Category: Nevin Manimala

J Laparoendosc Adv Surg Tech A. 2023 Jan 20. doi: 10.1089/lap.2022.0465. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Background: The main purpose of this study was to analyze patient-related factors that may influence the risk of hernia recurrence following laparoscopic incisional hernia repair (LIHR), including the potential role of chosen materials. Materials and Methods: A multicenter, retrospective cohort study was conducted on all patients who were aged >18 years and who underwent elective laparoscopic incisional hernia mesh repair at the Departments of Surgery of the S. Anna University Hospital in Ferrara and Sassuolo Hospital in Modena, Italy. Exclusion criteria were as follows: patients undergoing an open or emergency incisional hernia repair or with primary ventral hernia. All hernia and operative variables that may favor hernia recurrence were collected and analyzed. Follow-up was conducted through a standardized telephone interview, followed by an outpatient visit and diagnostic imaging if needed. Results: From September 2002 to September 2017, 312 consecutive patients underwent elective laparoscopic incisional hernia mesh repair. At a mean 22-month follow-up, 273 patients presented no recurrence of incisional hernia and 39 had relapsed. Intra- and postoperative complications were similar between groups. Unadjusted Cox regression analysis showed a statistically significant association between both the partially absorbable mesh (P < .0001) and absorbable tacks (P = .001) and recurrence, while after adjusting for potential confounders, only the partially absorbable mesh was significantly associated with recurrence (P = .007). Conclusions: The laparoscopic approach may be considered safe for incisional hernia mesh repair. In this multicenter, retrospective cohort study, the use of a partially absorbable mesh in LIHR was the only predictor of hernia recurrence. The partially absorbable mesh that was investigated, however, has been withdrawn from the market.

PMID:36668993 | DOI:10.1089/lap.2022.0465

J Wound Ostomy Continence Nurs. 2023 Jan-Feb 01;50(1):26-30. doi: 10.1097/WON.0000000000000945.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Recent reports have noted an emergence of unusual organisms in microflora of pilonidal sinus (PNS); this study was undertaken to identify the primary microbial flora associated with infected primary PNS over a period of 1 year.

DESIGN: A prospective multiple case series.

SUBJECTS AND SETTING: A case series of 20 patients with primary PNS in a tertiary care center in Varanasi, India, was studied. The study was conducted at the Department of Microbiology and General Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Varanasi, over a period of 1 year (September 2016 to July 2017).

METHODS: Purulent exudate (pus) samples were collected from 20 patients with primary PNS from the discharging sinuses by aseptic methods. Samples were assessed for aerobic and anaerobic flora by conventional culture and molecular methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was done for bacterial isolates. Bacterial diversity was compared with the demographic and clinical profile of the sinuses by multiple correspondence analysis.

RESULTS: Of the total cases, 11 (55%) had purulent discharge, among which all showed polymicrobial flora. The ratio of aerobic to anaerobic organisms was 1:2 (16/32). Escherichia coli (E. coli, 4, 36.36%) and Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis, 4, 36.36%) were commonly isolated. Bifidobacterium was the most frequent anaerobe. Detailed molecular analysis revealed the presence of Kocuria flava as an unusual pathogen. On statistical analysis, factors like male gender, increased body mass index, absence of hair in sinus, presence of features of hirsutism, and absence of Fusobacteria were closely associated with one another in these PNS cases.

CONCLUSIONS: The case series revealed the predominance of anaerobes in primarily infected PNS cases. Bifidobacterium spp and unusual pathogens like K. flava were among the emerging pathogens in infected PNS. Use of better molecular diagnostic facilities in addition to the conventional methods might enhance the verified diversity of microorganisms in such cases.

PMID:36668986 | DOI:10.1097/WON.0000000000000945

Trop Med Infect Dis. 2023 Jan 14;8(1):64. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed8010064.

ABSTRACT

Chagas disease is more prevalent in socially vulnerable communities in the Gran Chaco Eco-region. The study evaluated the seroprevalence of Chagas disease and associated factors between May 2014 and September 2015, in indigenous communities of Santa Fe, Argentina, in the southern Chaco. Lysate ELISA and indirect hemagglutination tests were used to detect antibodies against Trypanosoma cruzi, and recombinant ELISA was used in the case of disagreement. Household surveys were conducted with the head of household about risk factors for the disease. Serological tests were conducted on 298 people from three indigenous communities, 127 male and 171 female. Seroprevalence was 18.5%. A total of 64 surveys were conducted; 82.8% of the heads of household were male, with a median age of 39 years, and 61.0% had not completed primary school. In 35.9% of the households, there was at least one member of the cohabiting group infected with T. cruzi. The level of education of the head of household showed a statistically significant association with Chagas disease (OR = 3.43), among all the risk factors studied. The prevalence of infection is lower than that of other indigenous communities of the Gran Chaco, probably because environmental conditions are moderating and disfavoring the establishment of the insect vector in homes, but also because of socioeconomic differences with the rest of the eco-region. Beyond this, serological controls are needed to prevent vertical transmission.

