Trajectory of adherence to home rehabilitation among older adults with hip fractures and cognitive impairment

This study aimed to identify different trajectories of adherence to home rehabilitation for older adults with hip fracture and cognitive impairment, to examine associations between different adherence trajectories and postoperative recovery outcomes, and to explore the predictors of adherence trajectories. Group-based trajectory modeling showed two adherence trajectories: low (39.06%) and high (60.94%) adherence. The high adherence group had better activities of daily living (β=11.77, p<.001), instrumental activities of daily living (β=0.56, p<.01), femoral muscular strength (β=3.35, p<.01) on the fractured side and quality of life (β=-0.81, p=.02) than the low adherence group. Participants who established exercise habits (OR=6.49, p<.01) and consulted a physical therapist (OR=4.29, p=.03) during hospitalization were more likely to be in the high adherence group.     

Preoperative intra-arterial chemotherapy with docetaxel,cisplatin, and peplomycin combined with intravenous chemotherapy using 5-fluorouracil for oral squamous cell carcinoma

The objectives of this study were to evaluate survival in 141 patients with stage II–IV oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) treated with preoperative intra-arterial chemotherapy with docetaxel, cisplatin, and peplomycin combined with intravenous chemotherapy using 5-fluorouracil (IADCPIVF) via the superficial temporal artery, and to clarify the prognostic factors. The study population included 59 patients with stage II OSCC, 34 with stage III, and 48 with stage IV. After IADCPIVF, 139 patients underwent surgery; minimally invasive surgeries (MIS) including excisional biopsy were performed on 96 patients with a remarkably good response to IADCPIVF. The primary tumour response rate was 99.3% (complete response rate 56.7%, good partial response rate 17.0%, fair partial response rate 25.5%). Additionally, there were no serious adverse events associated with IADCPIVF. The 5-year overall survival rate was 74.6% (stage II 83.6%, stage III 72.7%, stage IV 64.8%). In the multivariate analysis of survival, T classification and clinical tumour response were significant prognostic factors. Eight (8.3%) of the patients who received MIS had primary recurrence and six were salvaged. In conclusion, IADCPIVF is safe and efficacious for treating OSCC, and MIS could reduce the extent of primary tumour resection in the case of a remarkably good response.     

Association of meibomian gland architecture and body mass index in a pediatric population

PurposeTo determine if meibomian gland architecture in a pediatric population is impacted by body mass index (BMI).MethodsProspective evaluation of 175 eyes of 175 pediatric patients from two clinics. Demographic and clinical information were reviewed. Symptoms of dry eye were assessed with the Standard Patient Evaluation of Eye Dryness (SPEED) questionnaire. Meibography was performed and grading of images was performed by a masked rater using a previously validated 5-point meiboscale (0–4) for gland atrophy and a 3-point score (0–2) for gland tortuosity.Results175 eyes of 175 participants aged 4–17 years (11.6 ± 3.7 years) were imaged. The mean meiboscore was 0.82 ± 0.94 (range 0–4) and the mean gland tortuosity score was 0.53 ± 0.70 (range 0–2). Ninety-six patients (56%) showed evidence of gland atrophy (meiboscore greater than 0) and the majority of patients (n=50, 29%) had a gland tortuosity score of 1. The mean BMI was 20.5 ± 4.86 kg/m² with 39.4% of patients (n = 69) above the 85th percentile. BMI percentile was not found to be a significant predictor of a meiboscore greater than 0 (odds ratio (OR) 1.004 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.99–1.10, p = 0.41). However, BMI percentile was found to be a significant predictor of gland tortuosity score (OR 1.01 95% CI (1.00–1.02), p = 0.02). Patients with BMI percentiles between 41 and 60 were 3.79 times more likely to have a gland tortuosity score of greater than 0 than patients with BMI percentiles between 0 and 20 (OR 3.789 CI (1.17–12.24)). No significant associations were found between age, race, or sex and meiboscore or tortuosity. There was a trend towards reduction in lipid layer thickness with increasing BMI percentile (p = 0.028, r² = 0.04).ConclusionIn this pediatric population, there was an association between meibomian gland tortuosity and higher percentiles of BMI. Future studies are needed to elucidate the pathogenesis of meibomian gland tortuosity and atrophy in pediatric patients.     

