N Z Med J. 2022 Jan 21;135(1548):42-53.
ABSTRACT
AIMS: Dementia is an important health concern for Māori and therefore it is essential to explore the extent and impact of dementia in this community. The 10/66 dementia protocol, a widely used research tool for measuring the prevalence of dementia, was developed to minimise cultural and educational bias in comparisons of dementia prevalence across different countries and/or cultures. The aims of this study are to (i) adapt the 10/66 dementia protocol for use in research within the Māori community and (ii) test the diagnostic accuracy of the adapted (ie, Māori-friendly) 10/66 dementia protocol against the reference standard of a clinical diagnosis of dementia (or no dementia).
METHOD: The sample included Māori aged 65 and over who had been assessed at a local memory service. Ten dementia cases and 10 controls were included. The sample was further enriched by the inclusion of 6 controls from a concurrent dementia-prevalence feasibility study in the local community. The Māori-friendly 10/66 dementia protocol was measured against the reference standard. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and Youden’s Index were calculated.
RESULTS: The Māori-friendly 10/66 dementia protocol had a sensitivity of 90.0% (95% CI 62.8-99.4), specificity of 93.8% (95% CI 75.3-99.6), positive predictive value of 90.0% (95% CI 62.8-99.4), negative predictive value of 93.8% (95% CI 75.3-99.6) and Youden’s Index of 0.83.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study results provide preliminary evidence that the Māori-friendly 10/66 dementia protocol has adequate discriminatory abilities for the diagnosis of dementia. Our study also demonstrates that the Māori-friendly 10/66 dementia protocol has the potential to be used in a dementia-population-based study for Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand.
PMID:35728129
N Z Med J. 2021 Dec 17;134(1547):71-84.
ABSTRACT
AIM: In August 2016, a large waterborne campylobacteriosis outbreak occurred in Havelock North, New Zealand. This analysis describes the clinical complications of cases admitted to hospital as a result of acute infection, identifies risk factors for hospitalisation and compares deaths between hospitalised and non-hospitalised cases. Hospital admissions with post-infectious sequelae were excluded as they are the subject of a separate analysis.
METHODS: A case series analysis was undertaken by reviewing the electronic medical records of 933 residents of Hawke’s Bay District Health Board with probable and confirmed campylobacteriosis linked to the Havelock North Campylobacter outbreak.
RESULTS: A total of 67 hospital admissions, among 58 individuals, are described. Pre-existing comorbidity and advanced age were significant risk factors for hospital admission in univariate analysis. Dehydration (74.1%), electrolyte imbalance (35.8%) and acute kidney injury (27.6%) were common among hospitalised cases. The proportion of hospitalised cases that died within one year was significantly higher when compared to deaths among non-hospitalised cases (OR 5.0, 95% CI: 2.3-10.7), although this trend was not statistically significant after adjusting for age and comorbidity (OR 2.3, 95% CI: 0.96-5.3).
CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the serious health impacts that occurred from a campylobacteriosis outbreak of this magnitude.
PMID:35728111
N Z Med J. 2021 Dec 17;134(1547):48-62.
ABSTRACT
AIM: This survey aimed to investigate patient perspectives, including preferences, needs and concerns, on the use of, and access to, individual healthcare information.
METHOD: A mixed-methods cross-sectional survey of adult patients (n=1,377) in Waitematā District Health Board inpatient and outpatient services during November-December 2020. The survey was online and on paper and available in 10 languages.
RESULTS: Over 80% of participants were comfortable with their health information being used across the scenarios presented (range: 81-89%). Māori were significantly more likely than non-Māori to be comfortable with their health information being combined with the health information of others to better understand population needs (p=0.006). The level of comfort with the use of individual health information was related to assurances that its use was for public good, data were stored securely, individual privacy was maintained, the information was accurate and there was communication on how it was used.
DISCUSSION: This study has shown that most healthcare consumers are comfortable with the health service using their de-identified health information beyond their care if it benefits others.
PMID:35728109
J Am Coll Health. 2022 Jun 21:1-7. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2022.2086010. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: This longitudinal study tested the relationship between cigarette and e-cigarette use and SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion among US college students.
PARTICIPANTS: Undergraduate students (n = 764), drawn from a randomly selected invitation-only pool from a large Midwestern university, that were initially negative for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and were re-tested in November were included in this study conducted in Fall 2020.
