Nevin Manimala

Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Dec 30;101(52):e32036. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000032036.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: We designed this systematic review and meta-analysis protocol to provide new medical evidence for clinical management by comparing the prognostic outcomes of visual laryngoscopy with those of conventional blinded insertion methods.

METHODS: We will intend to search English databases including Medicine, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The Chinese databases, such as Wanfang, China Knowledge Network, and China Biomedical Literature Database will also be searched. The outcome measures include intubation success rate, pain score, intubation-related complications, patient satisfaction, operation time, and cost. The Jadad scale will be used to evaluate the methodological quality of each randomized controlled trial in this meta-analysis. We will use the Methodological Index of Non-Randomized Studies criteria to assess the risk of bias in non-randomized study. An I2 value greater than 50% indicates the presence of significant heterogeneity. P < .05 in a 2-tailed test is considered statistically significant.

RESULTS: It is hypothesized that video laryngoscope will provide better outcomes compared with traditional blind gastric tube insertion.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of our review will be reported strictly following the PRISMA criteria and the review will add to the existing literature by showing compelling evidence and improved guidance in clinic settings.

PMID:36596002 | DOI:10.1097/MD.0000000000032036

Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Dec 30;101(52):e32497. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000032497.

ABSTRACT

Insufficient lymph node harvest (< 12) may lead to incorrect classification of stage I and II disease. Many studies have indicated a poor prognosis with inadequate lymph node harvest in stages I to III, but few studies have demonstrated the relationship between low lymph node harvest and T4 disease. This study aimed to identify the influence of insufficient number of lymph nodes harvested on survival in T4N0 colorectal cancer. We enrolled patients with T4N0 colorectal cancer who underwent radical resection between 2010 and 2016. A total of 155 patients were divided into 2 groups; 142 patients had ≥ 12 harvested lymph nodes, and the other 13 had < 12 lymph nodes. All patients were followed up for at least 5 years. The primary outcome was the impact of the number of lymph nodes harvested on disease-free survival and overall survival, which were investigated using Kaplan-Meier survival techniques. There were no significant differences in recurrence rate, emergent or elective surgery, laparoscopic or open surgery, or chemotherapy between the 2 groups. Kaplan-Meier analyses showed no statistical differences in 5-year disease-free survival (P = .886) and 5-year overall survival (P = .832) between the groups. There were no significant differences in disease-free survival and overall survival between patients with adequate (≥ 12) and inadequate (< 12) lymph node harvest in T4N0 colorectal cancers.

PMID:36595998 | DOI:10.1097/MD.0000000000032497

Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Dec 30;101(52):e32053. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000032053.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) is a relatively new type of treatment for many musculoskeletal disorders. However, ESWT for low back pain remains controversial as the pain relieve benefit is questionable. We performed this systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the effectiveness and safety of ESWT interventions on pain and disability in patients with low back pain (LBP).

METHODS: In this meta-analysis, we searched electronic databases in the Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane’s library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Database to determine the equivalence of ESWT and placebo for the treatment of LBP up to April 4, 2022. A number of other outcomes were measured, including functional status, quality of life, and psychological outcomes measured by the Oswestry Disability Index. Weighted mean differences were calculated for continuous outcomes, while risk ratios were calculated for binary outcomes. Stata 12.0 software was used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS: Thirteen randomized controlled trials included for further analysis. Compared with control, the ESWT group showed lower pain intensity at month 1 (P < .05), as well as lower disability score at month 1 (P < .05) and at month 3 (P < .05). There was no statistically significant difference between ESWT and control groups in terms of the pain intensity at month 3 (P > .05). No serious adverse events related to treatment were reported. Sensitivity analysis demonstrates that the conclusions from this analysis were robust.

CONCLUSIONS: ESWT is effective in alleviating pain and improving the functional outcomes for patients with LBP. However, there remains a lack of high-level evidence to verify their effectiveness and safety and support their clinical application.

PMID:36595991 | DOI:10.1097/MD.0000000000032053

STAR Protoc. 2022 Dec 16;3(4):101880. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101880. Epub 2022 Dec 12.

ABSTRACT

Understanding dysregulation of the eukaryotic initiation factor 4F (eIF4F) complex across tumor types is critical to cancer treatment development. We present a protocol and accompanying R package “eIF4F.analysis”. We describe analysis of copy number status, gene abundance and stoichiometry, survival probability, expression covariation, correlating genes, mRNA/protein correlation, and protein co-expression. Using publicly available large multi-omics data, eIF4F.analysis permits computationally derived and statistically powerful inferences regarding initiation factor regulation in human cancers and clinical relevance of protein interactions within the eIF4F complex. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Wu and Wagner (2021).¹.

