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Aim: Peripheral nerve tumors (PNT) are rare lesions. To date, no systematic multicenter studies on epidemiology, clinical symptoms, treatment strategies and outcomes, genetic and histopathologic features, as well as imaging characteristics of PNT were published. The main goal of our PNT Registry is the systematic multicenter investigation to improve our understanding of PNT and to assist future interventional studies in establishing hypotheses, determining potential endpoints, and assessing treatment efficacy., Methods: Aims of the PNT registry were set at the 2015 Meeting of the Section of Peripheral Nerve Surgery of the German Society of Neurosurgery. A study protocol was developed by specialists in PNT care. A minimal data set on clinical status, treatment types and outcomes is reported by each participating center at initial contact with the patient and after 1 year, 2 years, and 5 years. Since the study is coordinated by the Charité Berlin, the PNR Registry was approved by the Charité ethics committee (EA4/058/17) and registered with the German Trials Registry (www.drks.de). On a national level, patient inclusion began in June 2016. The registry was rolled out across Europe at the 2019 meeting of the European Association of Neurosurgery in Dublin., Results: Patient recruitment has been initiated at 10 centers throughout Europe and 14 additional centers are currently applying for local ethics approval., Conclusion: To date, the PNT registry has grown into an international study group with regular scientific and clinical exchange awaiting the first results of the retrospective study arm.

Background: The role of macrolide/β-lactam combination therapy in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) of moderate severity is a matter of debate. Macrolides expand the coverage to atypical pathogens and attenuate pulmonary inflammation, but have been associated with cardiovascular toxicity and drug interactions. We developed a decision tree based on aetiological and clinical parameters, which are available ex ante to support a personalised decision for or against macrolides for the best clinical outcome of the individual patient., Methods: We employed machine learning in a cross-validation scheme based on a well-balanced selection of 4898 patients after propensity score matching to data available on admission of 6440 hospitalised patients with moderate severity (non-intensive care unit patients) from the observational, prospective, multinational CAPNETZ study. We aimed to improve the primary outcome of 180-day survival., Results: We found a simple decision tree of patient characteristics comprising chronic cardiovascular and chronic respiratory comorbidities as well as leukocyte counts in the respiratory secretion at enrolment. Specifically, we found that patients without cardiovascular or patients with respiratory comorbidities and high leukocyte counts in the respiratory secretion benefit from macrolide treatment. Patients identified to be treated in compliance with our treatment suggestion had a lower mortality of 27% (OR 1.83, 95% CI 1.48-2.27; p<0.001) compared to the observed standard of care., Conclusion: Stratifying macrolide treatment in patients following a simple treatment rule may lead to considerably reduced mortality in CAP. A future randomised controlled trial confirming our result is necessary before implementing this rule into the clinical routine., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest: None declared., (Copyright ©ERS 2019.)