Differential Diagnosis of Acute Diarrhea

Acute diarrhea is a condition of increased water stool content, stool volume, and number of bowel movements that lasts less than 14 days. Mild diarrhea is usually self-limiting; however, undertreated moderate to severe diarrhea may cause severe dehydration and lead to hypovolemic shock. In order to prevent severe dehydration and treat patients appropriately, it is crucial for health care providers to determine the right diagnosis of patients with acute diarrhea. This article focuses on pathophysiology, general patient presentation, diagnostic tests and differential diagnosis lists of acute diarrhea to discuss which diagnosis should be made based on patient presentation and objective data.     

What information can we gain from performing adaptive radiotherapy of head and neck cancer patients from the past 10 years?

The aim of the review was to present the current literature status about replanning regarding anatomical and dosimetric changes in the target and OARs in the head and neck region during radiotherapy, to discuss and to analyze factors influencing the decision for adaptive radiotherapy of head and neck cancer patients. Significant progress has been made in head and neck patients’ evaluation and qualification for adapted radiotherapy over the past ten years. Many factors leading to anatomical and dosimetric changes during treatment have been identified. Based on the literature, the most common factors triggering re-plan are weight loss, tumor and nodal changes, and parotid glands shrinkage. The fluctuations in dose distribution in the clinical area are significant predictive factors for patients’ quality of life and the possibility of recovery. It has been shown that re-planning influence clinical outcomes: local control, disease free survival and overall survival. Regarding literature studies, it seems that adaptive radiotherapy would be the most beneficial for tumors of immense volume or those in the nearest proximity of the OARs. All researchers agree that the timing of re-planning is a crucial challenge, and there are still no clear consensus guidelines for time or criteria of re-planning. Nowadays, thanks to significant technological progress, the decision is mostly made based on observation and supported with IGRT verification. Although further research is still needed, adaptive strategies are evolving and now became the state of the art of modern radiotherapy.     

Adaptive treadmill walking encourages persistent propulsion

BackgroundAdaptive treadmills allow real-time changes in walking speed by responding to changes in step length, propulsion, or position on the treadmill. The stride-to-stride variability, or persistence, of stride time during overground, fixed-speed, and adaptive treadmill walking has been studied, but persistence of propulsion during adaptive treadmill walking remains unknown. Because increased propulsion is often a goal of post-stroke rehabilitation, knowledge of the stride-to-stride variability may aid rehabilitation protocol design.Research questionHow do spatiotemporal and propulsive gait variables vary from stride to stride during adaptive treadmill walking, and how do they compare to fixed-speed treadmill walking?MethodsEighteen young healthy subjects walked on an instrumented split-belt treadmill in the adaptive and fixed-speed modes for 10 minutes at their comfortable speed. Kinetic data was collected from the treadmill. Detrended fluctuation analysis was applied to the time series data. Shapiro-Wilk tests assessed normality and one-way repeated measures ANOVAs compared between adaptive, fixed-speed, and randomly shuffled conditions at a Bonferroni-corrected significance level of 0.0055.ResultsStride time, stride length, step length, and braking impulse were persistent (α > 0.5) in the adaptive and fixed-speed conditions. Adaptive and fixed-speed were different from each other. Stride speed was persistent in the adaptive condition and anti-persistent (α < 0.5) in the fixed-speed condition. Peak propulsive force, peak braking force, and propulsive impulse were persistent in the adaptive condition but not the fixed-speed condition (α ≈ 0.5). Net impulse was non-persistent in the adaptive and fixed-speed conditions. All variables were non-persistent in the shuffled condition.SignificanceDuring adaptive treadmill walking, increases in propulsive force and impulse persist for multiple strides. Persistence was stronger on the adaptive treadmill, where increased propulsion translates into increased walking speed. For post-stroke gait rehabilitation where increasing propulsion and speed are goals, the stronger persistence of adaptive treadmill walking may be beneficial.     

Using a monotone single-index model to stabilize the propensity score in missing data problems and causal inference

The augmented inverse weighting method is one of the most popular methods for estimating the mean of the response in causal inference and missing data problems. An important component of this method is the propensity score. Popular parametric models for the propensity score include the logistic, probit, and complementary log-log models. A common feature of these models is that the propensity score is a monotonic function of a linear combination of the explanatory variables. To avoid the need to choose a model, we model the propensity score via a semiparametric single-index model, in which the score is an unknown monotonic nondecreasing function of the given single index. Under this new model, the augmented inverse weighting estimator (AIWE) of the mean of the response is asymptotically linear, semiparametrically efficient, and more robust than existing estimators. Moreover, we have made a surprising observation. The inverse probability weighting and AIWEs based on a correctly specified parametric model may have worse performance than their counterparts based on a nonparametric model. A heuristic explanation of this phenomenon is provided. A real-data example is used to illustrate the proposed methods.     

