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Background: Tuberculosis (TB) incidence in South Africa is among the highest globally. Initial loss to follow-up (ILFU), defined as not starting on TB treatment within 28 days of testing positive, is undermining control efforts. We assessed the feasibility, acceptability, and potential of a mHealth application to reduce ILFU. Methods: An mHealth application was developed to capture patients TB investigation data, provide results and monitor treatment initiation. This was implemented in two primary health clinics (PHC) in inner-city Johannesburg. Feasibility was assessed by comparing documentation of personal details, specimen results for same individuals during implementation period (paper register and Mhealth application). Effectiveness was assessed by comparing proportion of patients with results within 48 hours, and proportion started on treatment within 28 days of testing TB positive during pre- implementation (paper register) and implementation (mHealth application) periods. In-depth interviews with patients and providers were conducted to assess acceptability of application. Results: Pre-implementation, 457 patients were recorded in paper registers [195 (42.7%) male, median age 34 years (interquartile range IQR (28–40), 45 (10.5%) sputum Xpert positive]. During implementation, 319 patients were recorded in paper register and the mHealth application [131 (41.1%) male, median age 32 years (IQR 27–38), 33 (10.3%) sputum Xpert positive]. The proportion with complete personal details: [mHealth 95.0% versus paper register 94.0%, (p = 0.54)] and proportion with documented results: [mHealth 97.4% versus paper register 97.8%, (p = 0.79)] were not different in the two methods. The proportion of results available within 48 hours: [mHealth 96.8% versus paper register 68.6%), (p <0.001)], and the proportion on treatment within 28 days [mHealth 28/33 (84.8%) versus paper register 30/44 (68.2%), (p = 0.08)] increased during implementation but was not statistically significant. In-depth interviews showed that providers easily integrated the mHealth application into routine TB investigation and patients positively received the delivery of results via text message. Time from sputum collection to TB treatment initiation decreased from 4 days (pre-implementation) to 3 days but was not statistically significant. Conclusions: We demonstrated that implementation of the mHealth application was feasible, acceptable to health care providers and patients, and has potential to reduce the time to TB treatment initiation and ILFU in PHC settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Gestural interfaces allow accessing and manipulating Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in hospitals while keeping a complete sterile environment. Particularly, in the Operating Room (OR), these interfaces enable surgeons to browse Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) without the need of delegating functions to the surgical staff. Existing gesture based medical interfaces rely on a suboptimal and an arbitrary small set of gestures that are mapped to a few commands available in PACS software. The objective of this work is to discuss a method to determine the most suitable set of gestures based on surgeon’s acceptability. To achieve this goal, the paper introduces two key innovations: (a) a novel methodology to incorporate gestures’ semantic properties into the agreement analysis, and (b) a new agreement metric to determine the most suitable gesture set for a PACS. Materials and methods: Three neurosurgical diagnostic tasks were conducted by nine neurosurgeons. The set of commands and gesture lexicons were determined using a Wizard of Oz paradigm. The gestures were decomposed into a set of 55 semantic properties based on the motion trajectory, orientation and pose of the surgeons’ hands and their ground truth values were manually annotated. Finally, a new agreement metric was developed, using the known Jaccard similarity to measure consensus between users over a gesture set. Results: A set of 34 PACS commands were found to be a sufficient number of actions for PACS manipulation. In addition, it was found that there is a level of agreement of 0.29 among the surgeons over the gestures found. Two statistical tests including paired t-test and Mann Whitney Wilcoxon test were conducted between the proposed metric and the traditional agreement metric. It was found that the agreement values computed using the former metric are significantly higher (p < 0.001) for both tests. Conclusions: This study reveals that the level of agreement among surgeons over the best gestures for PACS operation is higher than the previously reported metric (0.29 vs 0.13). This observation is based on the fact that the agreement focuses on main features of the gestures rather than the gestures themselves. The level of agreement is not very high, yet indicates a majority preference, and is better than using gestures based on authoritarian or arbitrary approaches. The methods described in this paper provide a guiding framework for the design of future gesture based PACS systems for the OR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Detection of ossification areas of hand bones in X-ray images is an important task, e.g. as a preprocessing step in automated bone age estimation. Deep neural networks have emerged recently as de facto standard detection methods, but their drawback is the need of large annotated datasets. Finetuning pre-trained networks is a viable alternative, but it is not clear a priori if training with small annotated datasets