Tag: statistics

Facial Plast Surg. 2023 Jul 4. doi: 10.1055/s-0043-1770764. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUNDS: Over the years, different techniques have been developed to reduce the number of incisions and scars in subnasal lip lifting and to increase the amount of lifting. The aim of this study was to present a new technique to hide the scars at the nasal base in subnasal lip lifting procedures and to review the literature.

METHODS: The file of patients who underwent subnasal lip lifting between January 2019 and January 2021 were examined. In all patients, the nasal sill flap that was designed was elevated, and the nasal sill flap that was prepared was adapted to its new location when the excision had been completed. Two different plastic surgeons evaluated the patients in the postoperative 12-month follow-ups. The scars were evaluated for vascularity, pigmentation, elasticity, thickness, and height.

RESULTS: The study included 26 patients. While 21 patients had no histories of lip lifting, five patients had had previous lip lifting history. The mean operation time was 37.11 minutes. Patients’ skin types were determined as Type 3 in 18 patients and Type 4 in eight patients according to the Fitzpatrick classification. The mean follow-up period of the patients was 13.11 months. At the end of the 12-month period, the mean scar score of the patients was calculated as 11.15. The mean scar score of primary cases was 11.14, and the mean scar score of secondary cases was 11.20 (p = 0.983). There was no statistically significant difference in terms of complications among smokers (p = 0.356). The mean scar score was calculated as 12.17 in patients who had Type 3 skin and 8.88 in patients with Type 4 skin (p = 0.075).

CONCLUSIONS: This technique is beneficial for patients because the scars are discrete and easier for patients to accept.

PMID:37402393 | DOI:10.1055/s-0043-1770764

Thromb Haemost. 2023 Jul 4. doi: 10.1055/a-2122-7780. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The Caprini risk assessment model (RAM) is the most commonly used tool for evaluating venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk, the high scoring for arthroplasty can result in patients being classified as high risk for VTE. Therefore, its value in post arthroplasty has been subject to debate.

METHODS: Retrospective data was collected from patients who underwent arthroplasty between August 2015 and December 2021. The study cohort included 3807 patients, all of whom underwent a thorough evaluation using Caprini RAM and vascular Doppler ultrasonography preoperatively.

RESULTS: 432 individuals (11.35%) developed VTE, while 3375 did not. 32 (0.84%) presented with symptomatic VTE, while 400 (10.51%) were detected as asymptomatic. Additionally, 368 (9.67%) VTE events occurred during the hospitalization period, and 64 (1.68%) cases were detected during post-discharge follow-up. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences between the VTE and non-VTE groups in terms of ages, blood loss, d-dimer, BMI>25, visible varicose veins, swollen legs, smoking, history of blood clots, broken hip, percent of female, hypertension and knee joint arthroplasty(P<0.05). The Caprini score was found to be significantly higher in the VTE group (10.10±2.23) compared to the non-VTE group (9.35±2.14) (P<0.001). Furthermore, there was a significant correlation between the incidence of VTE and the Caprini score (r=0.775, p=0.003). Patients with a score ≥9 are at a high-risk threshold for postoperative VTE.

CONCLUSION: The Caprini RAM shows a significant correlation with the occurrence of VTE. A higher score indicates a greater likelihood of developing VTE. The score ≥9 is a particularly high risk of developing VTE.

PMID:37402391 | DOI:10.1055/a-2122-7780

Physiol Meas. 2023 Jul 4. doi: 10.1088/1361-6579/ace414. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the world’s most serious diseases threatening human health. Among them, arterial blood pressure (ABP) waveform has a great relationship with cardiovascular diseases. It contains a lot of cardiovascular information, which plays an important role in diagnosing and preventing cardiovascular diseases. This paper proposes a deep learning model of ABP-MultiNet3+, which can convert photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals into ABP waveforms containing cardiovascular physiological information. The PPG signal is obtained by monitoring the human body with sensors, and its working principle ensures non-invasiveness and universality. To ensure the quality of the predicted ABP waveform, this paper carefully designs the network structure, input signal, loss function, and structural parameters. A fully convolutional neural network (CNN) MultiResUNet3+ is used as the core architecture of ABP-MultiNet3+. In addition to performing Kalman filtering on the original PPG signal, its first-order derivative and second-order derivative signals are used as ABP-MultiNet3+ enter. The model’s loss function uses a combination of mean absolute error (MAE) and means square error (MSE) loss to ensure that the predicted ABP waveform matches the reference waveform. The proposed ABP-MultiNet3+ model was tested in a subject-dependent manner on the public MIMIC II database, and the MAE of the predicted waveform from the reference waveform was 1.88 mmHg in the subject experiment, indicating a small error in the performance of the model better. In the method of this paper, the MAP and DBP reached the A level in the AAMI and BHS standards, and the Bland-Altman analysis and regression analysis confirmed the statistical significance of the experimental results.

