Plasma Exchange for Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorders in Chinese Patients and Factors Predictive of Short-term Outcome

Purpose

The purposes of this article were to evaluate the short-term outcome of plasma exchange (PLEX) for neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSDs) in Chinese patients and to identify the factors predictive of a favorable response to therapy.

Automated clinical trial eligibility prescreening: increasing the efficiency of patient identification for clinical trials in the emergency department

Objectives (1) To develop an automated eligibility screening (ES) approach for clinical trials in an urban tertiary care pediatric emergency department (ED); (2) to assess the effectiveness of natural language processing (NLP), information extraction (IE), and machine learning (ML) techniques on real-world clinical data and trials.Data and methods We collected eligibility criteria for 13 randomly selected, disease-specific clinical trials actively enrolling patients between January 1, 2010 and August 31, 2012. In parallel, we retrospectively selected data fields including demographics, laboratory data, and clinical notes from the electronic health record (EHR) to represent profiles of all 202795 patients visiting the ED during the same period. Leveraging NLP, IE, and ML technologies, the automated ES algorithms identified patients whose profiles matched the trial criteria to reduce the pool of candidates for staff screening. The performance was validated on both a physician-generated gold standard of trial–patient matches and a reference standard of historical trial–patient enrollment decisions, where workload, mean average precision (MAP), and recall were assessed.Results Compared with the case without automation, the workload with automated ES was reduced by 92% on the gold standard set, with a MAP of 62.9%. The automated ES achieved a 450% increase in trial screening efficiency. The findings on the gold standard set were confirmed by large-scale evaluation on the reference set of trial–patient matches.Discussion and conclusion By exploiting the text of trial criteria and the content of EHRs, we demonstrated that NLP-, IE-, and ML-based automated ES could successfully identify patients for clinical trials.     

Choosing blindly but wisely: differentially private solicitation of DNA datasets for disease marker discovery

Objective To propose a new approach to privacy preserving data selection, which helps the data users access human genomic datasets efficiently without undermining patients’ privacy.Methods Our idea is to let each data owner publish a set of differentially-private pilot data, on which a data user can test-run arbitrary association-test algorithms, including those not known to the data owner a priori. We developed a suite of new techniques, including a pilot-data generation approach that leverages the linkage disequilibrium in the human genome to preserve both the utility of the data and the privacy of the patients, and a utility evaluation method that helps the user assess the value of the real data from its pilot version with high confidence.Results We evaluated our approach on real human genomic data using four popular association tests. Our study shows that the proposed approach can help data users make the right choices in most cases.Conclusions Even though the pilot data cannot be directly used for scientific discovery, it provides a useful indication of which datasets are more likely to be useful to data users, who can therefore approach the appropriate data owners to gain access to the data.     

Terlipressin versus norepinephrine as infusion in patients with septic shock: a multicentre,randomised, double-blinded trial

Purpose

Recent clinical data suggest that terlipressin, a vasopressin analogue, may be more beneficial in septic shock patients than catecholamines. However, terlipressin’s effect on mortality is unknown. We set out to ascertain the efficacy and safety of continuous terlipressin infusion compared with norepinephrine (NE) in patients with septic shock.

Methods

In this multicentre, randomised, double-blinded trial, patients with septic shock recruited from 21 intensive care units in 11 provinces of China were randomised (1:1) to receive either terlipressin (20–160 µg/h with maximum infusion rate of 4 mg/day) or NE (4–30 µg/min) before open-label vasopressors. The primary endpoint was mortality 28 days after the start of infusion. Primary efficacy endpoint analysis and safety analysis were performed on the data from a modified intention-to-treat population.

Results

Between 1 January 2013 and 28 February 2016, 617 patients were randomised (312 to the terlipressin group, 305 to the NE group). The modified intention-to-treat population comprised 526 (85.3%) patients (260 in the terlipressin group and 266 in the NE group). There was no significant difference in 28-day mortality rate between the terlipressin group (40%) and the NE group (38%) (odds ratio 0.93 [95% CI 0.55–1.56]; p?=?0.80). Change in SOFA score on day 7 was similar between the two groups: ??7 (IQR ??11 to 3) in the terlipressin group and ??6 (IQR ??10 to 5) in the NE group. There was no difference between the groups in the number of days alive and free of vasopressors. Overall, serious adverse events were more common in the terlipressin group than in the NE group (30% vs 12%; p?<?0.001).

Conclusions

In this multicentre, randomised, double-blinded trial, we observed no difference in mortality between terlipressin and NE infusion in patients with septic shock. Patients in the terlipressin group had a higher number of serious adverse events.

Trial registration

This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: ID NCT01697410.

     

The Diagnosis of Concussion in Pediatric Emergency Departments: A Prospective Multicenter Study

Background

The accurate identification of children with a concussion by emergency physicians is important to initiate appropriate anticipatory guidance and management.

髋关节X线测量指标在评价脑瘫患儿髋关节半脱位中的应用

目的：探讨髋关节X线片测量指标与脑瘫患儿髋关节发育的相关性,评价其在该类疾病所致髋关节半脱位中的价值与作用。方法回顾性分析2012年5月—2014年5月在我中心检查治疗的60名脑瘫患儿骨盆平片中的120个髋关节,测量其骨结构的X线指标,包括：髋臼指数（acetabular index,AI）、股骨头偏移百分比（migrarion percentage,MP）、颈干角（neck-shaft angle,NSA）。结果 AI （21.05±3.83）°、MP （18.05±13.74）%、NSA（150.54±8.41）°。结论大部分脑瘫患儿存在髋关节骨骼发育异常,并导致髋关节半脱位改变。股骨头偏移百分比测量可以较客观地反映髋关节半脱位情况及其严重程度,具有较高的临床实用价值。     

Comparison Between Oblique Pulling Spinal Manipulation and Other Treatments for Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective

The purpose of this review was to compare oblique pulling spinal manipulation with other treatments for lumbar disc herniation.

The influence of esmolol on septic shock and sepsis: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies

Background

Esmolol may have some potential in treating septic shock and sepsis. However, the results remain controversial. We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the efficacy of esmolol in patients with septic shock and sepsis.