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Background Atrial fibrillation (AF), a condition that might occur after a heart bypass procedure, has caused differing estimates of its occurrence and risk. The current study analyses the possible risk factors of post-coronary artery bypass grafting (post-CABG) AF (postoperative AF [POAF]) and presents a software for preoperative POAF risk prediction. Methods This retrospective research was performed on 1,667 patients who underwent CABG surgery using the hospital database. The associations between the variables of the patients and AF risk factors after CABG were examined using multivariable logistic regression (LR) after preprocessing the relevant data. The tool was designed to predict POAF risk using Shiny, an R package, to develop a web-based software. Results The overall proportion of post-CABG AF was 12.2%. According to the results of univariate tests, in terms of age (p Conclusion The experimental findings from the current research demonstrate that the suggested tool (POAFRiskScore v.1.0) can help clinicians predict POAF risk development in the preoperative period after validated on large sample(s) that can represent the related population(s). Simultaneously, since the updated versions of the proposed tool will be released periodically based on the increases in data dimensions with continuously added new samples and related factors, more robust predictions may be obtained in the subsequent stages of the current study in statistical and clinical terms.

SUMMARY OBJECTIVE: Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration has been successfully applied in both diagnosis and staging of mediastinal and hilar lymphadenopathies and masses, especially in malignant cases. However, the optimal procedure of Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration to further increase diagnostic yield and minimize processing complexity remains controversial. This study aims to compare aspiration biopsy (Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration) and non-aspiration biopsy (Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle capillary sampling) in terms of sample adequacy, diagnosis, and quality in malignant cases. METHODS: Between March 2018 and June 2020, Endobronchial ultrasound-guided was performed sequentially on patients with mediastinal and/or hilar lymph nodes that were considered malignant. Each lymphadenopathy was sampled with and without aspiration. A single-blinded pathologist evaluated the samples. RESULTS: A total of 84 lymph nodes evaluations of 51 patients were included. Most samples were taken from the right lower paratracheal lymph nodes (n=27, 32.2%) and subcarinal LN (n=21, 25%). The mean size of the lymph nodes was 21.21±8.257 (8–40) mm. The agreement between the two procedures in terms of sample adequacy and diagnostic yield was 69.1% (95%CI 58–78.7, p=0.076). In addition, according to the goodness-of-fit statistics, the kappa values were 0.255 (p=0.015) and 0.302 (p=0.004) for sample adequacy and diagnostic yield, respectively. There was no difference between the two procedures in relation to complications. CONCLUSION: Although the agreement between the two procedures is weak, Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle capillary sampling can be performed with less personnel, without reducing diagnostic yield and tissue adequacy. These findings can assist clinicians in determining the optimal procedure for Endobronchial ultrasound-guided.

OBJECTIVE: In our study, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malatya province, other than confirmed case deaths, were investigated. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The records of those who died between 2016 and 2020 were reviewed on the official website of the Malatya Metropolitan Municipality, and the numbers of deaths in those 5 years were recorded on a weekly basis. The arithmetic mean of the deaths between 2016 and 2019 was calculated, and it was investigated whether the number of deaths in 2020 was more than expected. RESULTS: In 2020, 1743 (61%) excess deaths were detected. While the mean number of deaths reported 4 years before 2020 was 2860, it was determined that the number of deaths in 2020 was 4603, and there were 1743 (61%) excess deaths. CONCLUSION: The deaths occurred in Malatya during the COVID-19 pandemic were more than expected. It has been supposed that some deaths were of polymerase chain reaction negative and hence unrecorded COVID-19 patients’ deaths, and some deaths were caused by other indirect effects of the pandemic.

