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The author should give careful consideration to the study eligibility criteria of systematic reviews (SRs) and follow it after review protocol development to reduce the possibility of manipulation of inclusion. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence of differences in study eligibility criteria between non-Cochrane SRs and their pre-registered protocols on PROSPERO, and determined what changes were involved as well as whether those changes were explained. We searched the protocols registered on PROSPERO platform in the year of 2018 and then selected these protocols which full-text have been published up to June 9, 2020. A random sample (n = 100) was included. Published full-texts were identified through the protocol's final publication citation. The following five key components of study eligibility criteria were compared: participants, intervention(s)/exposure(s), comparator(s), types of study design, and outcome(s). A total of 90% of included SRs exhibited differences in study eligibility criteria, and 59/90 altered in no less than two key components. Only one SR reported and explained the rationale for changes to the individual key component (the definition of exposure). The "Outcome(s)" exhibited the greatest variation, with changes in 61% of the SRs. The "Comparator(s)/control" exhibited the smallest variation, with changes in 20% of the SRs. Differences in study eligibility criteria between the non-Cochrane SRs and their protocols registered on PROSPERO were widespread but were seldom explained. Authors themselves, PROSPERO platform, as well as peer-review journals and their peer-reviewers should play a role in further improving transparency.

Dental anatomy education for dental technology students should be developed in alignment with digital dental laboratory practices. We hypothesized that a virtually assisted sketching‐based dental anatomy teaching module could improve students' acquisition of skills essential for digital restoration design. The second‐year dental technology curriculum included a novel virtual technology‐assisted sketching‐based module for dental anatomy education. Pre‐ and post‐course assessments evaluated students' skill sets and knowledge bases. Computer‐aided design (CAD) scores were analyzed after one year to assess how the skills students developed through this module impacted their subsequent CAD performance. Participants who undertook the dental sketching‐based teaching module demonstrated significantly improved theoretical knowledge of dental anatomy, dental aesthetic perception, and spatial reasoning skills. A partial least squares structural equation model indicated that the positive effects of this module on subsequent CAD performance were indirectly mediated by dental aesthetic perception, spatial reasoning, and practice time. A virtually assisted sketching‐based dental anatomy teaching module significantly improved students' acquisition of skills and knowledge and positively mediated dental technology students' CAD performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To assess the safety and efficacy of superior laryngeal nerve block (SLNB) for microlaryngoscopic surgery (MLS). Data Sources: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Ovid Medline, Cochrane Library, CNKI database, VIP database, Wanfang database, and trial registry databases. Methods: PICOS principles were performed: adults undergoing MLS receiving SLNB compared with no‐SLNB in randomized controlled trials were included. Primary outcome included the incidence of severe postoperative sore throat (POST). Secondary outcomes included perioperative mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR), incidence of severe postoperative cough, and anesthesia recovery time. Results: Eleven articles with 728 patients were included. Results indicated that SLNB provides lower incidence of severe POST in post‐extubation 30 min (relative ratio [RR] = 0.13; 95% confidence intervals [CIs]: 0.05 ~ 0.34), 2 h (RR = 0.09; 95% CI: 0.02 ~ 0.36), 4–6 h (RR = 0.11; 95% CI: 0.03 ~ 0.41), and 24 h (RR = 0.15; 95% CI: 0.03 ~ 0.83); lower MAP (tracheal intubation: standardized mean difference [SMD] = −1.59; 95% CI: −1.69 to −0.42); suspension laryngoscope insertion: (SMD = −0.98; 95% CI: −1.49 to −0.46); tracheal extubation: (SMD = −0.78; 95% CI:−1.24 to −0.31); post‐extubation 5 min: (SMD = −0.95; 95% CI: −1.41 to −0.49); lower HR (tracheal intubation: mean difference [MD] = −9.71; 95% CI: −17.16 to −2.27); suspension laryngoscope insertion: (MD = −8.64; 95% CI: −16.79 to −0.49); tracheal extubation: (MD = −10.13; 95% CI: −17.86 to −2.39); post‐extubation 5 min: (MD = −13.44; 95% CI: −22.53 to −4.35); lower incidence of severe postoperative cough in post‐extubation 30 min (RR = 0.18; 95% CI: 0.06 ~ 0.57) and 2 h (RR = 0.13; 95% CI: 0.02 ~ 0.69); and shorter anesthesia recovery time (MD = −5.34; 95% CI: −8.81 to −1.86) compared to controls. Conclusions: SLNB could provide lower incidence of severe POST, more stable perioperative MAP and HR, lower incidence of severe postoperative cough, and shorter anesthesia recovery time for MLS. Level of Evidence: I Laryngoscope, 134:3437–3446, 2024 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID‐19 exposed the inadequacy of our technical tools for home health surveillance, and recent studies have shown the potential of smartphones as a universal optical microscopic imaging platform for such applications. However, most of them use laboratory‐grade optomechanical components and transmitted illuminations to ensure focus tuning capability and imaging quality, which keeps the cost of the equipment high. Here, we propose an ultra‐low‐cost solution for smartphone microscopy. To realize focus tunability, we designed a seesaw‐like structure capable of converting large displacements on one side into small displacements on the other (reduced to ∼9.1%), which leverages the intrinsic flexibility of 3D printing materials. We achieved a focus‐tuning accuracy of ∼5 휇m, which is 40 times higher than the machining accuracy of the 3D‐printed lens holder itself. For microscopic imaging, we used an off‐the‐shelf smartphone camera lens as the objective and the built‐in flashlight as the illumination. To compensate for the resulting image quality degradation, we developed a learning‐based image enhancement method. We used the CycleGAN architecture to establish the mapping from smartphone microscope images to benchtop microscope images without pairing. We verified the imaging performance on different biomedical samples. Except for the smartphone, we kept the full costs of the device under 4 USD. We think these efforts to lower the costs of smartphone microscopes will benefit their applications in various scenarios, such as point‐of‐care testing, on‐site diagnosis, and home health surveillance. Research Highlights: We propose a solution for ultra‐low‐cost smartphone microscopy.Utilizing the flexibility of 3D‐printed material, we can achieve focusing accuracy of ∼5 휇m.Such a low‐cost device will benefit point‐of‐care diagnosis and home health surveillance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]