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Disparities In Computed Tomography Utilization For Pediatric Blunt Trauma: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Comparing Pediatric And Non-Pediatric Trauma Centers, Amir Hassankhani, Parya Valizadeh, Melika Amoukhteh, Payam Jannatdoust, Nikoo Saeedi, Paniz Sabeghi, Delaram J Ghadimi, Jennifer H Johnston, Ali Gholamrezanezhad

Journal Articles

Pediatric blunt trauma is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, and computed tomography (CT) imaging is vital for accurate evaluation and management. Pediatric trauma centers (PTCs) have selective CT practices, while non-PTCs may differ, resulting in potential variations in CT utilization. The objective of this study is to delineate disparities in CT utilization for pediatric blunt trauma patients between PTCs and non-PTCs. A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted following established guidelines, searching PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science up to March 3, 2023. All studies examining CT utilization in the management of pediatric (aged < 21 years) blunt trauma and specifying the type of trauma center(s) were included, and data were extracted and analyzed using STATA software version 17.0. An analysis of 30 studies revealed significant variations in CT scan utilization among pediatric blunt trauma patients across different types of trauma centers. PTCs exhibited lower pooled rates of abdominopelvic CT scans (35.4% vs. 44.9%, p < 0.01), cranial CT scans (36.9% vs. 42.9%, p < 0.01), chest CT scans (14.5% vs. 25.4%, p < 0.01), and cervical spine CT scans (23% vs. 45%, p < 0.01) compared to adult or mixed trauma centers (ATCs/MTCs). PTCs had a pooled rate of 54% for receiving at least one CT scan, while ATCs/MTCs had a higher rate of 69.3% (p < 0.05). The studies demonstrated considerable heterogeneity. These findings underscore the need to conduct further research to understand the reasons for the observed variations and to promote appropriate imaging usage, minimize radiation exposure, and encourage collaboration between pediatric and adult trauma centers.

Subendocardial And Transmural Myocardial Ischemia: Clinical Characteristics, Prevalence, And Outcomes With And Without Revascularization, K Lance Gould, Tung Nguyen, Richard Kirkeeide, Amanda E Roby, Linh Bui, Danai Kitkungvan, Monica B Patel, Mohammad Madjid, Mary Haynie, Dejian Lai, Ruosha Li, Jagat Narula, Nils P Johnson

Journal Articles

BACKGROUND: Subendocardial ischemia is commonly diagnosed but not quantified by imaging.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to define size and severity of subendocardial and transmural stress perfusion deficits, clinical associations, and outcomes.

METHODS: Regional rest-stress perfusion in mL/min/g, coronary flow reserve, coronary flow capacity (CFC), relative stress flow, subendocardial stress-to-rest ratio and stress subendocardial-to-subepicardial ratio as percentage of left ventricle were measured by positron emission tomography (PET) with rubidium Rb 82 and dipyridamole stress in serial 6,331 diagnostic PETs with prospective 10-year follow-up for major adverse cardiac events with and without revascularization.

RESULTS: Of 6,331 diagnostic PETs, 1,316 (20.7%) had severely …

A Multitask Deep Learning Approach For Pulmonary Embolism Detection And Identification, Xiaotian Ma, Emma C Ferguson, Xiaoqian Jiang, Sean I Savitz, Shayan Shams

Journal Articles

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a blood clot traveling to the lungs and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Therefore, rapid diagnoses and treatments are essential. Chest computed tomographic pulmonary angiogram (CTPA) is the gold standard for PE diagnoses. Deep learning can enhance the radiologists'workflow by identifying PE using CTPA, which helps to prioritize important cases and hasten the diagnoses for at-risk patients. In this study, we propose a two-phase multitask learning method that can recognize the presence of PE and its properties such as the position, whether acute or chronic, and the corresponding right-to-left ventricle diameter (RV/LV) ratio, thereby …

