Diagnostic significance of reassessment of prostate biopsy specimens by experienced urological pathologists at a high-volume institution

In prostate cancer, accurate diagnosis and grade group (GG) decision based on biopsy findings are essential for determining treatment strategies. Diagnosis by experienced urological pathologists is recommended; however, their contribution to patient benefits remains unknown. Therefore, we analyzed clinicopathological information to determine the significance of reassessment by experienced urological pathologists at a high-volume institution to identify factors involved in the agreement or disagreement of biopsy and surgical GGs. In total, 1325 prostate adenocarcinomas were analyzed, and the GG was changed in 452/1325 (34.1%) cases (359 cases were upgraded, and 93 cases were downgraded). We compared the highest GG based on biopsy specimens, with the final GG based on surgical specimens of 210 cases. The agreement rate between the surgical GG performed and assessed in our institute and the highest biopsy GG assessed by an outside pathologist was 34.8% (73/210); the agreement rate increased significantly to 50% (105/210) when biopsy specimens were reevaluated in our institute (chi-square test, P < 0.01). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that only the length of the lesion in the positive core with the highest GG in the biopsy was a significant factor for determining the agreement between biopsy GG and surgical GG, with an odds ratio of 1.136 (95% confidence interval: 1.057–1.221; P < 0.01). Thus, reassessment by experienced urological pathologists at high-volume institutions improved the agreement rate. However, it should be noted there is a high probability of discordance between a small number of lesions or short lesions and surgical GG.

Application of mNGS in the Etiological Diagnosis of Thoracic and Abdominal Infection in Patients With End-Stage Liver Disease

BackgroundDespite the obvious advantages of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in etiological diagnosis of various infectious diseases, there are few reports on etiological diagnosis of suspected thoracic and abdominal infections in patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD).MethodsSeventy-three ESLD patients were enrolled from January 2019 to May 2021 due to suspected complicated thoracic and abdominal infections with poor response to empirical anti-infective treatment. Pleural effusion and ascites samples of these patients were collected for mNGS detection and conventional pathogen culture. The application value of mNGS in etiological diagnosis of thoracic and abdominal infections in ESLD patients was finally evaluated.ResultsA total of 96 pathogens were detected using mNGS method, including 47 bacteria, 32 viruses, 14 fungi, 2 Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and 1 parasite. The positive rate of mNGS reached 42.5%, which was significantly higher than that of conventional culture method (21.9%) (p = 0.008). Considering neutrophil counts, the overall positive rate of bacteria detection of both methods in Polymorphonuclear Neutrophils (PMN) ≥250/mm3 group was 64.3% and in PMN &lt;250/mm3 group was 23.7%. Compared with the final clinical diagnosis, the agreement rate of mNGS in patients with positive bacteria detection and with suspected positive bacteria detection was 78.6% (11/14) and 44.4% (8/18), respectively. In addition, the agreement rate of mNGS was 66.7% (4/6, respectively) in patients with positive and suspected fungal detection. Interestingly, of the 11 patients with fungal detection, 5 had alcoholic liver disease, accounting for 45.5% of all patients with alcoholic liver disease. We also detected 32 strains of viruses using mNGS, mainly cytomegalovirus (62.5%).ConclusionsThe mNGS method is a useful supplement to conventional culture methods, which performs a higher positive rate, higher sensitivity, and broader pathogen spectrum, especially for rare pathogens and those difficult to culture. For ESLD patients, mNGS has great prospects in early etiological diagnosis of thoracic and abdominal infections. In addition, the cutoff values for the diagnosis of bacterial infection (PMN ≥250/mm3) in the thoracic and abdominal cavities may need to be redefined.

Attitudes towards Mandatory Occupational Vaccination and Intention to Get COVID-19 Vaccine during the First Pandemic Wave among Mongolian Healthcare Workers: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Mandatory occupational vaccination for health care workers (HCWs) is a debatable issue, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to determine Mongolian HCWs’ attitudes towards mandatory occupational vaccination, the intention to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and the associated factors. A cross-sectional study based on an online survey with a convenience sampling strategy was conducted from February to April 2021 among 238 Mongolia HCWs. Chi-square and logistic regression were performed for analysis. While only 39.9% of HCWs were aware of recommended occupational vaccinations, they highly agreed with the mandatory occupational vaccination on HCWs (93.7%). The agreement rate is significantly higher than their attitude toward general vaccination (93.7% vs. 77.8%). HCW’s willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine was high (67.2%). HCWs aged 26–35 years old who worked in tertiary level hospitals had less willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine (50%). Participants with lower confidence in the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine (ORs = 15.659) and less positive attitudes toward general vaccination (ORs = 5.288) were less likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Mongolian HCWs’ agreement rate of mandatory occupational vaccination is higher than other countries. Their intention to get the COVID-19 vaccine is high and associated with confidence in the effectiveness of the vaccine.

The Impact of Differences in Surveillance Definitions of Hospital Acquired Urinary Tract Infections (HAUTI)

Hospital-acquired urinary tract infections (HAUTI) are common and most cases are related to catheters (CAUTI). HAUTI and CAUTI surveillance is mandatory in many countries as a measure to reduce the incidence of infections and appropriately direct the allocation of preventable resources. The surveillance criteria issued by the Israeli Ministry of Health (IMOH), differ somewhat from that of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Our study aims were to query and quantify the impact of these differences. In a retrospective cohort study conducted at Shamir Medical Center, for calendar year 2017, the surveillance criteria of both IMOH and CDC were applied on 644 patient-unique adults with “positive” urine cultures (per similar definitions). The incidence of HAUTI per IMOH was significantly higher compared to CDC (1.24/1000 vs. 1.02/1000 patient-days, p = 0.02), with no impact on hospitalization’s outcomes. The agreement rate between methods was high for CAUTI (92%), but much lower for all HAUTI (83%). The major error rate, i.e., patients diagnosed with HAUTI per IMOH but had no UTI per CDC, was 31%. To conclude, in order for surveillance to reflect the relative situation and direct allocation of preventable resources based on scientific literature, the process should be uniform worldwide.