PMID:37402386 | DOI:10.1088/1361-6579/ace414

Melanoma Res. 2023 Jul 3. doi: 10.1097/CMR.0000000000000907. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Patients with melanoma brain metastases (MBM) have poor prognosis, albeit advances in locoregional and systemic treatments. The melanoma-specific Graded Prognostic Assessment (GPA) effectively stratifies survival for patients with MBM. Nevertheless, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), a well known prognostic factor for patients with melanoma, is not represented in the GPA scores and might add prognostic information for patients with MBM. In this study, 150 consecutive patients with MBM were retrospectively analyzed with the aim of evaluating independent prognostic factors for MBM patients, including LDH. Furthermore, we implemented a disease-specific prognostic score and estimated survival according to treatment modalities. On the basis of multivariable Cox regression analyses, six prognostic factors (age, BRAF status, number of MBM, number of extracranial metastatic sites, performance status, and LDH level) resulted statistically significant in terms of survival and were combined in a prognostic score to stratify patients in distinct prognostic groups (P < 0.0001). Among treatment modalities, a multimodal approach with stereotactic radiosurgery or neurosurgery associated with systemic therapy showed the best outcome (median overall survival: 12.32 months, 95% confidence interval, 7.92-25.30). This is the first study to demonstrate that LDH has independent prognostic value for patients with MBM and might be used to improve prognostic stratification, albeit external validation is mandatory. Survival of patients with MBM is affected by both disease-specific risk factors and treatment modalities, with locoregional treatments associated with better outcomes.

PMID:37402350 | DOI:10.1097/CMR.0000000000000907

Porcine Health Manag. 2023 Jul 5;9(1):16. doi: 10.1186/s40813-023-00311-3.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Statistical Process Control (SPC) is a powerful statistical tool that can be used in animal production to evaluate the evolution of production parameters overtime in response to the implementation of a specific strategy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplementing growing-finishing pigs with isoquinoline alkaloids (IQ) on growth performance parameters by using the SPC method. IQ are natural secondary plant metabolites which have been extensively investigated in food animals due to their efficacy in supporting growth performance and the overall health status. Performance parameters and medication usage were collected from 1,283,880 growing-finishing pigs fed the same basal diet, 147,727 of which were supplemented with IQ from day 70 of life until slaughter.

RESULTS: Supplementation with IQ improved feed conversion ratio, while feed intake and daily gain were maintained.

CONCLUSION: SPC methods are useful statistical tools to evaluate the effect of using a new feed additive in the feed of pigs on growth performance at a commercial level. Additionally, IQ supplementation improved growth performance and it can be considered as a good strategy to reduce feed conversion in growing-finishing pigs.

PMID:37403176 | DOI:10.1186/s40813-023-00311-3

Cognition. 2023 Jul 2;238:105525. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105525. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Children have an early ability to learn and comprehend words, a skill that develops as they age. A critical question remains regarding what drives this development. Maturation-based theories emphasise cognitive maturity as a driver of comprehension, while accumulator theories emphasise children’s accumulation of language experience over time. In this study we used archival looking-while-listening data from 155 children aged 14-48 months with a range of exposure to the target languages (from 10% to 100%) to evaluate the relative contributions of maturation and experience. We compared four statistical models of noun learning: maturation-only, experience-only, additive (maturation plus experience), and accumulator (maturation times experience). The best-fitting model was the additive model in which both maturation (age) and experience were independent contributors to noun comprehension: older children as well as children who had more experience with the target language were more accurate and looked faster to the target in the looking-while-listening task. A 25% change in relative language exposure was equivalent to a 4 month change in age, and age effects were stronger at younger than at older ages. Whereas accumulator models predict that the lexical development of children with less exposure to a language (as is typical in bilinguals) should fall further and further behind children with more exposure to a language (such as monolinguals), our results indicate that bilinguals are buffered against effects of reduced exposure in each language. This study shows that continuous-level measures from individual children’s looking-while-listening data, gathered from children with a range of language experience, provide a powerful window into lexical development.

PMID:37402336 | DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105525

Drug Alcohol Depend. 2023 Jun 24;249:110874. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.110874. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Quality of life (QoL) is an increasingly recognized patient-centered treatment outcome in individuals with opioid use disorder. There is a gap in literature on the impact of opium tincture (OT) on patients’ QoL compared to standard treatment options such as methadone. This study aimed to compare the QoL of participants with opioid use disorder receiving OAT using OT or methadone and identify the factors associated with their QoL during treatment.

METHODS: The opium trial was a multicenter non-inferiority randomized clinical trial in four private OAT outpatient clinics in Iran. The study assigned patients to either OT (10 mg/ml) or methadone sirup (5 mg/ml) for a follow-up of 85 days. QoL was assessed using the brief version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life instrument (WHOQOL- BREF).

RESULTS: A total of 83 participants, 35 (42.2%) in the OT arm and 48 (57.8%) in the methadone arm, completed the WHOQOL-BREF in full and were included in the primary analysis. The mean score of patients’ QoL showed improvement compared to baseline, but differences were not statistically significant between OT and methadone arms (p = 0.786). Improvements were mainly observed within the first 30 days of receiving treatment. Being married and lower psychological distress were associated with an improved QoL. Within the social relationships domain, male gender showed significantly higher QoL compared to females.

