Nevin Manimala

J Environ Radioact. 2021 May 24;235-236:106643. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2021.106643. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The detection of radioactivity of unknown origin necessitates the use of models that can quantify unknown corresponding source term parameters. In this work, a method for solving this inverse problem is described. The main goal of the method is that it can be used in emergency response. Therefore, the full modelling chain dealing with the collection and pre-processing of measurement data, source term estimation, (forward) dispersion modelling, and consequence assessment are discussed. Firstly, to verify this inverse model SHERLOC, the part of the modelling chain concerning the source term estimation based on measurement data, is applied to the first episode of the European Tracer Experiment (ETEX). Secondly, the complete model chain is applied to a release that is still unaccounted for; the ¹⁰⁶Ru measured in the atmosphere of Europe in September and October of 2017. It is estimated that during the night of the 25th to the 26th of September 2017 approximately 1.33 PBq (1.33×10¹⁵ Bq) of ¹⁰⁶Ru was emitted at a location in the region of the Southern Urals in the Russian Federation. Statistical indicators show that the modelled levels of concentration are in good agreement with the measurements. The radiological consequences of the release are estimated to be minor at distances farther than 22 km from the estimated source. However, in the vicinity of the emission the maximum committed dose received by the public may have exceeded 100 mSv. Since the presented approach can be executed within few hours after the collection of measurement data it can be used in the emergency response following the detection of radioactivity of unknown origin.

PMID:34044288 | DOI:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2021.106643

Vet Immunol Immunopathol. 2021 May 23;237:110271. doi: 10.1016/j.vetimm.2021.110271. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Canine chronic enteropathy (CE) is a group of immunogenetic disorders of unclear etiology characterized by chronic or recurrent gastrointestinal signs and inflammation. Diagnosis of CE subtypes by treatment response is a lengthy and challenging process, particularly in refractory cases of the disease. Given known association of dog leukocyte antigen (DLA) class II genotype and various immunogenetic disorders between and across breeds, this study was designed to examine the potential of determining susceptibility to refractory CE through identification of risk and protective genotypes in French bulldogs and miniature dachshunds-two popular dog breeds in Japan. Sequence-based genotyping of three DLA class II genes in 29 French bulldogs and 30 miniature dachshunds with refractory CE revealed a protective haplotype DLA-DRB1*002:01-DQA1*009:01-DQB1*001:01 against CE in French bulldogs (OR 0.09, 95 % CI 0.01-0.71, p = 0.0084). No statistical difference was noted between miniature dachshund cases and controls. These findings, largely disparate from a previous study on German shepherd dogs in the UK, were taken as possible indication of etiological differences in the refractory CE noted between and within breeds, and by extension, the potential of identifying such disease heterogeneity by DLA typing. The DLA-DQA1/DQB1 haplotype, protective against CE in our French bulldogs, has been reported as protective in various immune-mediated disorders such as Doberman hepatitis (Dyggve et al., 2011). Likewise, the DLA-DRB1*006:01 risk allele for Doberman hepatitis was noted in more French bulldogs with CE compared to controls, in line with reports on genotypes associated with both risk and protection being shared across various autoimmune diseases and breeds. These findings support an immunogenetic basis to the French bulldog-CE in our analysis, calling for further DLA studies working with larger samples and different breeds towards phenotypic clarification that may aid in early diagnosis, treatment, and prophylaxis through epigenetic approaches and breeding.

PMID:34044267 | DOI:10.1016/j.vetimm.2021.110271

Clin Imaging. 2021 Apr 29;77:250-253. doi: 10.1016/j.clinimag.2021.04.027. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Amidst COVID-19 pandemic, many states have issued stay at home advisories and non-essential business closures to limit public exposure. During this “quarantine” period, it is important to understand the volume and types of emergency/trauma radiology cases to better prepare for the continuing and future pandemics. This study demonstrates new trends in pathologies and an overall increase in positive exams.

