Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
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Osteoporosis is a common health problem in India, which leads to significant morbidity and mortality in elderly individuals. Lack of knowledge and awareness among medical professionals is one of the important barriers in management of these patients. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess knowledge pertaining to diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis among a group of Indian medical practitioners. ⋯ This study showed suboptimal knowledge among a group of medical professionals regarding various aspects of diagnosis and management of osteoporosis, and it stipulates the need for escalating the efforts to improve their knowledge regarding various aspects of osteoporosis.
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We previously demonstrated that annual review %FEV1 underestimates lung health of adults with CF compared with %FEV1 captured during periods of clinical stability. This has implications in the comparisons against registries with encounter-based FEV1 , such as the United States. It is uncertain whether this bias affects between-centre comparison within the United Kingdom. Previous funnel plot analyses have identified variation in annual review %FEV1 according to centre size; hence, we investigated whether paired differences between annual review and best %FEV1 also vary according to centre size. ⋯ Annual review %FEV1 underestimated lung health of adults from small and large centres in the United Kingdom to a greater extent compared with medium-sized centres. A plot of %FEV1 against centre size (eg, funnel plot comparison) would be affected by systematic bias in annual review %FEV1 . Therefore, annual review %FEV1 is an unreliable metric to compare health outcomes of adult CF centres within the United Kingdom.
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Observational Study
Negative effect of fatty liver on visualization of pancreatic cystic lesions at screening transabdominal ultrasonography.
The aim of this observational study is to identify factors by which some pancreatic cystic lesions (PCLs) were undetectable at transabdominal ultrasonography (TAUS), using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as reference standard. ⋯ It should be noted that coexisting fatty liver may lower the detection of PCL, and its size may be underestimated by TAUS.
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Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a fatal complication and the most common preventable cause of death in hospitals. The risk-to-benefit ratio of thromboprophylaxis depends on the performance of the risk assessment model. A linear model, the Padua model, is recommended for medical inpatients in the United States but is not suitable for Chinese inpatients due to differences in race and disease spectrum. Currently, machine learning (ML) methods show advantages in modeling complex data patterns and have been applied to clinical data analysis. This study aimed to build VTE risk assessment ML models among Chinese inpatients and compare the predictive validity of the ML models with that of the Padua model. ⋯ Advances in ML technology provide powerful tools for medical data analysis, and choosing models conforming to the disease pattern would achieve good performance. Popular ML models do not surpass the Padua model on all indicators of validity, and the drawback of low sensitivity should be improved upon in the future.