will be successful, as it depends on the problem at hand. In this paper, we show that pre-trained networks can be utilized to produce an effective detector of ossification areas in pediatric X-ray images of hands. Methods and findings: A publicly available Faster R-CNN network, pre-trained on the COCO dataset, was utilized and finetuned with 240 manually annotated radiographs from the RSNA Pediatric Bone Age Challenge, which comprises over 14.000 pediatric radiographs. The validation is done on another 89 radiographs from the dataset and the performance is measured by Intersection-over-Union (IoU). To understand the effect of the data size on the pre-trained network, subsampling was applied to the training data and the training was repeated. Additionally, the network was trained from scratch without any pre-trained weights. Finally, to understand whether the trained model could be useful, we compared the inference of the network to an annotation of an expert radiologist. The finetuned network was able to achieve an average precision (mAP@0.5IoU) of 92.92 ± 1.93. Apart from the wrist region, all ossification areas were able to benefit from more data. In contrast, the network trained from scratch was not able to produce any correct results. When compared to the annotations of the expert radiologist, the network was able to localize the regions quite well, as the F1-Score was on average 91.85 ± 1.06. Conclusions: By finetuning a pre-trained deep neural network, with 240 annotated radiographs, we were able to successfully detect ossification areas in prediatric hand radiographs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address the problem of automated grading of invasive breast carcinoma through the encoding of histological images as VLAD (Vector of Locally Aggregated Descriptors) representations on the Grassmann manifold. The proposed method considers each image as a set of multidimensional spatially-evolving signals that can be efficiently modeled through a higher-order linear dynamical systems analysis. Subsequently, each H&E (Hematoxylin and Eosin) stained breast cancer histological image is represented as a cloud of points on the Grassmann manifold, while a vector representation approach is applied aiming to aggregate the Grassmannian points based on a locality criterion on the manifold. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed methodology, two datasets with different characteristics were used. More specifically, we created a new medium-sized dataset consisting of 300 annotated images (collected from 21 patients) of grades 1, 2 and 3, while we also provide experimental results using a large dataset, namely BreaKHis, containing 7,909 breast cancer histological images, collected from 82 patients, of both benign and malignant cases. Experimental results have shown that the proposed method outperforms a number of state of the art approaches providing average classification rates of 95.8% and 91.38% with our dataset and the BreaKHis dataset, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Carpal instability is defined as a condition where wrist motion and/or loading creates mechanical dysfunction, resulting in weakness, pain and decreased function. When conventional methods do not identify the instability patterns, yet clinical signs of instability exist, the diagnosis of dynamic instability is often suggested to describe carpal derangement manifested only during the wrist’s active motion or stress. We addressed the question: can advanced MRI techniques provide quantitative means to evaluate dynamic carpal instability and supplement standard static MRI acquisition? Our objectives were to (i) develop a real-time, three-dimensional MRI method to image the carpal joints during their active, uninterrupted motion; and (ii) demonstrate feasibility of the method for assessing metrics relevant to dynamic carpal instability, thus overcoming limitations of standard MRI. Methods: Twenty wrists (bilateral wrists of ten healthy participants) were scanned during radial-ulnar deviation and clenched-fist maneuvers. Images resulting from two real-time MRI pulse sequences, four sparse data-acquisition schemes, and three constrained image reconstruction techniques were compared. Image quality was assessed via blinded scoring by three radiologists and quantitative imaging metrics. Results: Real-time MRI data-acquisition employing sparse radial sampling with a gradient-recalled-echo acquisition and constrained iterative reconstruction appeared to provide a practical tradeoff between imaging speed (temporal resolution up to 135 ms per slice) and image quality. The method effectively reduced streaking artifacts arising from data undersampling and enabled the derivation of quantitative measures pertinent to evaluating dynamic carpal instability. