mandatory retirement allowed at 60 while pension eligibility arrives later — create a vulnerable gap in which work exits, income security and daily routines must be renegotiated simultaneously. This study suggests that blanket regional targeting is the wrong lens for that gap. Instead, the risk of sliding into low active ageing concentrates among the oldest retirees and those who do not exercise regularly, and the quiet decay of social participation after work ends may be the signal worth watching. If retirement is a window of opportunity, as earlier reviews have proposed, these results indicate the window is best used not by moving to the city or fleeing it, but by staying active and staying connected.

Subject of Research: Active ageing trajectories across the retirement transition among Korean older adults

Article Title: Active ageing across the retirement transition in Korea: regional trajectories and risk of low active ageing

Article References: Lee, G.-M., Cho, H.-K., Hong, J.-W., Moon, J. Y., & Kim, J.-H. (2026). Active ageing across the retirement transition in Korea: regional trajectories and risk of low active ageing. Scientific Reports, 16(1), Article 32847. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-61165-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-61165-7

Keywords: active ageing, retirement, Active Ageing Index, KLoSA, South Korea, regional disparities, older adults, physical activity, longitudinal study, Cox proportional hazards, propensity score matching, social participation

The research team, led by investigators affiliated with Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Wayne State University School of Medicine, and collaborating institutions, mined the TriNetX database, a federated network of de-identified electronic health records spanning the years 2006 to 2026. They identified adults with a stroke diagnosis who required invasive mechanical ventilation within 48 hours of stroke onset and who had documented pulse oximetry readings in that same early window. Patients were classified as receiving a restrictive oxygenation strategy if every recorded peripheral oxygen saturation, or SpO₂, value fell between 92 and 96 percent, and as receiving a liberal strategy if all values were at or above 97 percent. Anyone whose readings straddled both ranges or dipped below 92 percent was excluded, a deliberately strict rule designed to create two cleanly separated, non-overlapping exposure groups.

Of the 17,207 patients who met the inclusion criteria, 2,366 had restrictive oxygenation profiles and 14,841 had liberal profiles before any statistical adjustment. Because patients who end up on conservative oxygen protocols often differ systematically from those kept at higher saturations—older, sicker, with more cardiopulmonary disease—the researchers used propensity score matching, a statistical technique that pairs patients with similar baseline characteristics. The model accounted for age, sex, race and ethnicity, body mass index, a Glasgow Coma Scale score of nine or below, and a long list of comorbidities including hypertension, ischemic heart disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, and shock. After matching, 2,350 patients remained in each group, and all measured covariates were well balanced, with standardized mean differences below 0.1.

The results were striking. In the matched cohort, restrictive oxygenation during the first 48 hours of ventilation was associated with a 13 percent higher hazard of death at one month, with a hazard ratio of 1.13 and a 95 percent confidence interval of 1.03 to 1.23, a statistically significant finding with a p-value of 0.008. The association persisted at three months, with a hazard ratio of 1.11 and a confidence interval of 1.02 to 1.20. Kaplan–Meier survival curves, which track survival over time, visibly separated between the two groups in the combined stroke population, indicating that the mortality gap emerged early and persisted through the follow-up period.

When the investigators split the population by stroke subtype, the picture became more nuanced. In the acute ischemic stroke subgroup, built from 1,214 restrictive and 7,463 liberal patients before matching, restrictive oxygenation was associated with a 26 percent higher hazard of death at one month (hazard ratio 1.26, 95 percent confidence interval 1.11 to 1.43) and a 22 percent higher hazard at three months (hazard ratio 1.22, 95 percent confidence interval 1.08 to 1.37). In the intracerebral hemorrhage subgroup, however, the corresponding hazard ratios—1.09 at one month and 1.11 at three months—had confidence intervals that crossed one, meaning no statistically significant difference could be detected. The authors note that the hemorrhagic subgroup was smaller, with 728 patients per arm after matching, so limited statistical power may have masked a real effect; notably, the point estimates trended in the same direction as those seen in ischemic stroke.