METHODS: A retrospective review of emergency department’s imaging during the initial two weeks of this state’s quarantine period, 3/23/2020-4/5/2020 was compared to similar dates of the previous year (“pre-quarantine” period), 3/25/2019-4/7/2019. One thousand emergency radiology and 991 trauma cases were evaluated. Of the emergency radiology cases 500 studies from each period were assessed, and from the trauma cases, 783 cases from pre-quarantine and 315 from the quarantine period were examined. Chi-square analysis was performed to assess for statistical significance.

RESULTS: Overall there were 43.0% fewer emergency radiology studies performed during the quarantine period (n = 4530) compared to pre-quarantine period (n = 2585). Additionally, the number of positive cases was significantly higher (P = 0.0001) during the quarantine period (43.0%) compared to the pre-quarantine period (30.2%). Several trends in types of trauma were observed, including a significant increase in domestic violence during the quarantine period (P = 0.0081).

DISCUSSION: Different volumes and types of emergency/trauma imaging cases were observed during the recent quarantine period. Findings may assist emergency radiology departments to plan for future pandemics or COVID-19 resurgences by offering evidence of the types and volume of emergency radiology cases one might expect.

PMID:34044266 | DOI:10.1016/j.clinimag.2021.04.027

Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2021 May 24;235:113766. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2021.113766. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Spatio-temporal models of ambient air pollution can be used to predict pollutant levels across a geographical region. These predictions may then be used as estimates of exposure for individuals in analyses of the health effects of air pollution. Integrated nested Laplace approximations is a method for Bayesian inference, and a fast alternative to Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. It also facilitates the SPDE approach to spatial modelling, which has been used for modelling of air pollutant levels, and is available in the R-INLA package for the R statistics software. Covariates such as meteorological variables may be useful predictors in such models, but covariate misalignment must be dealt with. This paper describes a flexible method used to estimate pollutant levels for six pollutants in Suzhou, a city in China with dispersed air pollutant monitors and weather stations. A two-stage approach is used to address misalignment of weather covariate data.

PMID:34044249 | DOI:10.1016/j.ijheh.2021.113766

Int J Orthop Trauma Nurs. 2021 Feb 16;42:100850. doi: 10.1016/j.ijotn.2021.100850. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Primary Total Knee Replacement (TKR) is one of the most commonly performed elective orthopaedic procedures globally. Many patients undergoing this type of surgery are overweight or obese. In the UK, clinical commissioning groups have imposed arbitrary Body Mass Index (BMI) thresholds for TKR surgery. Many obese patients undergoing TKR believe they will lose weight following the procedure because of increased mobility.

AIM: This paper aims to present the findings of a scoping literature review about the relationship between obesity and primary TKR and to make recommendations for clinical practice, education and policy.

METHODS: A scoping literature review investigated the impact of BMI/body weight on the need for TKR, the impact of body weight and or BMI on patient outcomes following TKR, weight loss/gain following TKR and the implications of obesity on cost of TKR.

FINDINGS: Seventy-one papers were included in the review. Seven studies reported statistically significant associations between increased BMI/obesity with the need for TKR. Thirty of the studies reported worse outcomes for obese patients compared to non-obese comparisons. Forty of the studies reported no difference between obese and non-obese participants, including some where outcomes of obese patients were better than non-obese comparisons. Eight studies reported on changes to weight before and after TKR, three of the studies reporting a higher percentage losing weight than gaining weight and four studies reporting that obese patients gained weight. The 8th study reported that morbidly obese patients largely returned to their baseline BMI postoperatively.

CONCLUSION: The findings of the review challenge the legitimacy of setting BMI thresholds to control access to TKR surgery. There is an urgent need to develop evidence based approaches to support weight loss and weight management for this group of patients. Obese patients undergoing TKR should receive specific information regarding potential additional risks of complications and poorer outcomes. There is a need for health promotion regarding the association of being overweight/obese in young adulthood and developing osteoarthritis of the knee joints requiring TKR in middle and older age.

