Background - Noninvasive assessment of elevated filling pressure in the left ventricle (LV) remains an unresolved problem. Of the many echocardiographic parameters used to evaluate diastolic pressure, the left atrial strain and strain rate (LA S/SR) have shown promise in clinical settings. However, only a few previous studies have evaluated LA S/SR in larger populations. <p> <p>Methods - A total ...

Aims - Patients who have undergone some forms of bariatric surgery have increased risk of developing alcohol use disorder (AUD). In the present observational study, we compared patients with AUD who themselves reported to having undergone bariatric surgery with other patients in treatment for AUD.<p> <p>Materials - One-hundred-and-six consecutively enrolled patients in residential treatment for ...

Background Osteoporosis is increasingly being recognized in children, mostly secondary to systemic underlying conditions or medication. However, no imaging modality currently provides a full evaluation of bone health in children. We compared DXA, a radiographic bone health index (BHI (BoneXpert) and cone-beam CT for the assessment of low bone mass in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis ...

Background - Fetal and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAIT) is a rare bleeding disorder of the fetus/newborn caused by development of maternal alloantibodies against fetal human platelet antigens (HPAs), predominantly HPA-1a. Currently there are no treatments available to prevent maternal alloimmunization to HPAs or FNAIT.<p> <p>Methods - This proof-of-concept study (EudraCT Number: ...

Objective To assess whether decompression alone is non-inferior to decompression with instrumented fusion five years after primary surgery in patients with degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis.<p> <p>Design Five year follow-up of a randomised, multicentre, non-inferiority trial (Nordsten-DS). <p>Setting 16 public orthopaedic and neurosurgical clinics in Norway. <p>Participants Patients ...

Background - Frailty is strongly correlated with mortality in intensive care unit patients, yet routine screening among intensive care patients is rarely performed.<p> <p>The aim of this study is to assess frailty and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients before intensive care admission and to compare this with outcomes after 3 and 12-months. The Clinical Frailty Scale and EQ-5D-5L ...

Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods have shown promise for the assessment of formal thought disorder, a hallmark feature of schizophrenia in which disturbances to the structure, organization, or coherence of thought can manifest as disordered or incoherent speech. We investigated the suitability of modern Large Language Models (LLMs - e.g., GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and Llama 3) to predict expert-generated ...

Purpose: The SWENOTECA-MIR prospective multicenter study aims to assess the clinical value of miR-371a-3p as a novel marker in metastatic germ cell tumor patients undergoing retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND), to predict the presence of viable residual tumor.<p> <p>Materials and Methods: A total of 114 patients (86 nonseminomas, 28 seminomas) who underwent surgery for presumed metastatic ...

Background - Early-life antibiotic exposure is disproportionately high compared to the burden of culture-proven early-onset sepsis (CP-EOS). We assessed the contribution of culture-negative cases to the overall antibiotic exposure in the first postnatal week.<p> <p>Methods - We conducted a retrospective analysis across eleven countries in Europe, North America, and Australia. All late-preterm and ...

The goal of this paper is to provide a useful desktop reference for the imaging of suspected child abuse with clear, age-specific pathways for appropriate evidence-based imaging and follow-up.<p> <p>We aim to provide a road map for the imaging evaluation and follow-up of this important and vulnerable cohort of patients presenting with signs and symptoms concerning for inflicted injury. As the ...