METHODS: Demographics and cigarette and e-cigarette use behaviors (nicotine use) were collected in a baseline survey. SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests were administered in September (baseline) and November (endline) of 2020. Log-binomial regression analyses were conducted to test the association between nicotine use and SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion.
RESULTS: SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion was 5.2%. No statistically significant associations were found between nicotine use and SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion.
CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to prior results, we found no association between nicotine use and SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion. Nicotine use may not be a key risk factor for COVID-19 acquisition in predominantly healthy college-aged populations.
PMID:35728069 | DOI:10.1080/07448481.2022.2086010
Cancer Nurs. 2022 Feb 28. doi: 10.1097/NCC.0000000000001049. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: In persons with lung cancer, sex and race are independent predictors of comorbidities and are associated survival. It is unclear how comorbidity profiles differ across sex and race.
OBJECTIVE: The objective was to examine comorbidity differences between men and women and Blacks and Whites.
METHODS: Data from the 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were analyzed using descriptive statistics, χ2 test of independence, and multiple logistic regression. Variables included sociodemographics and comorbidities.
RESULTS: Among individuals with lung cancer (N = 594), men were more likely to experience a heart attack (odds ratio [OR], 3.59; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.62-7.96) and diabetes (OR, 2.83; 95% CI, 1.57-5.10) and less likely to experience depressive disorder (OR, 0.360; 95% CI, 0203-0.637). Black men (OR, 28.57; 95% CI, 9.22-88.55) and women (OR, 2.48; 95% CI, 1.02-6.05) were more likely to have a history of stroke.
CONCLUSION: Findings show that there may be differences in patterns of comorbidities among individuals with lung cancer. As we continue to move toward individualized medicine in cancer care, future work in this area should examine social determinants of health and how they may influence the patterns of comorbidities.
IMPLICATION FOR NURSES: Although nurses may be aware that certain groups have an increased risk for certain comorbid conditions, this study highlights what groups with lung cancer may be more likely to have certain comorbidities. Nurses can assess individuals for comorbidities and provide education on how to manage comorbidities during cancer treatment.
PMID:35728011 | DOI:10.1097/NCC.0000000000001049
Anal Chem. 2022 Jun 21. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.2c01001. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Single-atom catalysis is mainly focused on its dispersed high-density catalytic sites, but delicate designs to realize a unique catalysis mechanism in terms of target reactions have been much less investigated. Herein an iron single atomic site catalyst anchored on 2-D N-doping graphene (Fe-SASC/G) was synthesized and further employed as a biomimetic sensor to electrochemically detect hydrogen peroxide, showing an extremely high sensitivity of 3214.28 μA mM-1 cm-2, which is much higher than that (6.5 μA mM-1 cm-2) of its dispersed on 1-D carbon nanowires (Fe-SASC/NW), ranking the best sensitivity among all reported Fe based catalyst at present. The sensor was also used to successfully in situ monitor H2O2 released from A549 living cells. The mechanism was further systematically investigated. Results interestingly indicate that the distance between adjacent single Fe atomic catalytic sites on 2-D graphene of Fe-SASC/G matches statistically well with the outer length of bioxygen of H2O2 to promote a bridge adsorption of -O-O- for simultaneous 2-electron transfer, while the single Fe atoms anchored on distant 1-D nanowires in Fe-SASC/NW only allow an end-adsorption of oxygen atoms for 1-electron transfer. These results demonstrate that Fe-SASC/G holds great promise as an advanced electrode material in selective and sensitive biomimetic sensor and other electrocatalytic applications, while offering scientific insights in deeper single atomic catalysis mechanisms, especially the effects of substrate dimensions on the mechanism.
PMID:35727990 | DOI:10.1021/acs.analchem.2c01001
Annu Rev Vis Sci. 2022 Jun 21. doi: 10.1146/annurev-vision-100720-103343. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Vision and learning have long been considered to be two areas of research linked only distantly. However, recent developments in vision research have changed the conceptual definition of vision from a signal-evaluating process to a goal-oriented interpreting process, and this shift binds learning, together with the resulting internal representations, intimately to vision. In this review, we consider various types of learning (perceptual, statistical, and rule/abstract) associated with vision in the past decades and argue that they represent differently specialized versions of the fundamental learning process, which must be captured in its entirety when applied to complex visual processes. We show why the generalized version of statistical learning can provide the appropriate setup for such a unified treatment of learning in vision, what computational framework best accommodates this kind of statistical learning, and what plausible neural scheme could feasibly implement this framework. Finally, we list the challenges that the field of statistical learning faces in fulfilling the promise of being the right vehicle for advancing our understanding of vision in its entirety. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Vision Science, Volume 8 is September 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
PMID:35727961 | DOI:10.1146/annurev-vision-100720-103343
Br J Surg. 2022 Jun 21:znac074. doi: 10.1093/bjs/znac074. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Data on interventions to reduce postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) following pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) are conflicting. The aim of this study was to assimilate data from RCTs.
