Background: Frequent vital sign monitoring during and after transfusion of blood products and certain chemotherapies or immunotherapies is critical for detecting infusion reactions and treatment management in patients. Currently, patients return home with instructions to contact the clinic if they feel unwell. Continuous monitoring of vital signs for hematological patients treated with immunotherapy or chemotherapy or receiving blood transfusions using wearable electronic biosensors during and post treatment may improve the safety of these treatments and make remote data collection in an outpatient care setting possible. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate patient experiences with the VitalPatch wearable sensor (VitalConnect) and to evaluate the usability of data generated by the physIQ accelerateIQ monitoring system for the investigator and nurse. Methods: A total of 12 patients with hematological disorders receiving red blood cell transfusions, an intravenous (IV) proteasome inhibitor, or an IV immunotherapy agent were included in the study and wore the VitalPatch for 12 days. Patients completed questionnaires focusing on wearability and nurses completed questionnaires focusing on the usability of the VitalPatch. Results: A total of 12 patients were enrolled over 9 months, with 4 receiving red blood cell transfusions, 4 receiving IV proteasome inhibitors, and 4 receiving IV immunotherapy. These patients were treated for diseases such as multiple myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Of these patients, 83% (10/12) were aged 60 years and older. A total of 4 patients (4/12, 33%) withdrew from the study (3 because of skin irritation and 1 because of patch connection issues). Patients wore biosensor patches at baseline and for 1-week post administration. Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) were collected at baseline, day 1, day 5, and day 8. No difference in the PRO was observed when nurses or patients applied the patch. PRO data indicated minimal impact on the patient’s life. Ease of use, influence on sleep, impact on follow-up of health, or discomfort with continuous monitoring did not change between baseline and day 8. Changes in PRO were observed on day 5, where a 20% (2/10) increase in skin irritation was reported. Withdrawals because of skin irritation were reported in all cases when wearing the second patch. Nurses reported the placement of the VitalPatch to be easy and felt measurements to be reliable. Conclusions: Generally, the VitalPatch was well tolerated and shown to be an attractive device because of its wearability and low impact on daily activities in patients, therefore making it suitable for implementation in future studies.

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a common secondary metabolite of Aspergillus ochraceus, A. carbonarius, and Penicillium verrucosum. This mycotoxin is largely present as a contaminant in several cereal crops and human foodstuffs, including grapes, corn, nuts, and figs, among others. Preclinical studies have reported the involvement of OTA in metabolic, physiologic, and immunologic disturbances as well as in carcinogenesis. More recently, it has also been suggested that OTA may impair hippocampal neurogenesis in vivo and that this might be associated with learning and memory deficits. Furthermore, aside from its widely proven toxicity in tissues other than the brain, there is reason to believe that OTA contributes to neurodegenerative disorders. Thus, in this present in vivo study, we investigated this possibility by intraperitoneally (i.p.) administering 3.5 mg OTA/kg body weight to adult male mice to assess whether chronic exposure to this mycotoxin negatively affects cell viability in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Immunohistochemistry assays showed that doses of 3.5 mg/kg caused a significant and dose-dependent reduction in repetitive cell division and branching (from 12% to 62%). Moreover, the number of countable astrocytes (p < 0.001), young neurons (p < 0.001), and mature neurons (p < 0.001) negatively correlated with the number of i.p. OTA injections administered (one, two, three, or six repeated doses). Our results show that OTA induced adverse effects in the hippocampus cells of adult mice brain tissue when administered in cumulative doses.

Background: An abnormal hemoglobin concentration has a substantial effect on a person’s quality of life and physiology. Lack of tools that effectively evaluate hemoglobin-related outcomes leads to uncertainty regarding optimal hemoglobin levels, transfusion thresholds and treatment targets. We therefore aim to summarize reviews that assess the effects of hemoglobin modulation on the human physiology at various baseline hemoglobin levels, and identify gaps in existing evidence.Methods: We conducted an umbrella review of systematic reviews. PubMed, MEDLINE (OVID), Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Emcare were searched from inception to the 15th of April 2022 for studies that reported on physiological and patient reported outcomes following a hemoglobin change.Results: Thirty-three reviews were included of which 7 were scored as of high quality and 24 of critically low quality using the AMSTAR-2 tool. The reported data generally show that an increase in hemoglobin leads to improvement of patient reported and physical outcomes in anaemic and non-anaemic subjects. At lower hemoglobin levels, the effect of a hemoglobin modulation on quality of life measures appears more pronounced.Conclusion: This overview has revealed many knowledge gaps due to a lack of high-quality evidence. For chronic kidney disease patients, a clinically relevant benefit of increasing the hemoglobin levels up until 12 g/dL was found. However, a personalized approach remains necessary due to the many patient-specific factors that affect outcomes. We strongly encourage future trials to incorporate physiological outcomes as objective parameters together with subjective, but still very important, patient reported outcome measures.

