The first surge of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic led to a shutdown of all non-urgent medical services such as cardiac rehabilitation. Therefore, centres had to develop remote and innovative ways to deliver the core components of CR during this shutdown. This increase in usage of remote rehabilitation services provides a chance to assess patients’ experiences and willingness-to-pay of remote CR sessions.

This was a prospective single-centre study. From 17 July 2020, to 19 August 2020, we conducted an anonymous survey about the patient experiences of the cardiac telerehabilitation services provided at Jessa Hospital Hasselt during the COVID-19 pandemic. A link to an electronic questionnaire was sent

email to 155 patients who were invited to participate in the cardiac telerehabilitation sessions during the closure of the rehabilitation centre due to COVID-19.

Fifty-five patients (35% of all invited patients) did participate in remote CR and completed the questionnaire. The mean age of the respondents waR sessions. Patients are willing to pay the same amount for a telerehabilitation session as a centre-based CR session. This demonstrates that highly motivated patients are open to shift certain parts of CR from face-to-face interactions to digital interactions.HIV-1 infection is a global epidemic whose treatment is limited majorly by viral resistance and adverse effects. Natural products from algae have been studied for many years, including antiviral, being an alternative to anti-HIV drug design. Since the isolation of natural products can be a hurdle, molecular modeling is an important tool to study these compounds. Herein, structure-activity relationship, molecular docking, and molecular dynamic studies were performed to direct the studies of ten marine natural products with anti-HIV activity. DJ4 mw In the structure-activity relationship, descriptors were identified associating the anti-HIV activity of five diterpenes with possible action on the reverse transcriptase allosteric site. These diterpenes were evaluated by molecular docking, and it was identified that only dolabelladienetriol interacted in the allosteric site. Molecular dynamics suggested that the dolabelladienetriol might interfere with the viral RNA binding to HIV-1 RT by inducing a conformational change of the enzyme. Also, in silico ADMET simulations predicts that the dolabelladienetriol present a high potential to be successfully developed as a drug. Thus, applying in silico approaches was possible to suggest potential anti-HIV compounds derived from marine natural products. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.Background Refining the risk of malignancy in patients presenting with thyroid nodules with indeterminate cytology (IC) is a critical challenge. We investigated the performances of 18F-fluorocholine (FCH) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) to predict malignancy. Methods Between May 2016 and March 2019, 107 patients presenting with a thyroid nodule ≥15 mm with IC and eligible for surgery were included in this prospective study. Head-and-neck PET/CT acquisitions were performed 20 and 60 minutes after injection of 1.5 MBq/kg of FCH. PET/CT acquisition was scored positive when maximal standardized uptake value in the IC nodule was higher than in the thyroid background. Pathology was the gold standard for diagnosis. Results At pathology, 19 (18%) nodules were malignant, 87 were benign, and one was a noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features (NIFTP). Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive-predictive value (PPV), and negative-predictive value (NPV) of FCH PET/CT in detecting cancer or NIFTP were 90%, 50%, 55%, 29%, and 96% at 20 minutes and 85%, 49%, 67%, 28%, and 94% at 60 minutes, respectively. Higher specificity (58% vs. 33%, p = 0.01) was observed in nononcocytic (n = 72) than in oncocytic IC nodules (n = 35). The pre-PET/CT probability of cancer or NIFTP in Bethesda III-IV nodules was 11% and the post-PET/CT probability was 19% in PET-positives and 0% in PET-negatives. In retrospective analysis, 42% of surgeries would have been unnecessary after PET/CT and 81% before (p  less then  0.001), resulting in a hypothetical 48% reduction (95% confidence interval [32-64]). Conclusions FCH PET/CT offers high NPV to reliably exclude cancer in PET-negative IC nodules, but suffers from low PPV, particularly in those with oncocytic cytology. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02784223.

To estimate animal-level seroprevalence of

serovar Copenhageni and

serovars Ballum and Tarassovi, in beef cattle, sheep and deer on New Zealand farms, and herd/flock-level seroprevalence of any serovar when existing same-sera data for serovars Hardjobovis and Pomona were included, and to determine associations between risk factors and animal-level seroprevalence.

Banked sera from sheep (n

=

82), beef (n

=

54) and deer (n

=

62) herds/flocks (n

=

3,878 animals) from seven regions were analysed using the microscopic agglutination test. Titres of ≥48 were designated positive. Herds/flocks were considered positive if either ≥1, ≥2 or ≥3 animals were positive. Existing same-sera data for serovars Hardjobovis and Pomona were included to establish farm-level any-serovar seropositivity. Factors associated with serological status were analysed using generalised estimating equations.

Animal-level seroprevalence for serovars Ballum, Copenhageni, and Tarassovi, respectively, was 13.7 (95% CI

=

11.7-1ropositivity for all animal species and all five

serovars was 100% at definition ≥1 animal positive, and 97.5 and 96.3% for sheep flocks, 87.8 and 97.8% for beef cattle herds, and 89.3 and 75% for deer herds at ≥2 and ≥3 animals positive, respectively.

Seropositivity to serovars Ballum, Copenhageni and Tarassovi is common in sheep, beef cattle and deer New Zealand and most, or all farms have ≥1 livestock species seropositive to ≥1 serovar.

Serovars Ballum, Tarassovi and Copenhageni should be considered when clinical or subclinical signs of leptospirosis are observed in sheep, beef cattle or deer. Livestock sector workers are potentially at risk of exposure.

Serovars Ballum, Tarassovi and Copenhageni should be considered when clinical or subclinical signs of leptospirosis are observed in sheep, beef cattle or deer. Livestock sector workers are potentially at risk of exposure.