Elevated Serum Amyloid A Is Associated With Cognitive Impairment in Ischemic Stroke Patients

Background and PurposeThe impact of serum amyloid A on cognitive impairment after ischemic stroke is unclear. We aimed to investigate the association between serum amyloid A (SAA) levels and post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI) at 3 months after ischemic stroke.MethodsOne hundred and ninety-eight patients were enrolled prospectively from June 2020 to April 2021. The SAA concentrations were measured using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit after admission. Cognitive function was assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment score at 3 months after the symptom onset. We defined a Montreal Cognitive Assessment score <25 as cognitive impairment.ResultsDuring 3-month follow-up, 80 patients (40.4%) were diagnosed as having PSCI. As compared with patients with cognitively normal ischemic stroke, those with PSCI were older, more likely to have diabetes and white matter lesions, and had a higher baseline National Institutes of Health stroke score and SAA levels. After adjustment for age, the National Institutes of Health stroke score and other covariates, the OR for the highest quartile of SAA compared with the lowest quartile was 5.72 (95% CI, 2.17–15.04, P = 0.001) for PSCI. Also, ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that higher SAA concentrations were associated with increased risk of PSCI severity (OR, 4.31; 95% CI, 1.81–10.33, P = 0.001). Similar results were found when the SAA levels were analyzed as a continuous variable.ConclusionsThis present study demonstrated that increased SAA levels might be associated with PSCI at 3 months after ischemic stroke.

Preoperative Fall Risk Assessment Score as a Prognostic Factor in Esophageal Cancer Patients after Esophagectomy

The current study investigated the impact of preoperative fall risk assessment score (FRAS) on long-term prognoses in patients with esophageal cancer (EC). A total of 161 patients with EC who underwent curative surgery were classified into a high-risk (95, 41.0%) and low-risk (66, 41.0%) groups according to their FRAS. This study investigated the relationships between the FRAS and clinicopathological findings and prognoses. Accordingly, patients in the high-risk group were significantly older and had a significantly higher Charlson comorbidity index than those in the low-risk group. No significant difference was found in pathological findings between both groups. The high-risk group had significantly lower overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) rates than the low-risk group (p = 0.004 and 0.001, respectively). Multivariate analysis identified high FRAS as an independent prognostic factor for poor OS, with a hazard ratio of 1.75 (p = 0.033). Moreover, re-analysis of the data after excluding age as a category showed that the high-risk group had significantly worse OS (p = 0.004) and RFS (p = 0.003) than the low-risk group. The FRAS can, therefore, be considered a useful method for assessing frailty and a potential prognostic factor for EC.

Quantifying the Food and Physical Activity Environments in Rural, High Obesity Communities

The built environment contributes to an individual’s health, and rural geographies face unique challenges for healthy eating and active living. The purpose of this descriptive study was to assess the nutrition and physical activity environments in rural communities with high obesity prevalence. One community within each of six high obesity prevalence counties in a rural Midwest state completed the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Stores (NEMS-S) and the Rural Active Living Assessment (RALA). Data were collected by trained community members and study staff. All communities had at least one grocery store and five had at least one convenience store. Grocery stores had higher mean total NEMS-S scores than convenience stores (26.6 vs. 6.0, p < 0.001), and higher scores for availability (18.7 vs. 5.3, p < 0.001) and quality (5.4 vs. 0, p < 0.001) of healthful foods (higher scores are preferable). The mean RALA town-wide assessment score across communities was 56.5 + 15.6 out of a possible 100 points. The mean RALA program and policy assessment score was 40.8 + 20.4 out of a possible 100 points. While grocery stores and schools are important for enhancing food and physical environments in rural areas, many opportunities exist for improvements to impact behaviors and address obesity.

A-GAS: a Probabilistic Approach for Generating Automated Gait Assessment Score for Cerebral Palsy Children

<pre><p>Gait disorders in children with cerebral palsy (CP) affect their mental, physical, economic, and social lives. Gait assessment is one of the essential steps of gait management. It has been widely used for clinical decision making and evaluation of different treatment outcomes. However, most of the present methods of gait assessment are subjective, less sensitive to small pathological changes, time-taking and need a great effort of an expert. This work proposes an automated, comprehensive gait assessment score (A-GAS) for gait disorders in CP. Kinematic data of 356 CP and 41 typically developing subjects is used to validate the performance of A-GAS. For the computation of A-GAS, instance abnormality index (AII) and abnormality index (AI) are calculated. AII quantifies gait abnormality of a gait cycle instance, while AI quantifies gait abnormality of a joint angle profile during walking. AII is calculated for all gait cycle instances by performing probabilistic and statistical analyses. Abnormality index (AI) is a weighted sum of AII, computed for each joint angle profile. A-GAS is a weighted sum of AI, calculated for a lower limb. Moreover, a graphical representation of the gait assessment report, including AII, AI, and A-GAS is generated for providing a better depiction of the assessment score. Furthermore, the work compares A-GAS with a present rating-based gait assessment scores to understand fundamental differences. Finally, A-GAS's performance is verified for a high-cost multi-camera set-up using nine joint angle profiles and a low-cost single camera set-up using three joint angle profiles. Results show no significant differences in performance of A-GAS for both the set-ups. Therefore, A-GAS for both the set-ups can be used interchangeably. </p> </pre>

Optimal authoritative risk assessment score of Cancer-associated venous thromboembolism for hospitalized medical patients with lung Cancer