Ethno-Veterinary Survey and Quantitative Study of Medicinal Plants with Anthelmintic Potential Used by Sheep and Goat Breeders in the Cotton Zone of Central Benin (West Africa)

This study presents the diversity of anthelmintic plants in the cotton zone of Central Benin. The aim was to identify the medicinal anthelmintic plants used by small ruminant breeders in cotton zone of Central Benin to treat gastrointestinal parasites. Three hundred and sixty breeders were selected during individual semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Different quantitative indices of cultural importance were calculated in order to determine the level of use of plant species. Jaccard similarity index (JI) was calculated and Pearson’s correlation was determined for Use Value (UV) and Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC). In this study, a total of 99 medicinal species, of which 63 have anthelmintic potential, were listed, including Khaya senegalensis, Launaea taraxacifolia, Napoleonaea vogelii, Momordica charantia and Vernonia amygdalina, which all had UV and RFC above 20%. Each of them had a Fidelity Level above 50% and an Informant Agreement Rate (IAR) value close to one. Pearson’s correlation showed a significant correlation between RFC and UV with r = 0.94, and the studies were clearly independent (IJ < 50%). This study showed that the cotton zone of Central Benin represents 4% of the total flora of Benin, with many anthelmintic plants such as Launaea taraxacifolia and Napoleonaea vogelii that require further investigation.

An Investigation in to the Effectiveness of Participatory Budgeting in Achieving Community Development Goals in Port Loko District Council)

The Sierra Leone local council is charged with the responsibilities to govern and look over the welfare of its citizens in its localities but has been faced with a lot of challenges ranging from limited finance, insufficient staff capacity, insufficient material resources, mobility, and little compliance from bigger MDAs in terms of control. Hence has raised effectiveness issues in council operations. With the implementation of participatory budgeting in Port, Loko District Council calls for a study with the objective to investigate the effectiveness and linearity of participatory budgeting in the achievement of community development goals in the Port Loko District Council. Purposive sampling was done and administered a survey questionnaire to 420 respondents in the Port Loko District. Simple linear regression and correlational tests were used to interpret and analyze the primary data using SPSS 16.0 software package. The data analyses found out that there was a mean agreement rate of 1.95, which indicated that the respondents agreed that participatory budgeting was effective. The hypothesis test, if the effectiveness of participatory budgeting in Port Loko District Council has an impact on the achievement of community development goals, the major finding in this research is that effectiveness of participatory budgeting significantly affects the achievement of community development goals in the council district and concludes that participatory budgeting implemented in the Port Loko District Council in relation to the achievement of community development goals is effective, has a positive relationship and a strong correlation between them.

Wide Application of Minimally Processed Saliva on Multiple RT-qPCR Kits for SARS-CoV-2 Detection in Indonesia

Saliva as a sample matrix has been an attractive alternative for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. However, due to potential variability in collection and processing steps, evaluating a proposed workflow amongst the local population is recommended. Here, we aim to validate the collection and treatment of human saliva as a direct specimen for RT-qPCR-based detection of SARS-CoV-2 in Indonesia. We demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 target genes were detected in saliva specimens and remained stable for five days either refrigerated or stored at room temperature. The method of processing saliva specimens described in this report bypasses the need for an RNA-extraction process, thereby reducing the cost, time, and manpower required for processing samples. The developed method was tested across nine commercial kits, including the benchmark, to demonstrate its wide applicability on multiple existing workflows. Our developed method achieved an 86% overall agreement rate compared to paired nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swab specimens (NPOP). With the assistance of a saliva sampling device, the collection was found to be more convenient for individuals and improved the overall agreement rate to 97%.

The impact of colour visual attention for video summarization.

A High Definition visual attention based video summarization algorithm is proposed to extract feature frames and create a video summary. Specifically, the proposed framework is used as the basis for establishing whether or not there is a measurable impact on summaries constructed when choosing to incorporate visual attention mechanisms into the processing pipeline. The algorithm was assessed against manual human generated key-frame summaries presented with tested datasets from the Open Video Dataset (www.open-video.org). Of the frames selected by the algorithm, up to 68.1% were in agreement with the manual frame summaries depending on the category and length of the video. Specifically, a clear impact of agreement rate with the ground truth is demonstrated when including colour-attention models (in general) into the summarization framework, with the proposed colour-attention model achieving stronger agreement with human selected summaries, than other models from the literature.

The impact of colour visual attention for video summarization.

A High Definition visual attention based video summarization algorithm is proposed to extract feature frames and create a video summary. Specifically, the proposed framework is used as the basis for establishing whether or not there is a measurable impact on summaries constructed when choosing to incorporate visual attention mechanisms into the processing pipeline. The algorithm was assessed against manual human generated key-frame summaries presented with tested datasets from the Open Video Dataset (www.open-video.org). Of the frames selected by the algorithm, up to 68.1% were in agreement with the manual frame summaries depending on the category and length of the video. Specifically, a clear impact of agreement rate with the ground truth is demonstrated when including colour-attention models (in general) into the summarization framework, with the proposed colour-attention model achieving stronger agreement with human selected summaries, than other models from the literature.