Effects of exogenous factors on spatial accuracy in neurosurgery

The study aimed to assess the effect of exogenous factors such as surgeon posture, surgical instrument length, fatigue after a night shift, exercise and caffeine consumption on the spatial accuracy of neurosurgical manipulations. For the evaluation and simulation of neurosurgical manipulations, a testing device developed by the authors was used. The experimental results were compared using nonparametric analysis (Wilcoxon test) and multivariate analysis, which was performed using mixed models. The results were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05. The study included 11 first-year neurosurgery residents who met the inclusion criteria. Hand support in the sitting position (Wilcoxon test p value = 0.0033), caffeine consumption (p = 0.0058) and the length of the microsurgical instrument (p = 0.0032) had statistically significant influences on the spatial accuracy of surgical manipulations (univariate analysis). The spatial accuracy did not significantly depend on the type of standing position (Wilcoxon test p value = 0.2860), whether the surgeon was standing/sitting (p = 0.1029), fatigue following a night shift (p = 0.3281), or physical exertion prior to surgery (p = 0.2845).When conducting the multivariate analysis, the spatial accuracy significantly depended on the test subject (p < 0.0001), the use of support during the test (p = 0.0001), and the length of the microsurgical instrument (p = 0.0397). To increase the spatial accuracy of microsurgical manipulations, hand support and shorter tools should be used. Caffeine consumption in high doses should also be avoided prior to surgery.     

Clinical characteristics and surgical outcomes of resectable acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas-propensity score matching analysis with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

BackgroundSurgical resection is recommended for patients with resectable acinar cell carcinoma (ACC). The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical characteristics and surgical outcomes of resectable ACC in comparison to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).MethodA retrospective analysis was performed on all patients who consecutively underwent radical resection with pathologically confirmed ACC and PDAC from December 2011 to December 2018. Clinicopathologic characteristics and follow-up information were analyzed. A 1:3 propensity score matching (PSM) method was used to minimize the bias between ACC and PDAC.ResultsA total of 26 patients with ACC and 1351 with PDAC were included. Compared to PDAC, ACC tended to be larger (4.5 vs. 3.0 cm; p < 0.001) and more frequently located in the pancreatic body/tail (61.5% vs. 36.6%, p = 0.009), with lower total bilirubin levels, lower neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) levels and lower carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) levels and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels. There was no difference in postoperative morbidities in patients with ACC and PDAC. The median OS and RFS were longer in ACC when compared to PDAC (OS: 43.5 mo vs. 19.0 mo, p = 0.004; RFS: 24.5 mo vs. 11.6 mo, p = 0.023). After the 1:3 PSM, ACC remained to be a better histological type for OS (p = 0.024), but had comparable RFS with PDAC (p = 0.164).ConclusionPatients with ACC after radical resection had better OS than that with PDAC. However, ACC is also an aggressive tumor with a similar trend of RFS with PDAC after the matching, necessitating the multidisciplinary treatment for resectable ACC disease.     