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that real-time, three-dimensional MRI of the moving wrist is feasible and may be useful for the evaluation of dynamic carpal instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, patient activity in 8 audio recorded specialist consultations on fetal cardiology is investigated in order to explore how, why and when patients tend to participate in encounters in which the doctor dominates the interaction. The overall question is: How can the participation of patients in the consultations be connected to the development of higher levels of health literacy, i.e. to interactive literacy and to critical literacy? Patient participation is here understood as interactive action and is analyzed in terms of different interactive moves, which are related to different recurring topics. Despite the highly standardized format of the consultations, there is a large variation between the patients’ participation: between 0.7 and 2.8 moves per minute. The patients participate most during the topics ‘Prevalence’ and ‘Consultations’ and least during the topic ‘The normal heart’. Although most of the patients' moves are responses to what the doctor says, they remarkably often pose questions and use so called rejoinders. By posing questions, they take control of the information flow and sometimes even change the topics. By using rejoinders, they analyze the problems involved in the discussion e.g. by asking for clarifications or confirmation. Patients with a low over-all participation rate also use fewer moves that indicate higher literacy levels. The qualitative analysis problematizes the idea of a simple scale from basic literacy to critical literacy. Moves that indicate basic literacy skills are interactively important for the learning activity, led by the doctor. However, patients who mainly support the doctor’s initiatives don’t take the opportunity to influence the flow of information in ways that might favor their health literacy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Intermittent auscultation (IA) is the technique of listening to and counting the fetal heart rate (FHR) for short periods during active labour and continuous cardiotocography (CTC) implies FHR monitoring for longer periods. Although the evidence suggests that IA is the best way to monitor healthy women at low risk of complications, there is no scientific evidence for the ideal device, timing, frequency and duration for IA. We aimed to give an overview of the field, identify and describe methods and practices for performing IA, map the evidence and accuracy for different methods of IA, and identify research gaps. Methods: We conducted a systematic scoping review following the Joanna Briggs methodology. Medline, EMBASE, Cinahl, Maternity & Infant Care, Cochrane Library, SveMed+, Web of Science, Scopus, Lilacs and African Journals Online were searched for publications up to January 2019. We did hand searches in relevant articles and databases. Studies from all countries, international guidelines and national guidelines from Denmark, United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, Australia, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway were included. We did quality assessment of the guidelines according to the AGREEMENT tool. We performed a meta-analysis assessing the effects of IA with a Doppler device vs. Pinard device using methods described in The Cochrane Handbook, and we performed an overall assessment of the summary of evidence using the GRADE approach. Results: The searches generated 6408 hits of which 26 studies and 11 guidelines were included in the review. The studies described slightly different techniques for performing IA, and some did not provide detailed descriptions. Few of the studies provided details of normal and abnormal IA findings. All 11 guidelines recommended IA for low risk women, although they had slightly different recommendations on the frequency, timing, and duration for IA, and the FHR characteristics that should be observed. Four of the included studies, comprising 8436 women and their babies, were randomised controlled trials that evaluated the effect of IA with a Doppler device vs. a Pinard device. Abnormal FHRs were detected more often using the Doppler device than in those using the Pinard device (risk ratio 1.77; 95% confidence interval 1.29–2.43). There were no significant differences in any of the other maternal or neonatal outcomes. Four studies assessed the accuracy of IA findings. Normal FHR was easiest to identify correctly, whereas identifying periodic FHR patterns such as decelerations and saltatory patterns were more difficult. Conclusion: Although IA is the recommended method, no trials have been published that evaluate protocols on how to perform it. Nor has any study assessed interrater agreements regarding interpretations of IA findings, and few have assessed to what degree clinicians can describe FHR patterns detected by IA. We found no evidence to recommend Doppler device instead of the Pinard for IA, or vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Software solutions such as mRay allow review of radiological images on handheld devices. We investigated if the quality is adequate for evaluating CT scans of patients with suspected stroke. Methods: 50 patients (Median age 80 years, 28 females) were retrospectively selected. All patients had undergone multidetector CT angiography ± perfusion and presented with clinical signs of acute stroke. Out of the 50 patients, 19 had large-vessel occlusion (LVO), 5 had intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), 10 had severe intracranial stenosis of at least one major vessel, 2 had intracranial tumor and 15 had no or an unrelated pathology. One experienced neuroradiologist and one resident scored the anonymized pictures separately on two handheld devices (iPhone 7 Plus, MED-TAB) equipped with mRay Software and on a PACS workstation. Each case was reviewed on all three devices with a break in-between of at least 12 weeks. The scoring on the traditional workstation was compared with the two handheld devices, regarding detection of early ischemic signs, LVOs, CBV/CBF-mismatch, ICHs and severe stenosis. Both raters were asked to rate the diagnostic quality of both handheld devices regarding detection of LVOs, ICHs, early ischemic signs and overall. Results: All LVOs, intracranial tumors and ICHs were detected on both mobile devices. There was