Objective: The first imaging method to play an vital role in the diagnosis of COVID-19 illness is the chest X-ray. Because of the abundance of large-scale annotated picture datasets, convolutional neural networks (CNN) have shown remarkable success in image recognition and classification. The current study aims to construct a successful deep learning model that can distinguish COVID-19 from healthy controls using chest X-ray images. Material and Methods: The dataset in the study consists of subjects with 912 negative and 912 positive PCR results. A prediction model was built using VGG-16 with transfer learning to classify COVID-19 chest X-ray images. The data set was split at random into 80 % training and 20% testing groups. Results: The accuracy, F1 score, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative values from the model that can successfully distinguish COVID-19 from healthy controls are 97.3%, 97.3%, 97.8%, 96.7%, 96.7%, and 97.8% regarding the testing dataset, respectively. Conclusion: The suggested technique might greatly improve on current radiology-based methodologies and serve as a beneficial tool for clinicians/radiologists in diagnosing and following up on COVID-19 patients.

Aim: Data mining is the discovery process of beneficial information, not revealed from large-scale data beforehand. One of the fields in which data mining is widely used is health. With data mining, the diagnosis and treatment of the disease and the risk factors affecting the disease can be determined quickly. Association rules are one of the data mining techniques. The aim of this study is to determine patient profiles by obtaining strong association rules with the apriori algorithm, which is one of the association rule algorithms. Material and Method: The data set used in the study consists of 205 acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients. The patients have also carried the genotype of the FNDC5 (rs3480, rs726344, rs16835198) polymorphisms. Support and confidence measures are used to evaluate the rules obtained in the Apriori algorithm. The rules obtained by these measures are correct but not strong. Therefore, interest measures are used, besides two basic measures, with the aim of obtaining stronger rules. In this study For reaching stronger rules, interest measures lift, conviction, certainty factor, cosine, phi and mutual information are applied. Results: In this study, 108 rules were obtained. The proposed interest measures were implemented to reach stronger rules and as a result 29 of the rules were qualified as strong. Conclusion: As a result, stronger rules have been obtained with the use of interest measures in the clinical decision making process. Thanks to the strong rules obtained, it will facilitate the patient profile determination and clinical decision-making process of AMI patients. Amaç: Veri madenciliği, önceden büyük ölçekli verilerden ortaya çıkarılmayan faydalı bilgilerin keşfedilme sürecidir. Veri madenciliğinin yaygın olarak kullanıldığı alanlardan biri de sağlıktır. Veri madenciliği ile hastalığın tanı ve tedavisi ile hastalığı etkileyen risk faktörleri hızlı bir şekilde belirlenebilmektedir. Birliktelik kuralları, veri madenciliği tekniklerinden biridir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, birliktelik kuralı algoritmalarından biri olan apriori algoritması ile güçlü birliktelik kuralları elde ederek hasta profillerini belirlemektir. Materyal ve Metot: Çalışmada kullanılan veri seti 205 akut miyokard enfarktüsü (AMI) hastasından oluşmaktadır. Hastalar ayrıca FNDC5 polimorfizmlerinin rs3480, rs726344, rs16835198 genotipini de taşımaktadır. Apriori algoritması ile elde edilen kuralları değerlendirmek için destek ve güven ölçüleri kullanılır. Ancak bu ölçütler ile elde edilen kurallar doğrudur ancak güçlü değildir. Bu nedenle, daha güçlü kurallar elde etmek amacıyla iki temel ölçütün yanı sıra ilginçlik ölçütleri kullanılmaktadır. Bu çalışmada daha güçlü kurallara ulaşmak için ilginçlik ölçütlerinden kaldıraç, kanaat, kesinlik faktörü, cosine, korelasyon katsayısı (phi) ve karşılıklı bilgi ölçütleri uygulanmıştır. Bulgular: Çalışmada 108 kural elde edilmiştir. Bu kurallara ilginçlik ölçütlerinin de uygulanması ile elde edilen kural sayısı 29 olmuştur ve bu kurallar güçlü kural olarak nitelendirilmiştir. Sonuç: Sonuç olarak, klinik karar verme sürecinde ilginçlik ölçütlerinin kullanılmasıyla daha güçlü kurallar elde edilmiştir. Elde edilen güçlü kurallar sayesinde AMİ hastalarının hasta profili belirleme ve klinik karar verme sürecini kolaylaştıracaktır.