Pre-operative voice evaluation as a hypothetical predictor of difficult laryngoscopy

We examined the potential for voice sounds to predict a difficult airway as compared with prediction by the modified Mallampati test. A total of 453 patients scheduled for elective surgery under general anaesthesia with tracheal intubation were studied. Five phonemes were recorded and their formants analysed. Difficult laryngoscopy was defined as the Cormack–Lehane grade 3 or 4. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to examine the association between some variables (mouth opening, sternomental distance, modified Mallampati and formants) and difficult laryngoscopy. Difficult laryngoscopy was reported in 29/453 (6.4%) patients. Among five regression models evaluated, the model achieving better performance to predict difficult laryngoscopy, after a variable selection criteria (stepwise, multivariate) and included a modified Mallampati classification (OR 2.920; 95%CI 1.992–4.279; p < 0.001), first formant of /i/(iF1) (OR 1.003; 95%CI 1.002–1.04; p < 0.001), and second formant of /i/(iF2) (OR 0.998; 95%CI 0.997–0.998; p < 0.001). The receiver operating curve for a regression model that included both formants and Mallampati showed an area under curve of 0.918, higher than formants alone (area under curve 0.761) and modified Mallampati alone (area under curve 0.874). Voice presented a significant association with difficult laryngoscopy during general anaesthesia showing a 76.1% probability of correctly classifying a randomly selected patient.     

能谱智能匹配联合双低技术在CT门静脉成像中的可行性研究

目的 探索单能量成像结合自适应统计迭代重建（adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction，ASIR）及自动能谱协议选择（automatic spectral imaging mode selection，ASIS）技术在个体化降低患者门静脉造影辐射剂量、对比剂剂量中的应用价值。方法 回顾性收集华中科技大学同济医学院附属协和医院2017年1月至2017年4月120例临床需进行上腹部增强检查的受检者资料（男80例，女40例），按扫描方案分为3组，每组各40例。A组采用常规120 kVp扫描，噪声指数（NI）=10，对比剂用量为450 mgI/kg，图像采用50% ASIR重建；B、C两组采用能谱成像模式，NI=10（B组），NI=13（C组），对比剂用量均为300 mgI/kg，图像采用60 keV+50% ASIR重建。采用单因素方差分析比较3组图像中门静脉、肝实质的平均CT值及其差值、图像噪声、信噪比（SNR）及对比噪声比（CNR）。由两位高年资放射科医师对3组图像进行主观图像质量评分。记录患者的容积CT剂量指数（CTDI_vol）、剂量长度乘积（DLP）并计算有效剂量（E）。结果 B、C两组对比剂用量较A组降低了约30%。A、B、C组图像的门静脉CT值分别为168.22±17.82、209.06±20.07、211.03±25.60，B、C组与A比较，差异有统计学意义（t=-9.625、-8.680，P<0.05）。A、B、C 3组门静脉与肝实质CT差值分别为60.01±17.01、106.63±25.83、107.72±25.39，B、C组与A组比较，差异有统计学意义（t=-9.536、-9.857，P<0.05）。SNR分别为8.48±1.41、12.64±2.94、10.77±1.94，CNR分别为5.16±1.80、8.13±2.54、7.32±1.84，图像质量评分分别为（3.53±0.68）、（4.75±0.54）和（4.53±0.64）分，B、C组的SNR、CNR和图像质量评分与A组比较，差异有统计学意义（t=-8.082、-6.064、-6.050、-5.308、-8.912、-6.779，P<0.05）。A、B、C组CTDI_vol分别为（12.15±5.02）、（12.34±4.18）、（10.03±3.13）mGy，DLP分别为（348.62±155.99）、（355.56±131.07）、（287.10±92.25）mGy·cm，E分别为（5.23±2.34）、（5.33±1.97）、（4.31±1.38）mSv，相对于A、B两组，C组的CTDI_vol、DLP和E差异均有统计学意义（t=2.274、2.147、2.147、2.812、2.702、2.702，P<0.05），分别降低了19%。结论 CT门静脉成像时，选择NI=13，60 keV结合50%ASIR重建及ASIS技术可以个体化降低患者的对比剂剂量和辐射剂量，并提供满足诊断要求的图像。