PMID:36668971 | DOI:10.3390/tropicalmed8010064

Trop Med Infect Dis. 2023 Jan 12;8(1):59. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed8010059.

ABSTRACT

The phylogenetic relationships within Neodermata were examined based on putative orthologous groups of proteins (OGPs) from 11 species of Monogenea, Trematoda, and Cestoda. The dataset included OGPs from BUSCO and OMA. Additionally, peptidases were identified and evaluated as phylogenetic markers. Phylogenies were inferred using the maximum likelihood method. A network analysis and a hierarchical grouping analysis of the principal components (HCPC) of orthologous groups of peptidases were performed. The phylogenetic analyses showed the monopisthocotylean monogeneans as the sister-group of cestodes, and the polyopisthocotylean monogeneans as the sister-group of trematodes. However, the sister-group relationship between Monopisthocotylea and Cestoda was not statistically well supported. The network analysis and HCPC also showed a cluster formed by polyopisthocotyleans and trematodes. The present study supports the non-monophyly of Monogenea. An analysis of mutation rates indicated that secreted peptidases and inhibitors, and those with multiple copies, are under positive selection pressure, which could explain the expansion of some families such as C01, C19, I02, and S01. Whilst not definitive, our study presents another point of view in the discussion of the evolution of Neodermata, and we hope that our data drive further discussion and debate on this intriguing topic.

PMID:36668966 | DOI:10.3390/tropicalmed8010059

Trop Med Infect Dis. 2023 Jan 12;8(1):57. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed8010057.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The MIP (maximum inspiratory pressure) and MEP (maximum expiratory pressure) are sensitive indicators of respiratory muscle function. The aim of the study was to assess the function of respiratory muscles in patients after COVID-19 infection, before and after hospitalisation at the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Ward.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted on a group of 19 people with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection, who, in the period from 1 February to 31 May 2021, were hospitalised at the Independent Public Pulmonary Hospital and underwent respiratory rehabilitation in hospital conditions. A statistical analysis was performed using the STATISTICA package, ver. 10. A respiratory pressure meter (RP Check) was used to measure muscle strength. Measurements were performed twice on each patient-before admission and after hospitalisation in the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Ward.

RESULTS: We show that conducting pulmonary rehabilitation contributes to the increase in MIP and MEP, which are associated with increased strength of the inspiratory and expiratory muscles. The average value of MIP increased by 11.95 cmH₂O and MEP by 26.16 cmH₂O. The improvement was visible in both female and male patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Pulmonary rehabilitation contributes to the improvement of respiratory muscle function indicators among patients after COVID-19 infection. Assessment of the MIP and MEP indices is a simple and quick way to reliably assess the function of the respiratory muscles.

PMID:36668964 | DOI:10.3390/tropicalmed8010057

JMIR Med Inform. 2023 Jan 20;11:e38861. doi: 10.2196/38861.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: There is a variety of libre/free and open-source software (LIFOSS) products for medicine and health care. To support health care and IT professionals select an appropriate software product for given tasks, several comparison studies and web platforms, such as Medfloss.org, are available. However, due to the lack of a uniform terminology for health informatics, ambiguous or imprecise terms are used to describe the functionalities of LIFOSS. This makes comparisons of LIFOSS difficult and may lead to inappropriate software selection decisions. Using Linked Open Data (LOD) promises to address these challenges.

OBJECTIVE: We describe LIFOSS systematically with the help of the underlying Health Information Technology Ontology (HITO). We publish HITO and HITO-based software product descriptions using LOD to obtain the following benefits: (1) linking and reusing existing terminologies and (2) using Semantic Web tools for viewing and querying the LIFOSS data on the World Wide Web.

METHODS: HITO was incrementally developed and implemented. First, classes for the description of software products in health IT evaluation studies were identified. Second, requirements for describing LIFOSS were elicited by interviewing domain experts. Third, to describe domain-specific functionalities of software products, existing catalogues of features and enterprise functions were analyzed and integrated into the HITO knowledge base. As a proof of concept, HITO was used to describe 25 LIFOSS products.

RESULTS: HITO provides a defined set of classes and their relationships to describe LIFOSS in medicine and health care. With the help of linked or integrated catalogues for languages, programming languages, licenses, features, and enterprise functions, the functionalities of LIFOSS can be precisely described and compared. We publish HITO and the LIFOSS descriptions as LOD; they can be queried and viewed using different Semantic Web tools, such as Resource Description Framework (RDF) browsers, SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) queries, and faceted searches. The advantages of providing HITO as LOD are demonstrated by practical examples.