no significant difference in the rating of CCT and CBF ASPECTS between all three devices, while the sensitivity for detecting a CBF/CBV-mismatch was above 80% on both devices. Both raters assessed the diagnostic quality to be sufficient on both mobile devices to base treatment decisions on. Conclusion: Software solutions such as mRay for handheld devices provide adequate diagnostic quality for the review of CT scans of suspected stroke patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To compare manual corrections of liver masks produced by a fully automatic segmentation method based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) with manual routine segmentations in MR images in terms of inter-observer variability and interaction time. Methods: For testing, patient’s precise reference segmentations that fulfill the quality requirements for liver surgery were manually created. One radiologist and two radiology residents were asked to provide manual routine segmentations. We used our automatic segmentation method Liver-Net to produce liver masks for the test cases and asked a radiologist assistant and one further resident to correct the automatic results. All observers were asked to measure their interaction time. Both manual routine and corrected segmentations were compared with the reference annotations. Results: The manual routine segmentations achieved a mean Dice index of 0.95 and a mean relative error (RVE) of 4.7%. The quality of liver masks produced by the Liver-Net was on average 0.95 Dice and 4.5% RVE. Liver masks resulting from manual corrections of automatically generated segmentations compared to routine results led to a significantly lower inter-observer variability (mean per case absolute RVE difference across observers 0.69%) when compared to manual routine ones (2.75%). The mean interaction time was 2 min for manual corrections and 10 min for manual routine segmentations. Conclusions: The quality of automatic liver segmentations is on par with those from manual routines. Using automatic liver masks in the clinical workflow could lead to a reduction of segmentation time and a more consistent liver volume estimation across different observers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surgical microscopes are vital tools for ophthalmic surgeons. The recent development of an integrated OCT system for the first time allows to look at tissue features below the surface. Hence, these systems can drastically improve the quality and reduce the risk of surgical interventions. However, current commercial OCT-enhanced ophthalmic surgical microscopes provide only one additional cross sectional view to the standard microscope image and feature a low update rate. To present volumetric data at a high update rate, much faster OCT systems than the ones applied in today’s surgical microscopes need to be developed. We demonstrate live volumetric retinal OCT imaging, which may provide a sufficiently large volume size (330x330x595 Voxel) and high update frequency (24.2 Hz) such that the surgeon may even purely rely on the OCT for certain surgical maneuvers. It represents a major technological step towards the possible application of OCT-only surgical microscopes in the future which would be much more compact thus enabling many additional minimal invasive applications. We show that multi-MHz A-scan rates are essential for such a device. Additionally, advanced phase-based OCT techniques require 3D OCT volumes to be detected with a stable optical phase. These techniques can provide additional functional information of the retina. Up to now, classical OCT was to slow for this, so our system can pave the way to holographic OCT with a traditional confocal flying spot approach. For the first time, we present point scanning volumetric OCT imaging of the posterior eye with up to 191.2 Hz volume rate. We show that this volume rate is high enough to enable a sufficiently stable optical phase to a level, where remaining phase errors can be corrected. Applying advanced post processing concepts for numerical refocusing or computational adaptive optics should be possible in future with such a system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is well established that the idle peripheral intravenous catheter (PIVC) provides no therapeutic value and is a clinical, economic and above all, patient concern. This study aimed to develop a decision aid to assist with clinical decision making to promote clinically indicated peripheral intravenous catheter (CIPIVC) insertion in the emergency department (ED) setting. Providing evidence for a uniform process could assist clinicians in a decision-making process for PIVC insertion. This could enable patients receive appropriate vascular access healthcare. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of data from a multicentre cohort of emergency department clinicians who performed PIVC insertion. We defined CIPIVC a priori as one used for a specific clinical treatment and or procedure such as prescribed intravenous (IV) fluids; prescribed IV medication; or IV contrast (for computerized tomography scans). We sought to refute or validate an assumption if the clinician performing or requesting the insertion decided the patient was >80% likely to need a PIVC. Using logistic regression, we derived a decision aid for CIPIVCs. Results: In 817 patients undergoing PIVC insertion, we observed 68% of these to be CIPIVCs. Admitted patients were significantly more likely to have a CIPIVC, Odds Ratio (OR) = 3.