PMID:36595939 | DOI:10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101880

STAR Protoc. 2022 Dec 16;3(4):101893. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101893. Epub 2022 Dec 5.

ABSTRACT

In this protocol, we detail steps for constructing a high-throughput automated platform for thin layer chromatography (TLC) analysis. We describe robotics and computer vision techniques that can handle 32 compounds under three different elution solvents in about 50 min. The established automated platform can obtain statistically standardized retardation factor (R_f) values and enhance reproducibility while reducing labor and time costs. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Xu et al. (2022).¹.

PMID:36595915 | DOI:10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101893

Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Dec 23;101(51):e32466. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000032466.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The relationship between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and osteoarthritis is controversial in epidemiological studies. With the aim of better understanding the effect of HRT use, this first meta-analysis was implemented to explore the association of HRT and knee OA.

METHODS: A series of data is retrieved from Web of Science, PubMed, and Embase databases to observe the association of HRT and knee osteoarthritis up to December 2021. Two separated reviewers chose the research, extracted the data, and evaluated the study quality. Pooled estimates of 95% CI and HRs were acquired through a random-effects model.

RESULTS: Finally, there existed 13 pieces of research, containing one case-control research, four cross-sectional pieces of research, as well as eight cohort pieces of research, involving 2573,164 participants. The overall results showed that the use of HRT was related to a raised risk of knee OA (HR = 1.24, 95% CI 1.07-1.45). And the pooled analysis showed a statistically significant raised risk of knee joint replacement (HR = 1.30, 95% CI 1.09-1.54) when using HRT. In addition, the outcome exhibits the raised knee OA risk for the present users of HRT (HR = 1.40, 95% CI 1.16-1.68) according to HRT status. In the past users of HRT, the augment of knee OA risk was not statistically evident (HR = 1.16, 95% CI 0.94-1.42).

CONCLUSION: We observed that HRT use was related to a raised knee OA risk. Furthermore, future studies might focus on relevant mechanistic to verify our observed associations.

PMID:36595852 | DOI:10.1097/MD.0000000000032466

Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Dec 23;101(51):e32486. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000032486.

ABSTRACT

Qualitative evidences have shown that having the habit of reading might be beneficial for mental health. The present study aims to examine the relationship between reading and depression. National cross-sectional survey data of adults aged >40 years in mainland China were used. The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale questionnaire was utilized to detect depression status. Multilevel binary logistic and linear regression models were employed to reveal the association, and restricted cubic spline with 4 knots was adopted to describe the non-linear association of reading quantity and depression. The prevalence of depression was 13.02% in the target population. It was found that the habit of reading was negatively associated with depression, the odds ratio was 0.809 (95% confidence interval: 0.657-0.997). Diverse association between reading and depression was observed in different age groups, and a significant association was identified among the elderly, but not in the middle-aged population. Restricted cubic spline showed several books read per year might lower the risk of depression and 20-items Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale score. A lower prevalence of depression was observed in the target population. The habit of reading was negatively associated with depression. Age-specific association was observed. It is worth paying attention to the reading habit that could be beneficial in the elderly for mental health intervention, but it needs to be confirmed by experimental study.

PMID:36595839 | DOI:10.1097/MD.0000000000032486

Phys Med Biol. 2022 Dec 2. doi: 10.1088/1361-6560/aca872. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Positron emission tomography (PET) detectors providing attractive coincidence time resolutions (CTRs) offer time-of-flight information, resulting in an improved signal-to-noise ratio of the PET image. In applications with photosensor arrays that employ timestampers for individual channels, timestamps typically are not time synchronized, introducing time skews due to different signal pathways. The scintillator topology and transportation of the scintillation light might provoke further skews. If not accounted for these effects, the achievable CTR deteriorates. We studied a convex timing calibration based on a matrix equation. In this work, we extended the calibration concept to arbitrary structures targeting different aspects of the time skews and focusing on optimizing the CTR performance for detector characterization. The radiation source distribution, the stability of the estimations, and the energy dependence of calibration data are subject to the analysis.

APPROACH: A coincidence setup, equipped with a semi-monolithic detector comprising 8 LYSO slabs, each 3.9mm×31.9mm×19.0mm, and a one-to-one coupled detector with 8×8 LYSO segments of 3.9mm×3.9mm×19.0mm volume is used. Both scintillators utilize a dSiPM (DPC3200-22-44, Philips Digital Photon Counting) operated in first photon trigger. The calibration was also conducted with solely one-to-one coupled detectors and extrapolated for a slab-only setup.