Background and Aims. Sepsis causes release of free oxygen radicals that destroy membrane integrity.We evaluated the antioxidant effects of parsley, Petroselinum crispum(Pc), which has been used therapeutically for centuries in Anatolia, using a rat model of sepsis caused by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP).Methods.Wistar albino rats were separated into four groups of eight: a sham group with incised and sutured abdomen, a Pc extract(PcE) group was given 2 g/kg parsley extract for 14 days by gastric gavage, a CLP group with sepsis caused by CLP and a PcE + CLP group given parsley extract for 14 days, then made septic by CLP. PcE is given for 14 days and then sepsis is performed by the CLP procedure. Results. The groups were compared in terms of hemogram, biochemical and histological characteristics. It has been proven that the administration of PcE before CLP-induced sepsis increases neutrophil, PLT counts and TAS levels which decrease with sepsis and decreases biochemical changes (BUN, AST, ALT, LDH, TOS, OSI) which increase with sepsis, to have a protective effect on sepsis . In the PcE + CLP group, the severity of intestinal infiltration was decreased significantly compared to the CLP group; epithelial damage was similar to the CLP group. In the PcE + CLP group, the crypt and villus length was greater and the decrease in Paneth cell degranulation intensity was found to be more than for the CLP group ; also, the morphology of the cells was similar to the Sham group. Discussion. PcE exhibit potential for prophylaxis for sepsis.

Ischemia/reperfusion injury occurs after testicular torsion, levels of free oxygen radicals and inflammatory cytokines are increased in both the torsional and contralateral testis, leading to testicular injury.The present study investigated whether orchiopexy or orchiectomy after testicular torsion was superior in terms of fertility potential in the long term.Following 720°, 4 h left testicular torsion, orchiectomy or orchiopexy was performed on 84 rats, which were then sacrificed and evaluated for testicular function at day 1, at 3 months and 6 months (n = 14 per group). An additional 14 rats were in the control group.Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and testosterone levels were significantly lower in the orchiopexy group than the orchiectomy and control groups after 3 months. However, there were no significant differences in hormone parameters among the three groups after 6 months. The hormone levels, Johnsen score, seminiferous tubule diameter, and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression at 3 and 6 months were not significantly different between the orchiectomy group and controls. Histopathological analyses at 3 and 6 months indicated significant decreases in Johnsen score and seminiferous tubule diameter in the ipsilateral testis in the orchiopexy group. At 3 months, the level of iNOS expression in the contralateral testis was significantly lower in the orchiopexy group than in other groups. At 6 months, however, it was not significantly different between the orchiopexy and control groups. There were no significant differences in iNOS expression at 3 or 6 months in the orchiectomy group compared to controls.The ipsilateral testis in the orchiopexy group began to atrophy at 3 months, and the degree of atrophy became more evident at 6 months. The level of iNOS expression was low in the bilateral testis at 3 months in the orchiopexy group, and sperm in the contralateral testis were not yet functionally healthy. The level of iNOS expression in the ipsilateral testis decreased further at 6 months in the orchiopexy group, while that in the contralateral testis returned to the normal level.Testicular functions were restored faster after orchiectomy compared to orchiopexy following testicular torsion. However, follow-up of the rats for 6 months demonstrated that orchiopexy or orchiectomy procedures conducted on the testicular torsion had no effect on future fertility potential after 4 h of torsion.