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.17–4.30, p = <0.0001. Before insertion, patients who definitely needed IV fluids/medicines OR = 3.30, 95% CI = 2.02–5.39, p = <0.0001 and who definitely needed a contrast scan OR = 3.04, 95% CI = 1.15–8.03, p = 0.0250 were significantly more likely to have a device inserted for a clinical indication. Patients who presented with an existing vascular access device were more likely to have a new CIPIVC inserted for use OR = 4.35, 95% CI = 1.58–11.95, p = 0.0043. The clinician's pre-procedural judgment of the likelihood of therapeutic use >80% was independently associated with CIPIVC; OR 3.16, 95% CI = 2.06–4.87, p<0.0001. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.81, and at the best cut-off, the model had a specificity of 0.81, sensitivity of 0.71, a positive predictive value of 0.89 and negative predictive value of 0.57. Conclusions: Using the derived decision aid, clinicians could ask:- "Does this patient need A-PIVC?" Clinicians can decide to insert a CIPIVCs when: (i) Admission to hospital is anticipated and when (ii) a Procedure requires a PIVC, e.g., computerised tomography scans and where an existing suitable vascular access device is not present and or; (iii) there is an indication for IV fluids and or medicines that cannot be tolerated enterally and are suitable for dilution in peripheral veins; and, (iv) the Clinician's perceived likelihood of use is greater than 80%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To evaluate interstitial lung disease associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc-ILD) and its changes during treatment by using quantitative analysis (QA) compared to semi-quantitative analysis (semiQA) of chest computed tomography (CT) scans. To assess the prognostic value of QA in predicting functional changes. Materials and methods: We retrospectively selected 35 consecutive patients with SSc-ILD with complete pulmonary functional evaluation, Doppler-echocardiography, immunological tests, and chest CT scan at both baseline and follow-up after immunosuppressive therapy. CT images were analyzed by two chest radiologists for semiQA and by a computational platform for texture analysis of ILD patterns (CALIPER) for QA. Concordance between semiQA and QA was tested. Traction bronchiectasis severity was scored. Analysis of ROC curves was performed. Results: Seventy CT scans were analyzed and QA failed in 4/70 scans. Thus, the final population included 31/35 patients (51.3±12.1 years). QA had a weak-to-good concordance with semiQA (ICC reticular:0.275; ICC ground-glass:0.667) and QA correlated better than semiQA (r = -0.3 to -0.74 vs r = -0.3 to -0.4) with functional parameters. Both methods correlated with traction bronchiectases score and pulmonary artery diameter at CT. A pulmonary artery diameter ≥29mm distinguished patients with lower lung volumes and ILD extent greater than 39% (p<0.001). Changes in QA patterns during treatment were not accurate (AUC: 0.50 to 0.70; p>0.05) in predicting disease progression as assessed by functional parameters, whereas variation in total lung volume at QA accurately predicted changes in the composite functional respiratory endpoint with FVC% and DLco% (AUC = 0.74; 95%CI: 0.54 to 0.93; p = 0.03). Conclusions: Pulmonary QA of CT images can objectively quantify specific patterns of ILD changes during treatment in patients with SSc-ILD. Changes in QA patterns do not correlate with functional changes, but variation in total lung volume at QA accurately predicted changes in the composite functional respiratory endpoint with FVC% and DLco%. Pulmonary artery diameter at CT reflects the interstitial involvement, identifying patients with more severe prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research study is concerned with the automated differentiation between histopathological slides from colon tissues with respect to four classes (healthy tissue and cancerous of grades 1, 2 or 3) through an optimized ensemble of predictors. Six distinct classifiers with prediction accuracies ranging from 87% to 95% are considered for the task. The proposed method of combining them takes into account the probabilities of the individual classifiers for each sample to be assigned to any of the four classes, optimizes weights for each technique by differential evolution and attains an accuracy that is significantly better than the individual results. Moreover, a degree of confidence is defined that would allow the pathologists to separate the data into two distinct sets, one that is correctly classified with a high level of confidence and the rest that would need their further attention. The tandem is also validated on other benchmark data sets. The proposed methodology proves to be efficient in improving the classification accuracy of each algorithm taken separately and performs reasonably well on other data sets, even with default weights. In addition, by establishing a degree of confidence the method becomes more viable for use by actual practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) is a heterogeneous condition with lack of diagnostic clarity. Therapeutic interventions show small effects. To improve outcomes by targeting interventions it is recommended to develop a triage system to surgical and non-surgical treatments based on treatment outcomes. The objective of the current study was to develop and internally validate prognostic models based on pre-treatment patient-reported profiles that identify patients who either respond or do not respond to two frequently performed treatments (lumbar spine surgery and multidisciplinary pain management program). Methods: A consecutive cohort study in a secondary referral spine center was performed. The study