SeqSeg: A sequential method to achieve nasopharyngeal carcinoma segmentation free from background dominance

Reliable nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) segmentation plays an important role in radiotherapy planning. However, recent deep learning methods fail to achieve satisfactory NPC segmentation in magnetic resonance (MR) images, since NPC is infiltrative and typically has a small or even tiny volume with indistinguishable border, making it indiscernible from tightly connected surrounding tissues from immense and complex backgrounds. To address such background dominance problems, this paper proposes a sequential method (SeqSeg) to achieve accurate NPC segmentation. Specifically, the proposed SeqSeg is devoted to solving the problem at two scales: the instance level and feature level. At the instance level, SeqSeg is forced to focus attention on the tumor and its surrounding tissue through the deep Q-learning (DQL)-based NPC detection model by prelocating the tumor and reducing the scale of the segmentation background. Next, at the feature level, SeqSeg uses high-level semantic features in deeper layers to guide feature learning in shallower layers, thus directing the channel-wise and region-wise attention to mine tumor-related features to perform accurate segmentation. The performance of our proposed method is evaluated by extensive experiments on the large NPC dataset containing 1101 patients. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed SeqSeg not only outperforms several state-of-the-art methods but also achieves better performance in multi-device and multi-center datasets.     

The feasibility,effectiveness and safety of totally thoracoscopic resection for right atrial myxoma

Background Myxoma is the most frequent cardiac benign tumor which requires surgical removal even though in right atrium. Minimally invasive surgery has become the standard approach for removal of myxoma in our center. Herein, we report our initial experience of cardiac myxoma removal through mini-port totally thoracoscopic particular with focus on its feasibility, efficacy and short-term outcomes, as compared with median sternotomy. Methods From April 2015 to March 2019, 31 consecutive cases were ultimately identified and divided into two groups(Mini-port thoracoscopic group, n=14; versus conventional median sternotomic group, n=17). An echocardiography was routinely performed prior to discharge, at 1 st month, 6 th month, 12 th month and every year postoperatively. Retrospective analyses of perioperative data, postoperative outcomes and complications,and follow up data were performed. Results All the 31 patients successfully underwent right atrial myxoma removal surgery with no perioperative death, re-exploration for bleeding, residual mass or central nervous event in both groups. Intraoperative data from two group showed absence of significant difference except the intraoperative blood loss(150±50.01 m L in mini-port thoracoscopic group vs. 255.88±93.35 m L in conventional median sternomtomic group, P=0.01). There was no significant difference in perioperative blood transfusion and postoperative outcomes between the two groups. But the mini-port thoracoscopic group had a much less 24-hour postoperative drainage(136.71±148.20 m L vs. 341.17±211.29 m L, P=0.03). No significance difference could be identified between two groups about the incidence of postoperative morbidities and follow-up adverse events. Conclusion Totally mini-port video-assisted thoracoscopic approach for right atrial myxoma resection on peripheral cardiopulmonary bypass is feasible, effective with favorable safety in experienced cardiac center.[S Chin J Cardiol 2019;20(4):236-244]     

紧密型医联体模式下全科医学科建设探索

目的 探讨紧密型医连体模式下全科医学科的定位。 方法 通过对比分析国内全科医学科的发展和深圳市5家区属医院全科医学科的实际运行情况，探索紧密型医联体模式下全科医学科在组织架构、功能定位和学科发展方面的建设。 结果 我国全科医学科的发展主要依赖学科联盟，通过教学师资输出与师资培养在临床基地和实践基地间建立联系。紧密医联体模式下全科医学科发展可借用行政手段强力推进，有利于分级诊疗。2016年深圳市社康机构基本医疗服务人次占全市公立医疗机构门急诊总诊疗量的42.66%。选择在社区首诊的医保参保人数量863万，占全市参保人总数的70%。深圳市区属医院全科医学科在组织架构上多采用双重管理模式，即在业务上归属医务科等职能部门管理，行政上归属社区健康管理中心管理。全科医学科在功能定位上侧重于全科教学，着重于全科医学人才培养，为基层输送合格的全科医生。全科门诊是全科医生的主要带教场所，全科住院部适合收治多病共存、未分化疾病和教学患者，有利于全科医生对典型患者的系统学习。 结论 紧密型医联体模式有利于分级诊疗推进，该模式下全科医学科组织架构可采用双重管理，其功能定位为全科教学，其学科发展方向为多病共存患者照顾。