Introduction: Little is known if, and to what extent, outpatient red blood cell (RBC) transfusions benefit chronic transfusion-dependent patients. Costs, labour, and potential side effects of RBC transfusions cause a restrictive transfusion strategy to be the standard of care. However, effects on the actual performance and quality of life of patients who require RBCs on a regular basis are hardly studied. The aim of this study was to assess if new technologies and techniques like wearable biosensor devices and web-based testing can be used to measure physiological changes, functional activity, and hence eventually better assess quality of life in a cohort of transfusion-dependent patients. Methods: We monitored 5 patients who regularly receive transfusions during one transfusion cycle with the accelerateIQ biosensor platform, the Withings Steel HR, and web-based cognitive and quality of life testing. Results: Data collection by the deployed devices was shown to be feasible; the AccelerateIQ platform rendered data of which 97.8% was of high quality and usable; of the data the Withings Steel HR rendered, 98.9% was of high quality and usable. Furthermore, heart rate decreased and cognition improved significantly following RBC transfusions. Activity and quality of life measures did not show transfusion-induced changes. Conclusion: In a 5-patient cohort of transfusion-dependent patients, we found that the accelerateIQ, Withings Steel HR, and CANTAB platforms enable acquisition of high-quality data. The collected data suggest that RBC transfusions significantly and reversibly decrease heart rate and increase sustained attention in this cohort. This feasibility study justifies larger validation trials to confirm that these wearables can indeed help to determine personalized RBC transfusion strategies and thus optimization of each patient’s quality of life.

Background and Objectives While iron deficiency (ID) is the most common cause of anaemia, little is known about the prevalence and type of ID in preoperative surgical patients. The aims of the present study were to investigate the prevalence and types of ID in a large cohort of surgical patients, and how these are related to perioperative blood use after correction for confounders such as haemoglobin level. Materials and Methods Data were retrospectively extracted from electronic case records of all patients who underwent elective surgery between September 2016 and November 2017 (n = 2711). Iron parameters, haemoglobin and details of perioperative red cell transfusions were collected. Results Of 2711 patients, 618 (22.8%) were iron deficient (= transferrin saturation [TSAT] < 16%) preoperatively, 173 (6.4% of the cohort) had an absolute iron deficiency (AID; TSAT < 16% and ferritin < 30 μg/L) and 445 (16.4%) had functional/mixed ID (TSAT < 16% and ferritin ≥ 30 μg/L). Corrected for Hb level, iron-deficient patients received significantly more red cell units than patients without ID (p = 0.026). AID was not associated with a significantly higher incidence of transfusions (7.5% of patients transfused; p = 0.12 after correction for Hb) than patients without ID, whereas patients with functional/mixed deficiency did receive significantly more transfusions (6.1%; p = 0.021) as compared to patients without ID (1.7%). Conclusion Preoperative ID, in particular the functional/mixed type, was associated with a higher risk of receiving perioperative red cell transfusions as compared to patients without ID. Adequately treating ID might, therefore, reduce the need for perioperative red cell transfusions.

Background and Objectives Limited data are available to guide physicians on how to determine the red blood cell (RBC) transfusion regimen in chronically transfusion-dependent patients. The lack of clarity on thresholds and targets to be used for transfusion could easily result in either under or over transfusion in these patients. The aim of our survey is to investigate (1) transfusion thresholds; (2) number of RBC units given per transfusion episode; (3) interval between transfusions and (4) patient factors, like decreased cardiac function modulating the former. Materials and Methods We sent a web-based 44-question survey to members of the Dutch Haematology Association. Results Fifty physicians responded between June and October 2020 (response rate 30%), well-distributed between community and academic hospitals. A wide variation in transfusion strategies was reported: Most patients have transfused 1–2 RBC units (range: 0–3 units) every 2–4 weeks (range: 1–12 weeks) with a median threshold of 8.0 g/dl ranging from 6.4 to 9.6 g/dl. Patient-specific clinical factors that are most frequently reported to influence the transfusion strategy are angina pectoris, cardiac failure and dyspnoea, softer parameters that are of influence are the quality of life and self-sustainability. Conclusion The results of this survey indicate a broad variation in RBC transfusion strategies in Dutch patients with chronic transfusion dependency. While the current variation in transfusion strategies may be unavoidable in an individualized approach, randomized trials and better defined usable parameters to evaluate the effect of transfusion strategies are required to reach a consensus on how to determine the transfusion strategy.