The biology behind these findings is grounded in the peculiar physiology of the acutely injured brain. In the first two days after an ischemic stroke, cerebral autoregulation—the mechanism that normally keeps blood flow constant across swings in blood pressure—is often impaired. Surrounding the core of dead tissue lies the penumbra, a zone of hypoperfused but still viable brain that depends precariously on whatever oxygen the circulation delivers. Even modest reductions in arterial oxygen content could, in theory, tip penumbral tissue into irreversible infarction, extending the damage and worsening outcomes. A restrictive saturation target of 92 to 96 percent, while safe for many critically ill patients, may leave less reserve for this vulnerable tissue than a liberal target of 97 percent or above.

Yet the push toward conservative oxygen in intensive care has its own logic. Excess oxygen generates reactive oxygen species, drives oxidative stress, and can cause cerebral vasoconstriction, and randomized trials in general ICU populations—including ICU-ROX and the Oxygen-ICU trial—have explored whether tighter oxygen control reduces harm. The new study suggests that extrapolating those protocols to stroke patients may be misguided. The authors point to post-hoc analyses of ICU-ROX as a telling parallel: among ventilated patients with acute brain pathologies other than hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, 180-day mortality was numerically higher under conservative oxygen (34.5 percent versus 26.9 percent), a heterogeneity considered plausible enough to be formalized as a prespecified hypothesis in the ongoing Mega-ROX Brains trial, which is randomizing brain-injured patients to conservative or liberal oxygenation targets.

Among the secondary outcomes, one result stood out as counterintuitive: patients in the restrictive group were significantly less likely to undergo tracheostomy within 30 days, at 8.5 percent versus 13.1 percent in the liberal group, a risk ratio of 0.653 with a p-value below 0.001. The authors caution that this pattern may reflect survivorship bias—patients who die early cannot receive a tracheostomy—or may be shaped by unmeasured factors such as the reasons for intubation, the trajectory of neurological recovery, and goals-of-care discussions that could not be captured in the database. Ventilator-associated pneumonia, by contrast, showed no significant difference between groups, with event rates of 0.6 percent and 0.89 percent, though the very low number of events limited statistical power.

The study’s observational design imposes important caveats. Because oxygenation was observed rather than allocated, residual confounding by unmeasured variables cannot be excluded, and the association cannot be read as proof of causation. Stroke severity measures such as infarct volume, hematoma size, and detailed neurological examinations were not available in the federated record network and could not be incorporated into the matching model. The exposure was defined by documented pulse oximetry readings rather than continuous arterial oxygen measurements, so the analysis reflects oxygenation strategy rather than precise quantification of hyperoxemia or hypoxemia. The two saturation thresholds are also adjacent, making the contrast between groups relatively narrow, and follow-up was limited to three months.

Even with those limitations, the sheer size of the cohort and the rigor of the matching make this one of the most pointed challenges yet to the assumption that conservative oxygen targets are universally safe. The authors frame their findings as hypothesis-generating rather than practice-changing, but the implication is hard to ignore: the first 48 hours of mechanical ventilation may represent a modifiable window in stroke care, and the optimal saturation target may differ between an ischemic brain starved of blood flow and a hemorrhagic brain compressed by expanding blood. As stroke remains a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, the authors argue that disease-specific randomized trials—rather than broad ICU-wide oxygen protocols—are urgently needed to determine whether liberal oxygenation genuinely protects the penumbra, or whether individualized titration can balance the competing risks of hypoxemia and oxygen toxicity in this uniquely vulnerable population.

Subject of Research: Oxygen saturation targets and short-term mortality in mechanically ventilated stroke patients

Article Title: Association of liberal versus restrictive oxygen saturation targets with mortality in mechanically ventilated stroke patients: a multicenter retrospective propensity-matched analysis

Article References: Ghafarian, A., Saad, J., Wajahath, M., Ghafarian, M., Saasouh, W., Saleh, K., Nasser, M., Badami, A., Shahait, A. D., & Loggini, A. (2026). Association of liberal versus restrictive oxygen saturation targets with mortality in mechanically ventilated stroke patients: a multicenter retrospective propensity-matched analysis. Frontiers in Neurology, 17, 1840183. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2026.1840183

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2026.1840183

Keywords: stroke, mechanical ventilation, oxygen saturation, acute ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, mortality, propensity score matching, critical care, neurocritical care, TriNetX, hyperoxia, ventilator-associated pneumonia