METHODS: MEDLINE and Embase databases were searched systematically for RCTs evaluating interventions to reduce all grades of POPF or clinically relevant (CR) POPF after PD. Meta-analysis was undertaken for interventions investigated in multiple studies. A post hoc analysis of negative RCTs assessed whether these had appropriate statistical power.
RESULTS: Among 22 interventions (7512 patients, 55 studies), 12 were assessed by multiple studies, and subjected to meta-analysis. Of these, external pancreatic duct drainage was the only intervention associated with reduced rates of both CR-POPF (odds ratio (OR) 0.40, 95 per cent c.i. 0.20 to 0.80) and all-POPF (OR 0.42, 0.25 to 0.70). Ulinastatin was associated with reduced rates of CR-POPF (OR 0.24, 0.06 to 0.93). Invagination (versus duct-to-mucosa) pancreatojejunostomy was associated with reduced rates of all-POPF (OR 0.60, 0.40 to 0.90). Most negative RCTs were found to be underpowered, with post hoc power calculations indicating that interventions would need to reduce the POPF rate to 1 per cent or less in order to achieve 80 per cent power in 16 of 34 (all-POPF) and 19 of 25 (CR-POPF) studies respectively.
CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis supports a role for several interventions to reduce POPF after PD. RCTs in this field were often relatively small and underpowered, especially those evaluating CR-POPF.
PMID:35727956 | DOI:10.1093/bjs/znac074
Brain. 2022 Jun 21:awac221. doi: 10.1093/brain/awac221. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
The underlying pathophysiology of paediatric mild traumatic brain injury and the time-course for biological recovery remains widely debated, with clinical care principally informed by subjective self-report. Similarly, clinical evidence indicate that adolescence is a risk factor for prolonged recovery, but the impact of age-at-injury on biomarkers has not been determined in large, homogeneous samples. The current study collected diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data in consecutively recruited patients (N = 203; 8-18 years old) and age and sex-matched healthy controls (N = 170) in a prospective cohort design. Patients were evaluated sub-acutely (1-11 days post-injury) as well as at four months post-injury (early-chronic phase). Healthy participants were evaluated at similar times to control for neurodevelopment and practice effects. Clinical findings indicated persistent symptoms at four months for a significant minority of patients (22%), along with residual executive dysfunction and verbal memory deficits. Results indicated increased fractional anisotropy and reduced mean diffusivity for patients, with abnormalities persisting up to four months post-injury. Multicompartmental geometric models indicated that estimates of intracellular volume fractions were increased in patients, whereas estimates of free water fractions were decreased. Critically, unique areas of white matter pathology (increased free water fractions or increased neurite dispersion) were observed when standard assumptions regarding parallel diffusivity were altered in multicompartmental models to be more biologically plausible. Cross-validation analyses indicated that some diffusion findings were more reproducible when approximately 70% of the total sample (142 patients, 119 controls) were used in analyses, highlighting the need for large-sample sizes to detect abnormalities. Supervised machine learning approaches (random forests) indicated that diffusion abnormalities increased overall diagnostic accuracy (patients vs. controls) by approximately 10% after controlling for current clinical gold standards, with each diffusion metric accounting for only a few unique percentage points. In summary, current results suggest that novel multicompartmental models are more sensitive to paediatric mild traumatic brain injury pathology, and that this sensitivity is increased when using parameters that more accurately reflect diffusion in healthy tissue. Results also suggest that diffusion data may be insufficient to achieve a high degree of objective diagnostic accuracy in patients when used in isolation, which is to be expected given known heterogeneities in pathophysiology, mechanism of injury, and even criteria for diagnoses. Finally, current results suggest ongoing clinical and physiological recovery at four months post-injury.
PMID:35727944 | DOI:10.1093/brain/awac221