followed the recommendations of the PROGRESS framework and was registered in the Dutch Trial Register (NTR5946). Data of forty-seven potential pre-consultation (baseline) indicators predicting ‘response’ or ‘non-response’ at one-year follow-up for the two treatments were obtained to develop and validate four multivariable logistic regression models. The source population consisted of 3,410 referred CLBP-patients. Two treatment cohorts were defined: elective ‘spine surgery’ (n = 217 [6.4%]) and multidisciplinary bio-psychosocial ‘pain management program’ (n = 171 [5.0%]). Main inclusion criteria were age ≥18, CLBP (≥6 months), and not responding to primary care treatment. The primary outcome was functional ability: ‘response’ (Oswestry Disability Index [ODI] ≤22) and ‘non-response’ (ODI ≥41). Results: Baseline indicators predictive of treatment outcome were: degree of disability (all models), ≥2 previous spine surgeries, psychosocial complaints, age (onset <20 or >50), and patient expectations of treatment outcomes. The explained variances were low for the models predicting response and non-response to pain management program (R2 respectively 23% and 26%) and modest for surgery (R2 30% and 39%). The overall performance was acceptable (c-index; 0.72–0.83), the model predicting non-response to surgery performed best (R2 = 39%; c-index = 0.83). Conclusion: This study was the first to identify different patient-reported profiles that predict response to different treatments for CLBP. The model predicting ‘non-response’ to elective lumbar spine surgery performed remarkably well, suggesting that referrals of these patients to a spine surgeon could be avoided. After external validation, the patient-reported profiles could potentially enhance timely patient triage to the right secondary care specialist and improve decision-making between clinican and patient. This could lead to improved treatment outcomes, which results in a more efficient use of healthcare resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The internal limiting membrane (ILM) is a normal part of the retina, and the outcomes of ILM removal have not been fully investigated. ILM flap inversion is a recently developed technique that increases the success rate of macular hole (MH) surgery. Thus, we compared the anatomical closure rate and visual outcome in patients undergoing microincision vitrectomy surgery (MIVS) with ILM flap inversion or conventional ILM peeling for the treatment of MH. Methods: The medical records of 90 eyes with MH were reviewed retrospectively. The patients were classified into two groups based on MIVS procedure (group 1: ILM flap inversion, 46 eyes; group 2: ILM peeling, 44 eyes). Results: Preoperative characteristics were similar in the two groups, and there were no significant differences in 1 month- or 6 month-postoperative VA between the groups (P = 0.25 and P = 0.42, respectively). However, the surgical success rate was significantly higher in group 1 than group 2 (P = 0.04; 46/46: 100% and 41/44: 93%, respectively). Multiple regression analysis revealed that axial length and MH diameter were independent factors predicting 6-month postoperative BCVA in group 2 (P = 0.001 and P = 0.03, respectively), and that MH diameter was an independent factor predicting 6-month postoperative VA in group 1 (P = 0.03). Logistic regression analysis revealed that axial length (OR = 2.11; P = 0.02; area under the curve: 0.94; cut off score: 28.4 mm) was an independent factor indicating surgical failure in group 2. Conclusion: Our results suggest that MIVS with ILM flap inversion might be best suited to treat MH, particularly in patients with high myopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Total Shoulder Arthroplasty (TSA) anatomical, reverse or both is an increasingly popular procedure but the glenoid component is still a weak element, accounting for 30–50% of mechanical complications and contributing to the revision burden. Component mal-positioning is one of the main aetiological factors in glenoid failure and thus Patient-Specific Instrumentation (PSI) has been introduced in an effort to optimise implant placement. The aim of this systematic literature review and meta-analysis is to compare the success of PSI and Standard Instrumentation (STDI) methods in reproducing pre-operative surgical planning of glenoid component positioning. Material and methods: A search (restricted to English language) was conducted in November 2017 on MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE and ClinicalTrials.gov. Using the search terms “Patient-Specific Instrumentation (PSI)”, “custom guide”, “shoulder”, “glenoid” and “arthroplasty”, 42 studies were identified. The main exclusion criteria were: no CT-scan analysis results; studies done on plastic bone; and use of a reusable or generic guide. Eligible studies evaluated final deviations from the planning for version, inclination, entry point and rotation. Reviewers worked independently to extract data and assess the risk of bias on the same studies. Results: The final analysis included 12 studies, comprising 227 participants (seven studies on 103 humans and five studies on 124 cadaveric specimens). Heterogeneity was moderate or high for all parameters. Deviations from the pre-operative planning for version (p<0.01), inclination (p<0.01) and entry point (p = 0.02) were significantly lower with the PSI than with the STDI, but not for rotation (p = 0.49). Accuracy (deviation from planning) with PSI was about 1.88° to 4.96°, depending on the parameter. The number of component outliers (>10° of deviation or 4mm) were significantly higher