Appendicitis is one of the most common surgical emergencies among children. In this retrospective clinical study, we attempted to determine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic period on hospital admission time and length of hospital stay (LOS) in pediatric appendicitis cases.We retrospectively compared pediatric appendectomies from the date of the first reported COVID-19 case to June 1, 2020, which is considered as the start of the normalization process, with pre-pandemic pediatric appendectomies of the same number of days in terms of age, gender, hospital admission time, LOS, parental educational level, laboratory values, and histopathological findings.There was an average increase of 2 days in the time from the onset of symptoms to hospital admission in pediatric appen-dicitis patients in the COVID-19 period (p=0.001). Furthermore, C-reactive protein value was statistically significantly higher in the COVID-19 period (p=0.018). Given the LOS, it was calculated as an average of 5 days in the pre-pandemic period and 4 days in the COVID-19 period, and this difference was statistically insignificant (p=0.273). There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of histopathological findings (p=0.176). The parental educational level had no effect on the admission time.The hospital admission time of pediatric appendicitis patients is significantly prolonged in the COVID-19 pandemic, but this prolongation had no histopathological effect. During the pandemic, the recovery of patients who required urgent treatment during the 'stay-at-home' period was also negatively affected. Notwithstanding, we are of the opinion that the absence of an increase in the LOS may be due to the willingness of both families and physicians to keep the LOS as short as possible. Despite the increase in hospital admission time in pediatric appendicitis during the Covid 19 pandemic process, the lack of increase in the rate of complicated appendicitis may be an indicator of the importance of other factors in the development of complicated appendicitis.

Purpose: COVID-19 pandemic has created a serious psychological impact worldwide since it has been declared. This study aims to investigate the level of psychological impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Turkish population and to determine related factors. Methods: The study was carried out by using an online questionnaire using the virtual snowball sampling method. The sociodemographic data were collected on the following subjects: Participants’ experience on any signs of infection within the last month, the history of COVID-19 contact-treatment-quarantine, level of compliance with precautionary measures, the sources of information and level of knowledge about the pandemic process and their belief levels on the knowledge they acquire. Besides, questions that take place in the depression, anxiety, stress scale (DASS-21), and impact of events scale (IESR) were asked. Results: Of the 3549 participants, anxiety was found in 15.8%, depression in 22.6%, stress in 12.9%, and psychological trauma in 20.29%. Female gender, young age, higher education level, being single, high monthly income, presence of psychiatric illness, a high number of people living together, having any signs of infection, and contact history with COVID-19 infected person or contaminated object are identified as risk factors that may increase psychological impact. Compliance with the rules was found to reduce the risk of psychological response. Conclusions: During the pandemic, reducing the spread of the virus and knowing the risk factors in protecting the mental health of individuals will be guided in determining the measures to be followed and the policies to be followed.

Recently, hospitals and health care institutions have increasingly been addressing clinical decision support systems (CDSS), which can offer specific patient assessments or recommendations to physicians and health care professionals. It is very useful to develop CDSS which can help physicians to make meaningful and correct decisions by using existing data or image sets. Also, CDSS increases the diagnostic accuracy of diseases, provides significant facilities in precision medicine applications, increases operating efficiency of hospitals and reduces costs. In this context, the proposed project intends to create a model using pre-trained networks (i.e. VGG-16,) based on deep learning (DL) that can successfully predict the melanoma using dermoscopic images. The current study provides clinical support to physicians in the medical decision-making process for the diagnosis of melanoma.

Deep learning is much preferred in image processing applications since it can give fast and important results. This research aims at developing an open source software for deep learning based-classification of dementia in magnetic resonance imaging scans. Keras (i.e., a deep-learning framework) is employed for constructing a deep learning based-model that could be discriminate between dementia patients and healthy individuals. The achieved findings demonstrate that the proposed system can be used to detect individuals with suspected dementia disease.

Knowledge of the utility of angiographic embolization (AE) in pediatric cases of blunt abdominal solid organ trauma injuries is limited. The current study is an examination of AE as an effective and reliable method to control bleeding in patients with persistent bleeding due to blunt trauma-induced abdominal solid organ injury.This was a retrospective examination of patients17 years of age who had experienced blunt abdominal solid organ injury and who presented at a single institution within 4 years. A statistical analysis of the data was performed.The mean length of intensive care unit stay was 4 days for those who underwent embolization (n=11), and the mean length of hospital stay was 12 days. The average pre-AE blood loss, as measured by the decrease in hematocrit (%) from admission to embolization, was -7.33+-5.3% (p0.001). The average post-AE blood loss, as measured by the change in hematocrit 72 hours post AE, was 2+-0.97% (p0.05). All of the patients were discharged with a full recovery.AE was a safe and effective method to control solid organ hemorrhage in pediatric patients with blunt abdominal injuries.