PMID:34044216 | DOI:10.1016/j.ijotn.2021.100850

Am J Otolaryngol. 2021 May 19;42(6):103084. doi: 10.1016/j.amjoto.2021.103084. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

AIMS: Acute supraglottitis (AS) can be a life threatening infection that may lead to sudden airway obstruction. Thankfully, paediatric instances have decreased with public health vaccination programmes. Owing to the nature of the location of pathology, this time sensitive emergency requires astute clinical acumen and awareness of early warning signs. This study aimed to i) determine if the incidence of AS has changed over time; ii) investigate geographical and seasonal variation of infection; iii) identify features of presentation which may predict airway intervention; iv) assess efficacy of treatment and make recommendations for management.

MATERIALS AND METHOD: All adult patients admitted to a tertiary hospital with the diagnosis of acute supraglottitis between 2013 and 2021 were included. Diagnosis was confirmed with flexible nasendoscopy and consultant review. Demographics, management and outcomes were recorded. Statistical analysis was performed by calculating means and standard deviation for descriptive purposes. Fischer’s exact test and two tailed t-test for categorical and continuous variables respectively. Results were deemed significant if P values of less than or equal to 0.05 were calculated.

RESULTS: Forty-three adults were identified. Five patients (11.6%) required airway intervention. Stridor, respiratory distress and CRP of >100 mg/L were noted to be significant predictive factors for airway intervention. Intubated patients had a significantly longer hospital stay. Regions with a higher population density were noted to have a higher incidence but this did not prove to be significant.

CONCLUSION: This is the largest study of AS in Ireland to date. There is a trend towards increasing incidence of acute supraglottitis in adults. Factors such as stridor, respiratory distress and elevated CRP should alert the clinician to the possible need for airway intervention. Acute supraglottitis is more common in higher density populated regions.

PMID:34044211 | DOI:10.1016/j.amjoto.2021.103084

Atherosclerosis. 2021 May 16;327:59-67. doi: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2021.05.006. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Statins are the drugs of choice for decreasing elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Based mostly on animal studies and case reports, they are forbidden to pregnant women and in the preconception period because of their possible teratogenic effects, for which causality has never been proven. The aim of this study was to systematically review the existing studies and to perform a meta-analysis on this topic.

METHODS: The databases PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched since the inception until May 16, 2020. The risk of bias for each clinical trial was evaluated using the Cochrane handbook criteria for systematic reviews. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) quality assessment tool was used for the evaluation of cohort and cross-sectional studies. Meta-analysis was performed on the extracted data. Heterogeneity was assessed using I² measure and Cochrane’s Q statistic. We calculated a pooled estimate of odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) using a random-effects model.

RESULTS: 23 studies (nine cohort studies, six case reports, six case series, one population-based case-referent study and one clinical trial) with 1,276,973 participants were included in the systematic review and 6 of them (n = 1,267,240 participants) were included in meta-analysis. The results of the critical review did not suggest a clear-cut answer to the question whether statin treatment during pregnancy is associated with an increased rate of birth defects or not, while the results of the meta-analysis indicated that statin use does not increase birth defects [OR (95%CI): 1.48 (0.90, 2.42), p = 0.509], including cardiac anomalies [2.53 (0.81, 7.93), p = 0.112] and other congenital anomalies [1.19 (0.70, 2.03), p = 0.509)].

CONCLUSIONS: We observed no significant increase of birth defects after statin therapy. Thus, there is still no undoubtful evidence that statin treatment during pregnancy is teratogenic, and this issue still needs to be investigated, especially there are more and more pregnant women at high CVD risk that could have benefited from the statin therapy.