Background Cancer-associated venous thromboembolism (VTE) is common in patients with primary lung cancer. It has been understudied which authoritative risk assessment score of cancer-associated VTE is optimal for the assessment of VTE development in hospitalized medical patients with lung cancer. Methods Patients with lung cancer who had undergone computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA), compression ultrasonography (CUS) of lower and upper extremities, and/or planar ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) scan to confirm the presence or absence of VTE during a medical hospitalization were retrospectively reviewed. Based on the actual prevalence of VTE among all patients, the possibility of VTE were reassessed with the Khorana score, the PROTECHT score, the CONKO score, the ONKOTEV score, the COMPASS-CAT score, and the CATS/MICA score, to compare their assessment accuracy for VTE development. Results A total of 1263 patients with lung cancer were incorporated into the final analysis. With respect to assessment efficiency for VTE occurrence, the scores with adjusted agreement from highest to lowest were the ONKOTEV score (78.6%), the PROTECHT score (73.4%), the CONKO score (72.1%), the COMPASS-CAT score (71.7%), the Khorana score (70.9%), and the CATS/MICA score (60.3%). The ONKOTEV score had the highest Youden index which was 0.68, followed by the PROTECHT score (0.58), the COMPASS-CAT score (0.56), the CONKO score (0.55), the Khorana score (0.53), and the CATS/MICA score (0.23). Conclusions Among the Khorana score, the PROTECHT score, the CONKO score, the ONKOTEV score, the COMPASS-CAT score, and the CATS/MICA score which are approved by authoritative guidelines, the ONKOTEV score is optimal for the assessment of VTE development in hospitalized medical patients with lung cancer.

Difficult Airway Prediction Score for Intubation in Emergency Departments: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Objective: Difficult intubation is associated with an increasing number of endotracheal intubation attempts. Repeated endotracheal intubation attempts are in turn associated with an increased risk of adverse events. Clinical prediction tools to predict difficult airway have limited application in emergency airway situations. This study was performed to develop a new model for predicting difficult intubation in the emergency department.Methods: This retrospective study was conducted using an exploratory model at the Emergency Medicine of Ramathibodi Hospital, a university-affiliated super-tertiary care hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. The study was conducted from June 2018 to July 2020. The inclusion criteria were an age of ≥15 years and treatment by emergency intubation in the emergency department. Difficult intubation was defined as a Cormack–Lehane grade III or IV laryngoscopic view. The predictive model and prediction score for detecting difficult intubation were developed by multivariable regression analysis.Results: During the study period, 617 patients met the inclusion criteria; of these, 83 (13.45%) had difficult intubation. Five independent factors were predictive of difficult intubation. The difficult airway assessment score that we developed to predict difficult airway intubation had an accuracy of 89%. A score of >4 increased the likelihood ratio of difficult intubation by 7.62 times.Conclusion: A difficult airway assessment score of >4 was associated with difficult intubation.

Interictal Activity Is Associated With Slower Binocular Rivalry in Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsy

Objective: Perceptual alternations evoked by binocular rivalry (BR) reflect cortical dynamics strongly dependent on the excitatory–inhibitory balance, suggesting potential utility as a biomarker for epileptogenesis. Therefore, we investigated the characteristics of BR in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) and potential associations with clinical variables.Methods: Sixty-two healthy controls (HCs) and 94 IGE patients completed BR task. Perceptual alternation rates were compared between HC and IGE groups as well as among the HC group and IGE patients stratified according to the presence or absence of interictal activity on the ambulatory electroencephalogram (EEG), termed the abnormal ambulatory EEG group (AB-AEEG, n = 64) and normal ambulatory EEG group (N-AEEG, n = 30), respectively.Results: The IGE patients demonstrated a slower rate of BR perceptual alternation than HC subjects (t = −4.364, p &lt; 0.001). The alternation rate also differed among the HC, AB-AEEG, and N-AEEG groups (F = 44.962, df = 2, p &lt; 0.001), and post hoc comparisons indicated a significantly slower alternation rate in the AB-AEEG group compared with the N-AEEG and HC groups (0.28 vs. 0.46, and 0.43 Hz). Stepwise linear regression revealed positive correlations between the BR alternation rate and both the ambulatory EEG status (β, 0.173; standard error, 0.022 p &lt; 0.001) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment score (β, 0.013; standard error, 0.004; p = 0.003). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of the BR alternation rate distinguished AB-AEEG from N-AEEG subjects with 90.00% sensitivity and 76.90% specificity (area under the curve = 0.881; 95% confidence interval = 0.801– 0.961, cut-off = 0.319). Alternatively, Montreal Cognitive Assessment score did not accurately distinguish AB-AEEG from N-AEEG subjects and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve combining the BR alternation rate and Montreal Cognitive Assessment score was not markedly larger than that of the BR alternation rate alone (0.894, 95% confidence interval = 0.822–0.966, p &lt; 0.001). K-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate the predictive performance of BR alternation rate, MoCA score, and the combination of both, which yielded average AUC values of 0.870, 0.584 and 0.847, average sensitivity values of 89.36, 92.73, and 91.28%, and average specificity values of 62.25, 13.42, and 61.78%, respectively. The number of interictal epileptiform discharges was significantly correlated with the alternation rate in IGE patients (r = 0.296, p = 0.018). A forward stepwise linear regression model identified the number of interictal epileptiform discharges (β, 0.001; standard error, 0.001; p = 0.025) as an independent factor associated with BR alternation rate in these patients.Conclusion: These results suggest that interictal epileptiform discharges are associated with disruptions in perceptual awareness, and that the BR may be a useful auxiliary behavioral task to diagnosis and dynamically monitor IGE patients with interictal discharge.