Machine Learning Automated Detection Of Large Vessel Occlusion From Mobile Stroke Unit Computed Tomography Angiography, Alexandra L Czap, Mersedeh Bahr-Hosseini, Noopur Singh, Jose-Miguel Yamal, May Nour, Stephanie Parker, Youngran Kim, Lucas Restrepo, Rania Abdelkhaleq, Sergio Salazar-Marioni, Kenny Phan, Ritvij Bowry, Suja S Rajan, James C Grotta, Jeffrey L Saver, Luca Giancardo, Sunil A Sheth

Journal Articles

BACKGROUND: Prehospital automated large vessel occlusion (LVO) detection in Mobile Stroke Units (MSUs) could accelerate identification and treatment of patients with LVO acute ischemic stroke. Here, we evaluate the performance of a machine learning (ML) model on CT angiograms (CTAs) obtained from 2 MSUs to detect LVO.

METHODS: Patients evaluated on MSUs in Houston and Los Angeles with out-of-hospital CTAs were identified. Anterior circulation LVO was defined as an occlusion of the intracranial internal carotid artery, middle cerebral artery (M1 or M2), or anterior cerebral artery vessels and determined by an expert human reader. A ML model to detect LVO …

Closing The Loop: Automatically Identifying Abnormal Imaging Results In Scanned Documents, Akshat Kumar, Heath Goodrum, Ashley Kim, Carly Stender, Kirk Roberts, Elmer V Bernstam

Journal Articles

OBJECTIVES: Scanned documents (SDs), while common in electronic health records and potentially rich in clinically relevant information, rarely fit well with clinician workflow. Here, we identify scanned imaging reports requiring follow-up with high recall and practically useful precision.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We focused on identifying imaging findings for 3 common causes of malpractice claims: (1) potentially malignant breast (mammography) and (2) lung (chest computed tomography [CT]) lesions and (3) long-bone fracture (X-ray) reports. We train our ClinicalBERT-based pipeline on existing typed/dictated reports classified manually or using ICD-10 codes, evaluate using a test set of manually classified SDs, and compare against …

Positron Emission Tomography In The Covid-19 Pandemic Era, Chentao Jin, Xiaoyun Luo, Shufang Qian, Kai Zhang, Yuanxue Gao, Rui Zhou, Peili Cen, Zhoujiao Xu, Hong Zhang, Mei Tian

Journal Articles

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a major public health problem worldwide since its outbreak in 2019. Currently, the spread of COVID-19 is far from over, and various complications have roused increasing awareness of the public, calling for novel techniques to aid at diagnosis and treatment. Based on the principle of molecular imaging, positron emission tomography (PET) is expected to offer pathophysiological alternations of COVID-19 in the molecular/cellular perspectives and facilitate the clinical management of patients. A number of PET-related cases and research have been reported on COVID-19 over the past one year. This article reviews the current studies of …

Everolimus-Induced Pneumonitis: A Diagnostic Challenge, Andrew Gulde, Elshad Hasanov, Kayla Krug, Gus W Krucke

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Neurogenic Megacolon In Spinal Cord Injury, Rukma R Govindu, Michelle Kelley

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability In Delayed Cerebral Infarction After Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, J. Ivanidze, K. Kesavabhotla, O. N. Kallas, D. Mir, H. Baradaran, A. Gupta, A. Z. Segal, J. Claassen, P. C. Sanelli

Journal Articles

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Patients with SAH are at increased risk of delayed infarction. Early detection and treatment of delayed infarction remain challenging. We assessed blood-brain barrier permeability, measured as permeability surface area product, by using CTP in patients with SAH with delayed infarction. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a retrospective study of patients with SAH with delayed infarction on follow-up NCCT. CTP was performed before the development of delayed infarction. CTP data were postprocessed into permeability surface area product, CBF, and MTT maps. Coregistration was performed to align the infarcted region on the follow-up NCCT with the corresponding location on …

Potholes And Molehills: Bias In The Diagnostic Performance Of Diffusion-Tensor Imaging In Concussion, R. Watts, A. Thomas, C. G. Filippi, J. P. Nickerson, K. Freeman

