Tag: statistics

Korean J Radiol. 2022 Jan;23(1):13-29. doi: 10.3348/kjr.2021.0112.

ABSTRACT

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, characterized by excessive accumulation of fat in the liver, is the most common chronic liver disease worldwide. The current standard for the detection of hepatic steatosis is liver biopsy; however, it is limited by invasiveness and sampling errors. Accordingly, MR spectroscopy and proton density fat fraction obtained with MRI have been accepted as non-invasive modalities for quantifying hepatic steatosis. Recently, various quantitative ultrasonography techniques have been developed and validated for the quantification of hepatic steatosis. These techniques measure various acoustic parameters, including attenuation coefficient, backscatter coefficient and speckle statistics, speed of sound, and shear wave elastography metrics. In this article, we introduce several representative quantitative ultrasonography techniques and their diagnostic value for the detection of hepatic steatosis.

PMID:34983091 | DOI:10.3348/kjr.2021.0112

Korean J Radiol. 2022 Jan;23(1):52-59. doi: 10.3348/kjr.2021.0266.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the diagnostic performance of CT angiography (CTA) could be improved by modifying the conventional criterion (anastomosis site abnormality) to diagnose hepatic artery occlusion (HAO) after liver transplantation (LT) in suspected patients with Doppler ultrasound (US) abnormalities.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred thirty-four adult LT recipients (88 males and 46 females; mean age, 52.7 years) with suspected HAO on Doppler US (40 HAO and 94 non-HAO according to the reference standards) were included. We evaluated 1) abnormalities in the HA anastomosis, categorized as a cutoff, ≥ 50% stenosis at the anastomotic site, or diffuse stenosis at both graft and recipient sides around the anastomosis, and 2) abnormalities in the distal run-off, including invisibility or irregular, faint, and discontinuous enhancement. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy of the conventional (considering anastomosis site abnormalities alone) and modified CTA criteria (abnormalities in both the anastomosis site and distal run-off) for the diagnosis of HAO were calculated and compared using the McNemar test.

RESULTS: By using the conventional criterion to diagnose HAO, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy were 100% (40/40), 74.5% (70/94), 62.5% (40/64), 100% (70/70), and 82.1% (110/134), respectively. The modified criterion for diagnosing HAO showed significantly increased specificity (93.6%, 88/94) and accuracy (93.3%, 125/134) compared to that with the conventional criterion (p = 0.001 and 0.002, respectively), although the sensitivity (92.5%, 37/40) decreased slightly without statistical significance (p = 0.250).

CONCLUSION: The modified criterion considering abnormalities in both the anastomosis site and distal run-off improved the diagnostic performance of CTA for HAO in suspected patients with Doppler US abnormalities, particularly by increasing the specificity.

PMID:34983093 | DOI:10.3348/kjr.2021.0266

Facial Plast Surg. 2022 Jan 4. doi: 10.1055/s-0041-1740623. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Facial cosmetic surgery trends are evolving in the current climate of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The aim of this study was to evaluate public interest in elective facial plastic surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic including the period of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution using Google Trends. A Google Trends analysis was completed using popular terms related to facial cosmetic surgery and procedures from March 2017 to August 2021. Three stages were identified (baseline, pre-COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and post-COVID-19 vaccine distribution). Descriptive statistics were calculated and two-tailed t-tests were performed between the pre-vaccine and the post-vaccine phases. Linear regression analysis was also performed to determine percent deflection of search terms. There was significantly greater interest in facial aesthetic procedure search terms, except for tear trough filler, during the post-COVID-19 vaccine phase compared with the pre-COVID-19 vaccine phase. There was greater interest in lower facial procedure interest during this phase compared with upper facial procedures (p-value = 0.0011). The search terms with the greatest deflection percentage during the post-vaccine phase were lip filler, brow lift, and lip flip. There continues to be high demands of facial plastic surgery and procedures despite COVID-19 pandemic.

PMID:34983070 | DOI:10.1055/s-0041-1740623

Sportverletz Sportschaden. 2022 Jan 4. doi: 10.1055/a-1551-4388. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Knee joint injury statistics are dominated by ruptures of the capsular ligament structures. Post-traumatic deficits in dynamic movement patterns are assessed quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The aim of this review was to compile tools that are used to assess the quality of movement after knee ligament injuries in adults.

METHODS: A systematic search for original papers was carried out in the following primary sources: Ovid, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. Both conservative and surgical treatment options were considered. PROSPERO registration of the study protocol: CRD42020175359.

RESULTS: A total of 1153 papers were identified. Eleven original papers from four different working groups were included in this work. All papers assessed the quality of movement in adults after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. A total of 348 (70 deficient, 278 reconstructed) patients after an ACL injury and 119 adults with an intact ACL were examined in the studies included.