CONCLUSIONS: HITO is a building block to achieving unambiguous communication among health IT professionals and researchers. Providing LIFOSS product information as LOD enables barrier-free and easy access to data that are often hidden in user manuals of software products or are not available at all. Efforts to establish a unique terminology of medical and health informatics should be further supported and continued.

PMID:36662569 | DOI:10.2196/38861

JMIR Form Res. 2023 Jan 20;7:e41820. doi: 10.2196/41820.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Medical informatization has initially demonstrated its advantages in improving the medical service industry. Over the past decade, the Chinese government have made a lot of effort to complete infrastructural information construction in the medical and health domain, and smart hospitals will be the next priority according to policies released by Chinese government in recent years.

OBJECTIVE: To provide strategic support for further development of medical information construction in China, this study aimed to investigate the current situation of medical information construction in tertiary class-A public hospitals and analyze the existing problems and countermeasures.

METHODS: This study surveyed 23 tertiary class-A public hospitals in China who voluntarily responded to a self-designed questionnaire distributed in April 2020 to investigate the current medical information construction status. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the current configurations of hospital information department, hospital information systems, hospital internet service and its application, and the satisfaction of hospital information construction. Interviews were also conducted with the respondents in this study for requirement analysis.

RESULTS: The results show that hospital information construction has become one of the priorities of the hospitals’ daily work, and the medical information infrastructural construction and internet service application of the hospitals are good; however, a remarkable gap among the different level of hospitals can be observed. Although most hospitals had built their own IT team to undertake information construction work, the actual utilization rate of big data collected and stored in the hospital information system was not satisfactory.

CONCLUSIONS: Support for the construction of information technology in primary care institutions should be increased to balance the level of development of medical informatization in medical institutions at all levels. The training of complex talents with both IT and medical backgrounds should be emphasized, and specialized disease information standards should be developed to lay a solid data foundation for data utilization and improve the utilization of medical big data.

PMID:36662565 | DOI:10.2196/41820

J Med Internet Res. 2023 Jan 20;25:e43629. doi: 10.2196/43629.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: A single generalizable metric that accurately predicts early dropout from digital health interventions has the potential to readily inform intervention targets and treatment augmentations that could boost retention and intervention outcomes. We recently identified a type of early dropout from digital health interventions for smoking cessation, specifically, users who logged in during the first week of the intervention and had little to no activity thereafter. These users also had a substantially lower smoking cessation rate with our iCanQuit smoking cessation app compared with users who used the app for longer periods.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore whether log-in count data, using standard statistical methods, can precisely predict whether an individual will become an iCanQuit early dropout while validating the approach using other statistical methods and randomized trial data from 3 other digital interventions for smoking cessation (combined randomized N=4529).

METHODS: Standard logistic regression models were used to predict early dropouts for individuals receiving the iCanQuit smoking cessation intervention app, the National Cancer Institute QuitGuide smoking cessation intervention app, the WebQuit.org smoking cessation intervention website, and the Smokefree.gov smoking cessation intervention website. The main predictors were the number of times a participant logged in per day during the first 7 days following randomization. The area under the curve (AUC) assessed the performance of the logistic regression models, which were compared with decision trees, support vector machine, and neural network models. We also examined whether 13 baseline variables that included a variety of demographics (eg, race and ethnicity, gender, and age) and smoking characteristics (eg, use of e-cigarettes and confidence in being smoke free) might improve this prediction.

RESULTS: The AUC for each logistic regression model using only the first 7 days of log-in count variables was 0.94 (95% CI 0.90-0.97) for iCanQuit, 0.88 (95% CI 0.83-0.93) for QuitGuide, 0.85 (95% CI 0.80-0.88) for WebQuit.org, and 0.60 (95% CI 0.54-0.66) for Smokefree.gov. Replacing logistic regression models with more complex decision trees, support vector machines, or neural network models did not significantly increase the AUC, nor did including additional baseline variables as predictors. The sensitivity and specificity were generally good, and they were excellent for iCanQuit (ie, 0.91 and 0.85, respectively, at the 0.5 classification threshold).

CONCLUSIONS: Logistic regression models using only the first 7 days of log-in count data were generally good at predicting early dropouts. These models performed well when using simple, automated, and readily available log-in count data, whereas including self-reported baseline variables did not improve the prediction. The results will inform the early identification of people at risk of early dropout from digital health interventions with the goal of intervening further by providing them with augmented treatments to increase their retention and, ultimately, their intervention outcomes.

PMID:36662550 | DOI:10.2196/43629

JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Jan 3;6(1):e2251833. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.51833.