Journal Articles

PURPOSE: To investigate the extent of bias in a clinical study involving "pothole analysis" of diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) data used to quantify white matter lesion load in diseases with a heterogeneous spatial distribution of pathologic findings, such as mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), and create a mathematical model of the bias. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Use of the same reference population to define normal findings and make comparisons with a patient group introduces bias, which potentially inflates reported diagnostic performance. In this institutional review board-approved prospective observational cohort study, DTI data were obtained in 20 patients admitted to the emergency department …

Abnormal Metabolic Network Activity In Rem Sleep Behavior Disorder, F. Holtbernd, J. F. Gagnon, R. B. Postuma, Y. Ma, C. C. Tang, A. Feigin, V. Dhawan, J. P. Soucy, D. Eidelberg, J. Montplaisir, +1 Additional Author

Journal Articles

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the Parkinson disease-related covariance pattern (PDRP) expression is abnormally increased in idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) and whether increased baseline activity is associated with greater individual risk of subsequent phenoconversion. METHODS: For this cohort study, we recruited 2 groups of RBD and control subjects. Cohort 1 comprised 10 subjects with RBD (63.5 +/- 9.4 years old) and 10 healthy volunteers (62.7 +/- 8.6 years old) who underwent resting-state metabolic brain imaging with (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET. Cohort 2 comprised 17 subjects with RBD (68.9 +/- 4.8 years old) and 17 healthy volunteers (66.6 +/- 6.0 years old) …

Compromised Osseous Healing Of Dental Extraction Sites In Zoledronic Acid-Treated Dogs., M. R. Allen, D. J. Kubek, D. B. Burr, S. L. Ruggiero, T. M. G. Chu

Journal Articles

UNLABELLED: The goal of this study was to document how treatment with high doses of zoledronic acid affects dental extraction healing. Our results, showing significantly compromised osseous healing within the socket as well as presence of exposed bone and development of a sequestrum in one animal, provide a building block toward understanding osteonecrosis of the jaw.

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to document how treatment with a bisphosphonate affects the bone tissue following dental extraction.

METHODS: Skeletally mature female beagle dogs were either untreated controls (CON) or treated with intravenous zoledronic acid (ZOL). Following the extraction of the …

Is A 3-Mm Intrafractional Margin Sufficient For Daily Image-Guided Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy Of Prostate Cancer?, Adam D Melancon, Jennifer C O'Daniel, Lifei Zhang, Rajat J Kudchadker, Deborah A Kuban, Andrew K Lee, Rex M Cheung, Renaud De Crevoisier, Susan L Tucker, Wayne D Newhauser, Radhe Mohan, Lei Dong

Journal Articles

PURPOSE: To determine whether a 3-mm isotropic target margin adequately covers the prostate and seminal vesicles (SVs) during administration of an intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment fraction, assuming that daily image-guided setup is performed just before each fraction.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In-room computed tomographic (CT) scans were acquired immediately before and after a daily treatment fraction in 46 patients with prostate cancer. An eight-field IMRT plan was designed using the pre-fraction CT with a 3-mm margin and subsequently recalculated on the post-fraction CT. For convenience of comparison, dose plans were scaled to full course of treatment (75.6 Gy). Dose coverage …

Imaging Of Pulmonary Embolism And T-Pa Therapy Effects Using Mdct And Liposomal Iohexol Blood Pool Agent: Preliminary Results In A Rabbit Model., Stephen J Burke, Ananth Annapragada, Eric A Hoffman, Emmanuel Chen, Ketan B Ghaghada, Jered Sieren, Edwin J R Van Beek

Journal Articles

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Polyethylene glycol-coated liposomal blood pool contrast agents maintain contrast enhancement over several hours. This study aimed to evaluate (long-term) imaging of pulmonary arteries, comparing conventional iodinated contrast with a liposomal blood pool contrast agent. Also, visualization of the (real-time) therapeutic effects of tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) on pulmonary embolism (PE) was attempted. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Six rabbits (weight approximately 4 kg) had autologous blood clots injected through the superior vena cava. Imaging was performed using conventional contrast (iohexol, 350 mg I/ml; GE HealthCare, Princeton, NJ) at a dose of 1400 mg I per animal, and after wash-out, …