CONCLUSION: OT shows promise as an OAT medication, comparable to methadone in improving patients’ QoL. There is a need to incorporate psychosocial interventions to further sustain and improve the QoL in this population. Identifying other social determinants of health which affect QoL and the cultural adaptation of assessments for individuals from various ethnocultural backgrounds are critical areas of inquiry.

PMID:37402335 | DOI:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.110874

Accid Anal Prev. 2023 Jul 2;191:107194. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2023.107194. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Animosity between drivers and cyclists has existed on urban road networks for many years. Conflicts between these two groups of road users are exceptionally high in the shared right-of-way environments. Benchmarking methods of conflict assessments are mostly based on statistical analysis with limited data sources. The actual crash data would be valuable to understand the features of bike-car collisions, however the available data are spatially and temporally sparse. To this end, this paper proposes a simulation-based bicycle-vehicle conflict data generation and assessment approach. The proposed approach uses a three-dimensional visualization and virtual reality platform, integrating traffic microsimulation to reproduce a naturalistic driving/cycling-enabled experimental environment. The simulation platform is validated to reflect the human-resembled driving/cycling behaviors under different infrastructure designs. Comparative experiments are carried out on bicycle-vehicle interactions under different conditions, with data collected from a total of 960 scenarios. Based on the results of the surrogate safety assessment model (SSAM), the obtained key insights include: (1) scenarios of a high conflict probability do not lead to actual crashes, which suggests that the classic SSM-based measurements such as TTC or PET values may not sufficiently reflect real cyclist-driver interactions; (2) the major cause of conflicts is variation in vehicle acceleration, which suggests that drivers are considered to be the main party responsible for bicycle-vehicle conflict/crash occurrence; (3) the proposed approach is able to generate near-miss events and reproduce interaction patterns between cyclists and drivers, facilitating experiments and data collections which would be typically unavailable for this type of study.

PMID:37402331 | DOI:10.1016/j.aap.2023.107194

Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2023 Jun 22;66:102908. doi: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2023.102908. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Probabilistic genotyping systems are able to analyse complex mixed DNA profiles and show good power to discriminate contributors from non-contributors. However, the abilities of the statistical analyses are still unavoidably bound by the quality of information being analysed. If a profile has a high number of contributors, or a contributor that is present in trace amounts, then the amount of information about those individuals in the DNA profile is limited. Recent work has shown the ability to gain better resolution of the genotypes of contributors to complex profiles using cell subsampling. This is the process of taking many sets of a limited number of cells and individually profiling each set. These ‘mini-mixtures’ can provide greater information about the genotypes of underlying contributors. In our work we take the resulting profiles from multiple subsamplings of complex DNA profiles in equal amounts and show how testing for, and then assuming, a common DNA donor can further improve the ability to resolve the genotypes of contributors. Using direct cell sub-sampling and statistical analysis software DBLR™, we were able to recover single source profiles of uploadable quality from five out of the six contributors of an equally proportioned mixture. Through the analysis of mixtures in this work we provide a template for carrying out common donor analysis for maximum effect.

PMID:37402330 | DOI:10.1016/j.fsigen.2023.102908

Int J Surg. 2023 Jul 4. doi: 10.1097/JS9.0000000000000433. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Monitoring of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) is currently based on serial measurements of maximum aortic diameter. Additional assessment of aneurysm volume has previously been proposed to possibly improve growth prediction and treatment decisions. To evaluate the use of supplementing volume measurements, the authors aimed to characterise the growth distribution of AAA volume and to compare the growth rates of the maximum diameter and volume at the patient level.

METHODS: Maximum diameter and volume were monitored every 6 months in 84 patients with small AAAs, with a total of 331 computed tomographic angiographies (with initial maximum diameters of 30-68 mm). A previously developed statistical growth model for AAAs was applied to assess the growth distribution of volume and to compare individual growth rates for volume and for maximum diameter.

RESULTS: The median (25-75% quantile) expansion in volume was 13.4 (6.5-24.7) % per year. Cube root transformed volume and maximum diameter showed a closely linear association with a within-subject correlation of 0.77. At the surgery threshold maximum diameter of 55 mm, the median (25-75% quantile) volume was 132 (103-167) ml. In 39% of subjects, growth rates for volume and maximum diameter were equivalent, in 33% growth was faster in volume and in 27% growth was faster in maximum diameter.

CONCLUSION: At the population level, volume and maximum diameter show a substantial association such that the average volume is approximately proportional to the average maximum diameter raised to a power of three. At the individual level, however, in the majority of patient’s AAAs grow at different pace in different dimensions. Hence, closer monitoring of aneurysms with sub-critical diameter but suspicious morphology may benefit from complementing maximum diameter by volume or related measurements.

PMID:37402309 | DOI:10.1097/JS9.0000000000000433