PMID:34044205 | DOI:10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2021.05.006

Comput Biol Chem. 2021 May 19;93:107515. doi: 10.1016/j.compbiolchem.2021.107515. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Because of rapid advancements in sequencing technology, the experimental platforms of RNA-seq are updated frequently. It is quite common to combine data sets from several experimental platforms for analysis in order to increase the sample size and achieve more powerful tests for detecting the presence of differential gene expression. The data sets combined from different experimental platforms will have a complex data distribution, which causes a major problem in statistical modeling as well as in multiple testing. Although plenty of research have studied this problem by modeling the batch effects, there are no general and robust data-driven procedures for RNA-seq analysis. In this paper we propose a new robust procedure which combines the use of popular methods (packages) with a data-driven simulation (DDS). We construct the average receiver operating characteristic curve through the DDS to provide the calibrated levels of significance for multiple testing. Instead of further modifying the adjusted p-values, we calibrated the levels of significance for each specific method and mean effect model. The procedure was demonstrated with several popular RNA-seq analysis methods (edgeR, DEseq2, limma+voom). The proposed procedure relaxes the stringent assumptions of data distributions for RNA-seq analysis methods and is illustrated using colorectal cancer studies from The Cancer Genome Atlas database.

PMID:34044204 | DOI:10.1016/j.compbiolchem.2021.107515

Psychiatry Res. 2021 May 13;302:113992. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2021.113992. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

AIMS: To examine the pathways explaining the association between bullying victimisation and suicidal behaviours among school-based adolescents.

METHODS: We used data from the Global School-based Student Health Survey from 90 countries conducted between 2003 and 2017. We applied multivariate regression and generalised structural equation models to examine the pathways.

RESULTS: Of 280,076 study adolescents, 32.4% experienced bullying and 12.1%, 11.1% and 10.9% reported suicidal ideation, suicidal planning and suicidal attempt, respectively. Adolescents who experienced bullying had higher rates of hunger (8.7% vs 5.0%), drinking soft drinks (44.0% vs 40.2%), truancy (35.8% vs 22.7%), smoking (14.0% vs 6.9%), alcohol consumption (19.9% vs 11.8%), peer victimisation (54.0% vs 25.6%), peer conflict (47.4% vs 20.1%), sleep disturbance (13.7% vs 5.6%), loneliness (18.1% vs 7.6%), no close friends (7.5% vs 5.2%), lack of peer support (64.9% vs 53.3%), lack of parental connectedness (67.0% vs 60.4%) and less parental bonding (64.1% vs 55.2%). Nearly one-fourth (18.7%) of the total association between bullying and suicidal ideation was mediated by loneliness. Similarly, sleep disturbances and alcohol consumption also mediated 4 to 9% of the association between bullying and suicidal behaviours.

CONCLUSION: This study suggests targeted policies and early implementation of interventional strategies focusing on addressing loneliness, sleep disturbance and alcohol consumption to reduce the risk of adverse suicidal behaviours among adolescents.

PMID:34044201 | DOI:10.1016/j.psychres.2021.113992

J Surg Res. 2021 May 24;266:311-318. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2021.03.063. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH) is a benign epithelial proliferative lesion with histologic features resembling those seen in low grade ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Surgical excision of the biopsy site is the standard management approach. The objective of this study was to determine the upgrade rate from ADH on stereotactic breast biopsies to DCIS or invasive carcinoma (IC) in our institution. We also sought to identify clinical, pathologic and radiologic predictive factors associated with risk of upgrade.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical charts, mammograms and pathology reports were reviewed for all women with a stereotactic breast biopsy showing ADH and subsequent surgery at our institution between 2008 and 2018. When available, mammograms were re-reviewed by a radiologist for this study.

RESULTS: 295 biopsies were analyzed in 290 patients. Mean age was 56 y old. Upgrade rate was 10.5% of which 7.5% were DCIS and 3.1% IC. Mammograms were reviewed by a radiologist in 161 patients from 2013 to 2018. In this subset of patients, the rate of upgrade was 8.7% (4.35% DCIS and 4.35% IC). A statistically significant difference he largest size of the microcalcification clusters on mammogram was observed between the upgraded and the non-upgraded subgroups (14.2 mm versus 8.9 mm, P = 0.03) CONCLUSIONS: The evaluation of the largest size of microcalcification clusters on mammogram as a cut-off feature could be considered to choose between an observational versus a surgical approach. This large series provides contemporary data to assist informed decision making regarding the treatment of our patients.

PMID:34044175 | DOI:10.1016/j.jss.2021.03.063