A Simple Dressing Technique Following Dermofasciectomy and Full Thickness Skin Grafting of the Fingers in the Treatment of Severe Dupuytren’s Contracture

Dupuytren’s disease with severe finger contractures and recurrent contractures following previous surgery often have extensive skin involvement. In these severe cases, excision of the diseased chord along with the involved skin is a good option to reduce the risk of recurrance. The resulting skin defect can be covered with a full thickness skin graft (FTSG) or a cross finger flap. Cross finger flaps have donor finger morbidity and hence a full thickness graft is usually preferred. The FTSG extending to the midlateral margins on both sides of the finger reduces the risk of joint contracture due to graft shrinkage. Once the FTSG is sutured in place, the standard practice is to compress and secure the graft to its recipient bed with a tie-over dressing and this can be time consuming. We present a simple dressing technique to secure the FTSG without the need for a tie-over dressing.     

Population Genetics Identifies Challenges in Analyzing Rare Variants

Geneticists have, for years, understood the nature of genome‐wide association studies using common genomic variants. Recently, however, focus has shifted to the analysis of rare variants. This presents potential problems for researchers, as rare variants do not always behave in the same way common variants do, sometimes rendering decades of solid intuition moot. In this paper, we present examples of the differences between common and rare variants. We show why one must be significantly more careful about the origin of rare variants, and how failing to do so can lead to highly inflated type I error. We then explain how to best avoid such concerns with careful understanding and study design. Additionally, we demonstrate that a seemingly low error rate in next‐generation sequencing can dramatically impact the false‐positive rate for rare variants. This is due to the fact that rare variants are, by definition, seen infrequently, making it hard to distinguish between errors and real variants. Compounding this problem is the fact that the proportion of errors is likely to get worse, not better, with increasing sample size. One cannot simply scale their way up in order to solve this problem. Understanding these potential pitfalls is a key step in successfully identifying true associations between rare variants and diseases.     

Antidiabetic activity of Helicteres angustifolia root

Context The root of Helicteres angustifolia L. (Sterculiaceae) has been used as folk herbal drug to treat cancer, bacterial infections, inflammatory, and flu in China. However, there is no report on its antidiabetic activity.

Objective This study evaluates the antidiabetic activity of ethanol extract from H. angustifolia root.

Materials and methods The promoting effect of H. angustifolia root ethanol extract (25, 50, and 100 μg/mL) on glucose uptake was evaluated using HepG2 cell, differentiated C2C12 myotubes, and differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes. The antidiabetic activity of the extract was assessed in vivo using STZ-induced diabetic rats by orally administration of the extract (200 and 400?mg/kg b.w.) once per day for 28 d. Blood glucose, TG, TC, TP, HDL-C, UA, BUN, AST, ALT, insulin, and HOMA-IR were analyzed.

Results The results showed that the extract increased glucose uptake in C2C12 myotubes and 3T3-L1 adipocytes with an IC₅₀ value of 79.95 and 135.96 μg/mL, respectively. And about 12%, 19%, and 10% (p < 0.05) in HepG2 cells when compared with the control at the concentration of 25, 50, and 100 μg/mL, respectively. After 28 days’ treatment with the extract, significant reduction was observed in blood glucose, HOMA-IR, TC, TG, UA, BUN, AST, and ALT levels, while the levels of TP and HDL cholesterol increased.

Discussion and conclusion These results suggest that H. angustifolia root ethanol extract possess potent antidiabetic activity, which is the first report on antidiabetic activity of this plant.     

狼疮抗凝物检测在静脉血栓栓塞症中的应用进展

狼疮抗凝物是发生静脉血栓栓塞症的危险因素之一,在静脉血栓栓塞症患者中检测狼疮抗凝物,对治疗方案抉择和疗效预后判断等方面具有重要意义。目前尚无相关文献对狼疮抗凝物检测在静脉血栓栓塞症中的应用进展进行分析总结,为加深对此类患者的认识,更好地帮助临床医生对此类患者进行合理的诊治和管理,现就有关流行病学、检测注意事项及检测结果在静脉血栓栓塞症中的价值和相关治疗进行综述。     

Structural damage burden and hypertrophic olivary degeneration in pediatric postoperative cerebellar mutism syndrome

Cerebellar mutism syndrome (CMS) occurs in one out of four children after posterior fossa tumor surgery, with open questions regarding risk factors, pathophysiology, and prevention strategies. Because of similarities between several cerebellar syndromes, a common pathophysiology with damage to the dentato-thalamo-cortical and dentato-rubro-olivary pathways has been proposed. Hypertrophic olivary degeneration (HOD) is an imaging correlate of cerebellar injury observed for instance in stroke patients. Aim of this study was to investigate whether the occurrence and severity of CMS correlates with the extent of damage to the relevant anatomical structures and whether HOD is a time-dependent postoperative neuroimaging correlate of CMS. We performed a retrospective single center study of CMS patients compared with matched non-CMS controls. CMS occurred in 10 children (13% of the overall cohort) with a median age of 8 years. Dentate nucleus (DN) injury significantly correlated with CMS, and superior cerebellar peduncle (SCP) injury was associated by tendency. HOD was observed as a dynamic neuroimaging phenomenon in the postoperative course and its presence significantly correlated with CMS and DN injury. Children who later developed HOD had an earlier onset and tended to have longer persistence of CMS. These findings can guide surgical measures to protect the DN and SCP during posterior fossa tumor resections and to avoid a high damage burden (i.e., bilateral damage). Development of intraoperative neuromonitoring of the cerebellar efferent pathways as well as improved preoperative risk stratification could help to establish a patient-specific strategy with optimal balance between degree of resection and functional integrity.

     

A Perioperative Care Display for Understanding High Acuity Patients

Background  The data visualization literature asserts that the details of the optimal data display must be tailored to the specific task, the background of the user, and the characteristics of the data. The general organizing principle of a concept-oriented display is known to be useful for many tasks and data types. Objectives  In this project, we used general principles of data visualization and a co-design process to produce a clinical display tailored to a specific cognitive task, chosen from the anesthesia domain, but with clear generalizability to other clinical tasks. To support the work of the anesthesia-in-charge (AIC) our task was, for a given day, to depict the acuity level and complexity of each patient in the collection of those that will be operated on the following day. The AIC uses this information to optimally allocate anesthesia staff and providers across operating rooms. Methods  We used a co-design process to collaborate with participants who work in the AIC role. We conducted two in-depth interviews with AICs and engaged them in subsequent input on iterative design solutions. Results  Through a co-design process, we found (1) the need to carefully match the level of detail in the display to the level required by the clinical task, (2) the impedance caused by irrelevant information on the screen such as icons relevant only to other tasks, and (3) the desire for a specific but optional trajectory of increasingly detailed textual summaries. Conclusion  This study reports a real-world clinical informatics development project that engaged users as co-designers. Our process led to the user-preferred design of a single binary flag to identify the subset of patients needing further investigation, and then a trajectory of increasingly detailed, text-based abstractions for each patient that can be displayed when more information is needed.