MAIN RESULTS: All analyzed hyperparameters show a strong influence on the calibration. Using multiple radiation positions improved the skew estimation. The statistical significance of the calibration dataset and the utilized energy window was of great importance. Compared to a one-to-one coupled detector pair achieving CTRs of 224 ps the slab detector configuration reached CTRs down to 222 ps, demonstrating that slabs can compete with a clinically used segmented detector design.

SIGNIFICANCE: This is the first work that systematically studies the influence of hyperparameters on skew estimation and proposes an extension to arbitrary calibration structures (e.g., scintillator volumes) of a known calibration technique.

PMID:36595338 | DOI:10.1088/1361-6560/aca872

Phys Med Biol. 2022 Dec 15. doi: 10.1088/1361-6560/acabf9. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: With the development of computed tomography (CT) imaging technology, it is possible to acquire multi-energy data by spectral CT. Being different from conventional CT, the X-ray energy spectrum of spectral CT is cutting into several narrow bins which leads to the result that only a part of photon can be collected in each individual energy channel, which cause the image qualities to be severely degraded by noise and artifacts. To address this problem, we propose a spectral CT reconstruction algorithm based on low-rank representation and structure preserving regularization in this paper.

APPROACH: To make full use of the prior knowledge about both the inter-channel correlation and the sparsity in gradient domain of inner-channel data, this paper combines a low-rank correlation descriptor with a structure extraction operator as priori regularization terms for spectral CT reconstruction. Furthermore, a split-Bregman based iterative algorithm is developed to solve the reconstruction model. Finally, we propose a multi-channel adaptive parameters generation strategy according to CT values of each individual energy channel.

MAIN RESULTS: Experimental results on numerical simulations and real mouse data indicate that the proposed algorithm achieves higher accuracy on both reconstruction and material decomposition than the methods based on simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART), total variation minimization (TVM), total variation with low-rank (LRTV), and spatial-spectral cube matching frame (SSCMF). Compared with SART, our algorithm improves the feature similarity (FSIM) by 40.4% on average for numerical simulation reconstruction, whereas TVM, LRTV, and SSCMF correspond to 26.1%, 28.2%, and 29.5%, respectively.

SIGNIFICANCE: We outline a multi-channel reconstruction algorithm tailored for spectral CT. The qualitative and quantitative comparisons present a significant improvement of image quality, indicating its promising potential in spectral CT imaging.

PMID:36595335 | DOI:10.1088/1361-6560/acabf9

JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Jan 3;6(1):e2249395. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.49395.

ABSTRACT

IMPORTANCE: Surplus cryopreserved embryos pose a challenge for in vitro fertilization patients and clinics; with Roe v. Wade overturned, some states may deem the discarding of surplus embryos illegal, radically changing in vitro fertilization practice. An evidence-based tool would help limit surplus embryo creation.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a prediction tool for determining how many oocytes should be exposed to sperm to create embryos to conserve the chance of live birth while minimizing surplus embryos.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This diagnostic study used data from member clinics of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology Clinical Outcomes Reporting System between 2014 to 2019. A total of 410 719 oocyte retrievals and 460 577 embryo transfer cycles from 311 237 patients aged 18 to 45 years old who initiated their first oocyte stimulation cycle between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2019, were included. Data were analyzed from February to June 2022.

EXPOSURES: Female patient age, anti-mullerian hormone level, diminished ovarian reserve diagnosis, number of oocytes retrieved, and the state where the clinic is located were included in the final models.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The algorithm was based on 3 models with outcomes: (1) day of transfer; (2) proportion of retrieved oocytes that become usable blastocysts; and (3) number of blastocysts needed for transfer for 1 live birth to occur.

RESULTS: The median (IQR) age at stimulation cycle start was 35 (29-32) years and the median (IQR) number of oocytes retrieved was 10 (6-17). The likelihood of recommending that all oocytes be exposed to sperm increased with age; less than 20.0% of retrievals among patients younger than 32 years and more than 99.0% of retrievals among patients older than 42 years received recommendations that all oocytes be exposed to sperm. Among cycles recommended to expose fewer than all oocytes, the median (IQR) numbers recommended for 1 live birth were 7 oocytes (7-8) for patients aged less than 32 years, 8 (7-8) for patients aged 32 to 34 years, and 9 (9-11) for patients aged 35 to 37 years.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this diagnostic study of in vitro fertilization cycles, a prediction tool was developed to aid clinicians in determining the optimal number of oocytes to expose to sperm, reducing the number of unused embryos created and immediately addressing current patient and clinician concerns.

PMID:36595292 | DOI:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.49395