Early oral propranolol for infantile hemangioma (IH) can improve the success rate. However, few studies have been conducted on the specific age threshold for initiating treatment with propranolol. This study aimed to determine the cutoff value of treatment success for IH with oral propranolol.

This was a retrospective study involving 207 patients with IH and clinical data. The primary outcome measure was treatment success with oral propranolol at months 6 to 12.

Multivariate analysis showed that age at treatment initiation (P 0.001), high-risk IH (P = 0.002), and segmental IH (P = 0.012) were independent risk factors for treatment unsuccess with oral propranolol at months 6 to 12. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis indicated that the cutoff value for age at treatment initiation was 69.5 days for all patients, 65.5 days for patients with segmental IH or high-risk IH, and 93.5 days for patients with non-high-risk and nonsegmental IH. Patients who started treatment before 69.5 days had a success rate of 73.8%, which was higher than the 28.4% success rate of patients who started treatment after 69.5 days. The median time to treatment success for patients who started treatment before 69.5 days was 11.5 months, which was shorter than the 15 months for patients who started treatment after 69.5 days.

When a sperm meets an egg, a lot has to go right for an embryo to develop into a complete organism. One critical step of early development is the reorganization of parental DNA to form a new unified genome, before the embryo can undergo its first cell division.

Scientists have long known that sperm and eggs bundle their DNA differently. But it’s been assumed that their centromeres—the special regions of each chromosome that act like handles to pull DNA apart during cell division —were essentially the same. That assumption rested on the presence of centromere protein A, or CENPA, a unique histone protein that marks centromeres and preserves their identity across each cell division and across generations.

Because CENPA acts like a molecular tag, preserving these sites as “do not erase” regions of the genome, the centromeres were thought to be functionally indistinguishable between maternal and paternal chromosomes.

In a world of information overload, it can feel soothing to stick your head in the sand.

Don’t want to hear what the doctor might say? It’s easy not to make a follow-up appointment. Did a favorite political candidate say something you disagreed with? The evidence can disappear with a flick of a finger.

According to psychologists, avoiding information when it’s uncomfortable is a common adult behavior, often referred to as the “Ostrich Effect.”

IGF2BP3 links cancer metabolism and RNA control, offering a potential new therapeutic target for blocking leukemia cell growth.