ABSTRACT

IMPORTANCE: Immunocompromised individuals are at increased risk for severe outcomes due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Given the varying and complex nature of COVID-19 vaccination recommendations, it is important to understand COVID-19 vaccine uptake in this vulnerable population.

OBJECTIVE: To assess mRNA COVID-19 vaccine uptake and factors associated with uptake among immunocompromised individuals from December 14, 2020, through August 6, 2022.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cohort study was conducted with patients of Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC), an integrated health care system in the US. The study included patients aged 18 years or older who were immunocompromised (individuals with an immunocompromising condition or patients who received immunosuppressive medications in the year prior to December 14, 2020) and still met criteria for being immunocompromised 1 year later.

EXPOSURES: Age, sex, self-identified race and ethnicity, prior positive COVID-19 test result, immunocompromising condition, immunomodulating medication, comorbidities, health care utilization, and neighborhood median income.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Outcomes were the number of doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine received and the factors associated with receipt of at least 4 doses, estimated by hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% Wald CIs via Cox proportional hazards regression. Statistical analyses were conducted between August 9 and 23, 2022.

RESULTS: Overall, 42 697 immunocompromised individuals met the study eligibility criteria. Among these, 18 789 (44.0%) were aged 65 years or older; 20 061 (47.0%) were women and 22 635 (53.0%) were men. With regard to race and ethnicity, 4295 participants (10.1%) identified as Asian or Pacific Islander, 5174 (12.1%) as Black, 14 289 (33.5%) as Hispanic, and 17 902 (41.9%) as White. As of the end of the study period and after accounting for participant censoring due to death or disenrollment from the KPSC health plan, 78.0% of immunocompromised individuals had received a third dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Only 41.0% had received a fourth dose, which corresponds to a primary series and a monovalent booster dose for immunocompromised individuals. Uptake of a fifth dose was only 0.9% following the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation to receive a second monovalent booster (ie, fifth dose). Adults aged 65 years or older (HR, 3.95 [95% CI, 3.70-4.22]) were more likely to receive at least 4 doses compared with those aged 18 to 44 years or 45 to 64 years (2.52 [2.36-2.69]). Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black adults (HR, 0.77 [95% CI, 0.74-0.80] and 0.82 [0.78-0.87], respectively, compared with non-Hispanic White adults), individuals with prior documented SARS-CoV-2 infection (0.71 [0.62-0.81] compared with those without), and individuals receiving high-dose corticosteroids (0.88 [0.81-0.95] compared with those who were not) were less likely to receive at least 4 doses.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These findings suggest that adherence to CDC mRNA monovalent COVID-19 booster dose recommendations among immunocompromised individuals was low. Given the increased risk for severe COVID-19 in this vulnerable population and the well-established additional protection afforded by booster doses, targeted and tailored efforts to ensure that immunocompromised individuals remain up to date with COVID-19 booster dose recommendations are warranted.

PMID:36662525 | DOI:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.51833

JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Jan 3;6(1):e2251839. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.51839.

ABSTRACT

IMPORTANCE: Determining how the timing of return to school is related to later symptom burden is important for early postinjury management recommendations.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the typical time to return to school after a concussion and evaluate whether an earlier return to school is associated with symptom burden 14 days postinjury.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Planned secondary analysis of a prospective, multicenter observational cohort study from August 2013 to September 2014. Participants aged 5 to 18 years with an acute (<48 hours) concussion were recruited from 9 Canadian pediatric emergency departments in the Pediatric Emergency Research Canada Network.

EXPOSURE: The independent variable was the number of days of school missed. Missing fewer than 3 days after concussion was defined as an early return to school.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The primary outcome was symptom burden at 14 days, measured with the Post-Concussion Symptom Inventory (PCSI). Symptom burden was defined as symptoms status at 14 days minus preinjury symptoms. Propensity score analyses applying inverse probability of treatment weighting were performed to estimate the relationship between the timing of return to school and symptom burden.

RESULTS: This cohort study examined data for 1630 children (mean age [SD] 11.8 [3.4]; 624 [38%] female). Of these children, 875 (53.7%) were classified as having an early return to school. The mean (SD) number of days missed increased across age groups (5-7 years, 2.61 [5.2]; 8-12 years, 3.26 [4.9]; 13-18 years, 4.71 [6.1]). An early return to school was associated with a lower symptom burden 14 days postinjury in the 8 to 12-year and 13 to 18-year age groups, but not in the 5 to 7-year age group. The association between early return and lower symptom burden was stronger in individuals with a higher symptom burden at the time of injury, except those aged 5 to 7 years.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this cohort study of youth aged 5 to 18 years, these results supported the growing belief that prolonged absences from school and other life activities after a concussion may be detrimental to recovery. An early return to school may be associated with a lower symptom burden and, ultimately, faster recovery.

PMID:36662524 | DOI:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.51839