CONCLUSION: It is possible to assess movement quality after a knee ligament injury with a low temporal and technical effort. The changes recorded result in a functional valgus, which, based on the study results, may be further differentiated into isolated knee valgus, medial collapse or postural collapse.

PMID:34983071 | DOI:10.1055/a-1551-4388

Clin Infect Dis. 2022 Jan 4:ciab1030. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciab1030. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Mortality among adults with HIV remains elevated over mortality in the US general population even in the years after entry into HIV care. We explore whether the elevation in 5-year mortality would have persisted if all adults with HIV had initiated antiretroviral therapy within 3 months of entering care.

METHODS: Among 82,766 adults entering HIV care at North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration clinical sites in the United States, we computed mortality over 5 years since entry into HIV care under observed treatment patterns. We then used inverse probability weights to estimate mortality under universal early treatment. To compare mortality with similar individuals in the general population, we used National Center for Health Statistics data to construct a cohort representing the subset of the US population matched to study participants on key characteristics.

RESULTS: For the entire study period (1999 – 2017), 5-year mortality among adults with HIV was 7.9 percentage points (95% confidence interval (CI): 7.6, 8.2) higher than the expected mortality based on the US general population. Under universal early treatment, the elevation in mortality for people with HIV would have been 7.2% (95% CI: 5.8, 8.6). In the most recent calendar period examined (2011-2017), the elevation in mortality for people with HIV was 2.6 percentage points (95% CI: 2.0, 3.3) under observed treatment patterns and 2.1 percentage points (95% CI: 0.0, 4.2) under universal early treatment.

CONCLUSIONS: Expanding early treatment may modestly reduce, but not eliminate, the elevation in mortality for people with HIV.

PMID:34983066 | DOI:10.1093/cid/ciab1030

J Travel Med. 2022 Jan 4:taab199. doi: 10.1093/jtm/taab199. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Monitoring the characteristics and associated factors for death among pregnant and postpartum women with COVID-19 is necessary. We investigated the clinical characteristics and risk factors associated with maternal deaths in a nationwide cohort of Brazil.

METHODS: This was a population-based cohort of all pregnant and postpartum women hospitalised with COVID-19 notified to the Sistema de Informação de Vigilância Epidemiológica da Gripe of Brazil (SIVEP-Gripe), from February 2020 to September 2021. The primary outcome was time to in-hospital death, with risks factors analysed with univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models.

RESULTS: Cumulative observation time was 248 821 person-days from hospital admission to the end of follow-up for 15 105 individuals. There were 1858 deaths (12.3%) for a maternal mortality rate of 7.5 (95% CI 7.1-7.8) per 1000 patients-days. The cumulative mortality increased over time. Black/Brown ethnicity had a higher risk of death than women self-identifying as White. Women in the North, Northeast, Central-West and Southeast regions had higher risk of death than women in the South region. The characteristics independently associated with death were a postpartum status on admission (adjusted HR 1.4 [95%CI 1.2-1.6]), pre-existing clinical conditions (adjusted HRs 1.2 [95%CI 1.1-1.3] for one and 1.3 [95%CI 1.1-1.5] for two comorbidities), hypoxemia on admission (adjusted HR 1.2 [95%CI 1.1-1.4]) and requiring non-invasive (adjusted HR 2.6 [95%CI 2.1-3.3]) or invasive ventilatory support (adjusted HR 7.1 [95%CI 5.6-9.2]).

CONCLUSION: In Brazil, the in-hospital maternal mortality rate due to COVID-19 is high and the risk of death increases with the length of hospitalisation. Socio-demographic and biological factors are associated with an increased risk of maternal death. The presence of respiratory signs and symptoms should be considered as an early markers of disease severity and an adequate management is necessary. Our findings reinforce the need for vaccination of pregnant and postpartum women against COVID-19.

PMID:34983057 | DOI:10.1093/jtm/taab199

Bioinformatics. 2022 Jan 4:btab879. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btab879. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

MOTIVATION: Existing microbiome-based disease prediction relies on the ability of machine learning methods to differentiate disease from healthy subjects based on the observed taxa abundance across samples. Despite numerous microbes have been implicated as potential biomarkers, challenges remain due to not only the statistical nature of microbiome data, but also the lack of understanding of microbial interactions which can be indicative of the disease.

RESULTS: We propose CACONET (classification of Compositional-Aware COrrelation NETworks), a computational framework that learns to classify microbial correlation networks and extracts potential signature interactions, taking as input taxa relative abundance across samples and their health status. By using Bayesian compositional-aware correlation inference, a collection of posterior correlation networks can be drawn and used for graph-level classification, thus incorporating uncertainty in the estimates. CACONET then employs a deep learning approach for graph classification, achieving excellent performance metrics by exploiting the correlation structure. We test the framework on both simulated data and a large real-world dataset pertaining to microbiome samples of colorectal cancer (CRC) and healthy subjects, and identify potential network substructure characteristic of CRC microbiota. CACONET is customizable and can be adapted to further improve its utility.

