Search

Purpose: To evaluate the influence of imaging compression on radiographic diagnosis of periodontal bone loss on smartphones. Methods: 45 digital periapical radiographs with diverse periodontal bone loss patterns were selected. All radiographs were performed with a CMOS-type sensor and were exported from the acquisition software with two compressions: JPEG with a 10% compression rate and JPEG with a 90% compression rate. Images were shared using the WhatsApp application and three examiners evaluated all radiographs on the smartphone. The examiners' diagnostic agreement was evaluated using the Kappa index. The McNemar and Cochran's Q statistical tests were used to compare the impact of the image compression, examiner, and type of periodontal bone defect on the diagnosis. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS software. Results: Kappa values were greater than 0.7 for all examiners and no statistically significant difference for the periodontal diagnosis, regardless of the image compression, the examiner background, and the type of periodontal bone defect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the value of 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ([18F]FDG PET/CT parameters in cN1-cN3 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Materials and methods: 59 consecutive patients (35 M, 24 F) with NSCLC who underwent pretreatment [18F]FDG PET/CT were enrolled to this study. Several primary tumor PET parameters, including the maximum and mean standardized uptake value (SUVmax and SUVmean), the metabolic active tumor volume (MTV) and the total lesion glycolysis (TLG = MTVxSUVmean), were extracted and analysed. Overall survival was defined as time from primary diagnosis to death or the last info. Results: In the whole analysed group 44 patients underwent curative treatment, while 15, because of the severity of the disease, were classified for palliative treatment. Univariate Cox analysis of clinical and metric PET parameters revealed that MTV was a significant prognostic factor for OS (p = 0.024), while TLG and curative treatment showed a trend for significance (p < 0.1). In multivariate Cox regression (MTV and curative treatment) MTV remained a significant factor (p = 0.047). Conclusions: Metabolic tumor volume of the primary tumor was the only independent prognostic factor for cN1-cN3 NSCLC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aimed to assess the prevalence of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and psychosocial comorbidities in undergraduate dental students in a southern Brazilian university, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it aimed to verify the association between psychosocial factors and TMD. Methods: Fonseca Anamnestic Index, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), a socioeconomic questionnaire, and questions about academic performance and social distancing were applied. Poisson regression analysis was used to assess the association of predictive variables with TMD. Results: The prevalence of TMD was found to be 82.4%, and more than half of the students had some degree of stress, anxiety, and depression. Students who had symptoms of stress (RR 1.11; 95% CI 1.04-1.19), anxiety (RR 1.19; 95% CI 1.12-1.27) and reported academic performance worsening (RR 1.12; 95% CI 1.07-1.19) had higher TMD scores. Conclusion: The findings suggest that TMD was highly prevalent among dental students at a federal university in southern Brazil during the pandemic, being associated with high levels of stress, anxiety, poor academic performance, and greater social distancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portable equipment that allows quick exchanges of information, such as smartphones, is increasingly important in dentistry. Thus, they have become frequently used, with the potential to contribute to the tomographic evaluation. This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of smartphone applications for diagnosing the root canal system (RCS) and measuring the root canal length. Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine files of 92 lower incisor teeth were evaluated by 2 trained and calibrated examiners using CS 3D Imaging software (Carestream Health, Rochester, NY) and 2 smartphone applications (DroidRender; Startm, Zhubei, Taiwan and Horos Mobile; iCat Solutions Ltd, Norwich, United Kingdom). The RCS was assessed according to Vertucci's classification, and the tooth length was measured using linear cusp-apex measurements. The diagnostic reference standard was obtained by the mode and the mean of the evaluations made by 3 experienced examiners using the CS 3D Imaging software. The diagnostic performance of RCS was evaluated using sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), and overall accuracy (Ac). Bland-Altman analysis was used to assess the agreement of linear measurements. The diagnostic tests showed similar performance between the smartphone applications (DroidRender: Se = 1.00, Sp =.95, and Ac = 0.97; Horos: Se = 0.95, Sp =.94, and Ac = 0.95) and the computer software (Se = 0.97–0.95, Sp =.93–0.96, and Ac = 0.95–0.96). The smartphone applications showed discrepancies greater than 1.0 mm for the dental lengths, which may signal relevant differences in some clinical situations. Smartphone applications offered similar diagnostic performance in comparison with the computer software for the RCS evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid changes of the biosphere observed in recent years are caused by both small and large scale drivers, like shifts in temperature, transformations in land-use, or changes in the energy budget of systems. While the latter processes are easily quantifiable, documentation of the loss of biodiversity and community structure is more difficult. Changes in organismal abundance and diversity are barely documented. Censuses of species are usually fragmentary and inferred by often spatially, temporally and ecologically unsatisfactory simple species lists for individual study sites. Thus, detrimental global processes and their drivers often remain unrevealed. A major impediment to monitoring species diversity is the lack of human taxonomic expertise that is implicitly required for large-scale and fine-grained assessments. Another is the large amount of personnel and associated costs needed to cover large scales, or the inaccessibility of remote but nonetheless affected areas. To overcome these limitations we propose a network of A utomated M ultisensor stations for Mo nitoring of species D iversity (AMMODs) to pave the way for a new generation of biodiversity assessment centers. This network combines cutting-edge technologies with biodiversity informatics and expert systems that conserve expert knowledge. Each AMMOD station combines autonomous samplers for insects, pollen and spores, audio recorders for vocalizing animals, sensors for volatile organic compounds emitted by plants (pVOCs) and camera traps for mammals and small invertebrates. AMMODs are largely self-containing and have the ability to pre-process data (e.g. for noise filtering) prior to transmission to receiver stations for storage, integration and analyses. Installation on sites that are difficult to access require a sophisticated and challenging system design with optimum balance between power requirements, bandwidth for data transmission, required service, and operation under all environmental conditions for years. An important prerequisite for automated species identification are databases of DNA barcodes, animal sounds, for pVOCs, and images used as training data for automated species identification. AMMOD stations thus become a key component to advance the field of biodiversity monitoring for research and policy by delivering biodiversity data at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the effects of individual-level and tooth-level factors on apical periodontitis (AP) in an urban population in southern Brazil. A random sample of digital panoramic radiographs (n = 545) from a dental school database was evaluated. The diagnosis of AP was determined by using a dichotomous scale (yes/no). AP was assessed according to gender, age, presence and quality of endodontic treatment (ET), presence of an intracanal post, coronal condition, and dental group. Data were analyzed descriptively and through multilevel Poisson regression analysis, considering teeth characteristics (level 1) nested in individuals (level 2). In this sample of 545 participants, the prevalence of AP was 49.5% (n =2 70) and ET was 43.5% (n = 237). Considering 13,595 teeth, AP was identified in 596 (4.4%) and ET in 617 (4.5%). Of the teeth with ET, 153 (24.8%) presented AP. Among individual-level factors, the disease was not significantly associated with gender or age. For tooth-level factors, AP was significantly associated with ET quality: teeth with short fillings (< 3 mm) and teeth with over-fillings had 2.77 (CI: 1.95– 3.94, p < 0.001) and 1.08 (CI: 0.39–2.98, p < 0.001) higher prevalence of AP, respectively. There was no association between AP and age, gender, dental group, coronal condition, or the presence of an intracanal post. AP was highly prevalent in this population, and multilevel analysis indicated a significant association with ET quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]