with STDI than with PSI (68.6% vs 15.3% (p = 0.01)). Conclusion: This review supports the idea that PSI enhances glenoid component positioning, especially a decrease in the number of outliers. However, the findings are not definitive and further validation is required. It should be noted that no randomised clinical studies are available to confirm long-term outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the diagnostic validity of clusters combining history elements and physical examination tests to diagnose partial or complete anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears. Design: Prospective diagnostic study. Settings: Orthopaedic clinics (n = 2), family medicine clinics (n = 2) and community-dwelling. Participants: Consecutive patients with a knee complaint (n = 279) and consulting one of the participating orthopaedic surgeons (n = 3) or sport medicine physicians (n = 2). Interventions: Not applicable. Main outcome measures: History elements and physical examination tests performed independently were compared to the reference standard: an expert physicians’ composite diagnosis including history elements, physical tests and confirmatory magnetic resonance imaging. Penalized logistic regression (LASSO) was used to identify history elements and physical examination tests associated with the diagnosis of ACL tear and recursive partitioning was used to develop diagnostic clusters. Diagnostic accuracy measures including sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), predictive values and positive and negative likelihood ratios (LR+/-) with associated 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. Results: Forty-three individuals received a diagnosis of partial or complete ACL tear (15.4% of total cohort). The Lachman test alone was able to diagnose partial or complete ACL tears (LR+: 38.4; 95%CI: 16.0–92.5). Combining a history of trauma during a pivot with a “popping” sensation also reached a high diagnostic validity for partial or complete tears (LR+: 9.8; 95%CI: 5.6–17.3). Combining a history of trauma during a pivot, immediate effusion after trauma and a positive Lachman test was able to identify individuals with a complete ACL tear (LR+: 17.5; 95%CI: 9.8–31.5). Finally, combining a negative history of pivot or a negative popping sensation during trauma with a negative Lachman or pivot shift test was able to exclude both partial or complete ACL tears (LR-: 0.08; 95%CI: 0.03–0.24). Conclusion: Diagnostic clusters combining history elements and physical examination tests can support the differential diagnosis of ACL tears compared to various knee disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Globally the number of people with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has risen significantly over the last few decades. Aligned to this is a growing use of community health workers (CHWs) to deliver T2DM self-management support with good clinical outcomes especially in High Income Countries (HIC). Evidence and lessons from these interventions can be useful for Low- and Middle-Income countries (LMICs) such as South Africa that are experiencing a marked increase in T2DM prevalence. Objectives: This study aimed to examine how CHW have been utilized to support T2DM self-management globally, their preparation for and supervision to perform their functions. Method: The review was guided by a stepwise approach outlined in the framework for scoping reviews developed by Arksey and O’Malley. Peer reviewed scientific and grey literature was searched using a string of keywords, selecting English full-text articles published between 2000 and 2015. Articles were selected using inclusion criteria, charted and content analyzed. Results: 1008 studies were identified of which 54 full text articles were selected. Most (53) of the selected studies were in HIC and targeted mostly minority populations in low resource settings. CHWs were mostly deployed to provide education, support, and advocacy. Structured curriculum based education was the most frequently reported service provided by CHWs to support T2DM self-management. Support services included informational, emotional, appraisal and instrumental support. Models of CHW care included facility linked nurse-led CHW coordination, facility-linked CHW led coordination and standalone CHW interventions without facility interaction. Conclusion: CHWs play several roles in T2DM self-management, including structured education, ongoing support and health system advocacy. Preparing and coordinating CHWs for these roles is crucial and needs further research and strengthening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Evaluation of multislice-CT (MSCT) during diagnosis and therapeutic decision-making in patients with suspected non-occlusive mesenteric ischemia (NOMI). Methods: Retrospective, institutional review board-approved study of 30 patients (20 men, 10 women, mean age 64.6±14.2 years, range 24–87 years) undergoing biphasic abdominal MSCT followed by digital subtraction angiography (DSA) due to suspected NOMI. MSCT and DSA were qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated independently by two radiologists with respect to the possible diagnosis of NOMI. MSCT analysis included quantitative measurements, qualitative evaluation of contrast enhancement and assessment of secondary findings (bowel wall thickening, hypo-enhancement, intestinal pneumatosis). MSCT diagnosis and secondary findings were compared against DSA diagnosis. Results: NOMI was diagnosed in a total of n = 28 patients. No differences were found when comparing the R1-rated MSCT diagnosis (p = 0.09) to the “gold standard”, while MSCT diagnosis was slightly inferior with R2 (p = 0.02). With R1, vessel-associated parameters revealed the best correlation, i.e. qualitative vessel width (r = -0.39;p = 0.03) and vessel contrast (r = 0.45;p = 0.01). Moderate correlations were found for quantitative vessel diameters in the middle segments (r = -0.48,p = 0.01), increasing to almost high correlations in the distal (r = -0.66;p<0.00001) superior mesenteric artery (SMA) segments. No significant correlation was apparent from secondary findings. Conclusions: MSCT is an appropriate non-invasive method for diagnosing NOMI and leads to adequate and immediate therapeutic stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the frequency of echogenic foci with comet-tail artifact in histologically proven thyroid nodules, and to determine the types of echogenic foci with comet-tail artifact that are associated with malignancy. We retrospectively analyzed the sonographic findings of echogenic foci with comet-tail artifact, present in thyroid nodules in 63 patients who underwent surgery for thyroid nodules at our institution between January 2016 and September 2016. The sonographic findings (appearance and background of echogenic foci, shape of comet-tail artifact) in benign and malignant nodules were compared. Seventy-one (7.4%) nodules with ultrasound finding of echogenic foci with comet-tail artifact were encountered in 962 thyroid nodules of 556 patients; 25 of these were benign, and 46 were malignant. Among the echogenic foci with comet-tail artifact categories, those (11/11, 100%) freely distributed in cystic components were all in benign nodules, whereas those (48/67, 71.6%) any part of echogenic foci or comet-tail artifact associated with solid components, were more common in malignant nodules (P < 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in the appearance of echogenic foci and the shape of comet-tail between the benign and malignant nodules (P = 0.139, P = 0.626, respectively). Echogenic foci with comet-tail artifact freely distributed in cystic component may predict a benign nodule; those associated with solid components cannot be considered a benign finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Determine the characteristics of percutaneous core biopsies that are adequate for a next generation sequencing (NGS) genomic panel. Materials and methods: All patients undergoing percutaneous core biopsies in interventional radiology (IR) with samples evaluated for a 46-gene NGS panel during 1-year were included in this retrospective study. Patient and procedure variables were collected. An imaging-based likelihood of adequacy score incorporating targeting and sampling factors was assigned to each biopsied lesion. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression was performed. Results: 153 patients were included (58.2% female, average age 59.5 years). The most common malignancy was lung cancer (40.5%), most common biopsied site was lung (36%), and average size of biopsied lesions was 3.8 cm (+/- 2.7). Adequacy for NGS was 69.9%. Univariate analysis showed higher likelihood of adequacy score (p = 0.004), primary malignancy type (p = 0.03), and absence of prior systemic therapy (p = 0.018) were associated with adequacy for NGS. Multivariate analysis showed higher adequacy for lesions with likelihood of adequacy scored 3 (high) versus lesions scored 1 (low) (OR, 7.82; p = 0.002). Melanoma lesions had higher adequacy for NGS versus breast cancer lesions (OR 9.5; p = 0.01). Absence of prior systemic therapy (OR, 6.1; p = 0.02) and systemic therapy 3 months before biopsy yielded greater adequacy for NGS. Lesions <3 cm had greater adequacy for NGS than larger lesions (OR 2.72, p = 0.02). Conclusion: As targeted therapy becomes standard for more cancers, percutaneous biopsy specimens adequate for NGS genomic testing will be needed. An imaging-based likelihood of adequacy score assigned by IR physicians and other pre-procedure variables can help predict the likelihood of biopsy adequacy for NGS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the Finneson–Cooper score reflect the true value of predicting surgical success before discectomy? The aim of this study was to identify reliable predictors for surgical success two year after surgery for patients with LDH. Prospective analysis of 154 patients with LDH who underwent single-level lumbar discectomy was performed. Pre- and post-surgical success was assessed by the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) over a 2-year period. The Finneson-Cooper score also was used for evaluation of the clinical results. Using the ODI, surgical success was defined as a 30% (or more) improvement on the ODI score from the baseline. The ODI was considered the gold standard in this study. Finally, the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive power of the Finneson–Cooper score in predicting surgical success were calculated. The mean age of the patients was 49.6 (SD = 9.3) years and 47.4% were male. Significant improvement from the pre- to post-operative ODI scores was observed (P < 0.001). Post-surgical success was 76.0% (n = 117). The patients’ rating on surgical success assessments by the ODI discriminated well between sub-groups of patients who differed with respect to the Finneson–Cooper score. Regarding patients’ surgical success, the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the Finneson-Cooper ratings correlated with success rate. The findings indicated that the Finneson–Cooper score was reflective of surgical success before discectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]