AVAILABILITY: CACONET is available at https://github.com/yuanwxu/corr-net-classify.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

PMID:34983063 | DOI:10.1093/bioinformatics/btab879

Pain Med. 2022 Jan 4:pnab354. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnab354. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: In fibromyalgia, central sensitization is a key mechanism, and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been reported to potentially manage symptoms of fibromyalgia. In this meta-analysis, we evaluated the therapeutic effect of rTMS in patients with fibromyalgia according to stimulation locations and follow-up time points.

METHODS: We searched the MEDLINE, Cochrane, Embase, Scopus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Web of Science databases for articles published from January 1, 1990 to August 26, 2021, including randomized controlled studies investigating the effectiveness of rTMS on managing fibromyalgia.

RESULTS: In total, 10 papers and 299 participants were included. The high-frequency rTMS on the left primary motor cortex (Lt. M1) had a significant effect on pain reduction immediately and 1-4 weeks after the end of the session but had no significant effect after 5-12 weeks. Additionally, after high-frequency rTMS sessions on the Lt. M1, the effect on patients’ quality of life (QoL) appeared late at 5-12 weeks of follow-up. In contrast, high-frequency rTMS on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Lt. DLPFC) did not reduce pain from fibromyalgia. The effect on controlling the affective problem was not observed after rTMS treatment on both the Lt. M1 and Lt. DLPFC.

CONCLUSIONS: High-frequency rTMS had a positive pain-reducing effect immediately and at 1-4 weeks after completing the rTMS sessions, and the patients’ QoL improved after 5-12 weeks. However, Lt. DLPFC stimulation was not effective in controlling fibromyalgia symptoms.

PMID:34983056 | DOI:10.1093/pm/pnab354

Water Res. 2021 Dec 24;210:118003. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2021.118003. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Eutrophication substantially influences the community structure of aquatic organisms and has become a major threat to biodiversity. However, whether eutrophication is linked to homogenization of microbial communities and the possible underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we studied bacterial and fungal communities from water and sediments of 40 shallow lakes in the Yangtze-Huaihe River basin, a representative area characterized by intensifying eutrophication in China, and further examined the beta diversity patterns and underlying mechanisms under eutrophication conditions. Our results indicate that eutrophication generally caused biotic homogenization of bacterial and fungal communities in both habitats showing decreased community variations for the sites with a higher trophic state index (TSI). In the two habitats, community dissimilarities were positively correlated with TSI changes for both taxonomic groups, while the local contribution to beta diversity (LCBD) remarkably declined with increasing TSI for the fungal community. These phenomena were consistent with the pivotal importance of the TSI in statistically accounting for beta diversity of bacterial and fungal communities in both habitats. In addition, we found that physicochemical factors such as water temperature and pH were also important for bacterial and fungal communities in water, while heavy metal elements were important for the communities in sediments. Interestingly, generalist species, rather than specialist species, were revealed to more dominantly affect the variations in beta diversity along the trophic gradient, which were quantified by Bray-Curtis dissimilarity and LCBD. Collectively, our findings reveal the importance of generalist species in contributing to the change of beta diversity of microbial communities along trophic gradients, which have profound implications for a comprehensive understanding of the effects of eutrophication on microbial community.

PMID:34982976 | DOI:10.1016/j.watres.2021.118003

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Jan 1:152780. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152780. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The climate change and population growth led to a severe water shortage that limits fresh water availability in some areas of Togo. Thus, the farmers of Adjougba District have no other choice than using treated wastewater as an alternative for irrigated agriculture. The purpose of this study is to compare the suitability of three types of water for uses with identification of the reliable parameters in the assessment of water suitability for irrigation and domestic purposes. The raw water quality parameters, water quality indices (WQIs) and water suitability indicators for irrigation purpose (WSI-IPs) were applied for the comparison while statistical analysis and, with some experts’ consensus were used to identify reliable parameters. The results suggested that the treated wastewater is more suitable than groundwater for irrigation purpose. Treated wastewater constitutes a viable fertilizer supply and is placed like surface water from permissible to excellent classes according to WSI-IPs values. The sodium absorption ratio (SAR), electrical conductivity (EC), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), Cl^– and faecal coliforms (FC) are the most reliable parameters in the detection of water suitability for irrigation purpose. EC, DO, pH, turbidity or TSS, COD or COD_Mn, hardness, FC, NO₃^–, national sanitation foundation’s water quality index (NSFWQI), and overall index of pollution (OPI) are the most reliable in the detection of water suitability for domestic use. The reliable parameters identified in this study are potential candidates for the development of a single water quality index for both irrigation and domestic uses in Adjougba District. However further study will be necessary for the identification of reliable parameters and the development of a water quality index at the country scale.

PMID:34982995 | DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152780