Plos One
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Radiolabeled Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) PET/CT is the current standard-of-care for lesion detection in patients with biochemically recurrent (BCR) prostate cancer (PCa). However, rigorous verification of detected lesions is not always performed in routine clinical practice. To aid future 18F-radiolabeled PSMA PET/CT interpretation, we aimed to identify clinical/imaging characteristics that increase the likelihood that a PSMA-avid lesion is malignant. ⋯ In this study, the clinical verification of 18F-DCFPyL PET-positive lesions in patients with BCR was performed. Diagnostic certainty of PET-detected lesions increases in the presence of characteristic abnormalities on CT, when SUVpeak is ≥3.5, when PSA-levels exceed 2.0 ng/mL or in patients with more than two PET-positive lesions.
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We aimed to build a machine learning predictive model to predict the risk of prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) for patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). ⋯ This study not only provides evidence that machine learning methods outperform the traditional multivariate analytical methods, but also provides a perspective to reach a consensual definition of PMV.
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COVID-19 is an ongoing pandemic, for which appropriate infection prevention and control measures need to be adopted. Healthcare workers' adherence to prevention and control measures is affected by their knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) towards COVID-19. In this study, we assessed the KAP among healthcare workers towards the COVID-19 during the ongoing pandemic. ⋯ There is comparably better knowledge regarding COVID-19 among healthcare workers. Appropriate practice correlates with better knowledge and positive attitude towards COVID-19 infection is seen with increasing age. Hence, training on protection and protective measures for having a positive attitude among healthcare workers is necessary against the fight with COVID-19 infection.
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After claiming nearly five hundred thousand lives globally, the COVID-19 pandemic is showing no signs of slowing down. While the UK, USA, Brazil and parts of Asia are bracing themselves for the second wave-or the extension of the first wave-it is imperative to identify the primary social, economic, environmental, demographic, ethnic, cultural and health factors contributing towards COVID-19 infection and mortality numbers to facilitate mitigation and control measures. ⋯ States forming the early hotspots are regions with high airport or road traffic resulting in human interaction. US states with high population density and testing tend to exhibit consistently high infected and death numbers. Mortality rate seems to be driven by individual physiology, preexisting condition, age etc., rather than gender, healthcare facility or ethnic predisposition. Finally, policymaking on the timing of lockdowns should primarily consider the pre-lockdown infected numbers along with population density and airport traffic.
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Postoperative sore throat is one of the most common complications following endotracheal intubation. Nebulization therapy, a preferable and safety method of drug delivery, has been shown to be effective in postoperative sore throat prevention in many studies. However, the relative efficacy of various nebulized agents remains unknown. ⋯ Based on the surface under the cumulative ranking curve, nebulized corticosteroids ranked first in almost all outcomes among the nebulized drugs. Considering only high-quality and 2-arm design studies, nebulized corticosteroids still seemed best. In conclusion, prophylactic use of nebulized corticosteroids, magnesium, and ketamine can effectively prevent postoperative sore throat, and nebulized corticosteroids appears to be the overall best approach.