-
The International Journal of... May 2024It is incumbent upon our profession to reevaluate our preference for routinely replacing a missing single maxillary incisor, especially a maxillary lateral incisor, with...
It is incumbent upon our profession to reevaluate our preference for routinely replacing a missing single maxillary incisor, especially a maxillary lateral incisor, with a dental implant in a young adult. The dental literature is replete with beautiful restorative results using implants in this area, but there is minimal discussion regarding the long-term consequences of this treatment. The maxillary lateral incisor is one of the most commonly missing teeth due to agenesis, and it is also one of the most common teeth to be lost due to trauma in the developing child.1 Therefore, the decision for replacement must be made with the long-term in mind, as these restorations are commonly placed between ages 18 and 21 and must serve the patient for many decades. There are several reasons that implants can be associated with complications or even fail, including the following: (1) Continued craniofacial growth, which has a predominant anterior and vertical component and has been shown to occur in the maxilla, resulting in the apparent submersion of the implant crown as the natural teeth move incisally in relation to the implant2,3-there is no evidence that this can be predicted, let alone how far into the future it may happen; (2) peri-implantitis, which has a patient-level prevalence estimate of nearly 25% according to the findings of a recent systematic review;4 (3) thinning and recession of the peri-implant mucosa due to poor implant placement, inadequate prosthetic management, and/or poor case selection, often resulting in compromised esthetics and a predisposition for the onset and progression of peri-implant diseases; and (4) mechanical failure of the implant, abutment screw, transmucosal abutment, and/or crown. Clinicians should also keep in mind that, once an implant is placed in the anterior maxilla, it precludes the possibility for palatal expansion in the adult patient because the space created by the expansion cannot be redistributed orthodontically. Canine substitution is one traditional method for replacement of the missing maxillary lateral incisor. It is still a viable option when the canine tooth has an acceptable shape and color, and the occlusion will not be compromised by the substitution.5 Additionally, the bonded single-wing zirconia bridge has become a primary treatment option.6 Zirconia has the strength of metal and beauty of porcelain, which makes it an ideal substrate for a bonded bridge. The literature has demonstrated the long-term success of this replacement option for the missing maxillary incisor.7 There are clearly many potential long-term disadvantages associated with replacing a single missing maxillary incisor with an implant in young adults. We should be prescribing the least-invasive treatment option for the replacement of these teeth. Therefore, when treatment-planning for a missing maxillary incisor in a young adult, alternatives to implant therapy-such as the bonded single-wing zirconia bridge and canine substitution-should be the primary treatment options. The implant should only be considered as a secondary treatment when the other options are not viable or have previously failed.
Topics: Humans; Incisor; Maxilla; Dental Implants, Single-Tooth; Anodontia; Young Adult; Dental Prosthesis, Implant-Supported; Peri-Implantitis
PubMed: 38787712
DOI: 10.11607/prd.2024.3.e -
Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine 2024Bilateral ductus arteriosus (BDA) is a relatively rare vascular malformation. According to the double arch theory, BDA is formed when the distal ends of the sixth pairs...
BACKGROUND
Bilateral ductus arteriosus (BDA) is a relatively rare vascular malformation. According to the double arch theory, BDA is formed when the distal ends of the sixth pairs of primitive arches on the left and right sides have not regressed. We describe a fetus with prenatal echocardiographic findings of BDA and right aortic arch mirror-image branching (RAA-MIB) combined with congenital heart disease. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of the embryological mechanism of BDA, we review the literature on all combinations of BDA present in 40 fetuses/infants.
CASE SUMMARY
A 22-year-old female patient underwent fetal echocardiography at 23 weeks of gestation. Both the two-dimensional (2D) grayscale image and color Doppler flow imaging (CDFI) revealed dextro-transposition of the great arteries combined with a ventricular septal defect and RAA-MIB. The following scan revealed a rare vascular ring, which was identified as BDA extending from the confluent of the left pulmonary artery and right pulmonary artery, completely encircling the trachea to form an "O"-shaped vascular ring before finally converging into the descending aorta. A persistent left superior vena cava was also observed. We subsequently used four-dimensional (4D) color Doppler imaging with the spatiotemporal image correlation (STIC) HD live flow and STIC HD live flow silhouette mode to clearly display ventricular arterial connectivity and the direction of vessel travel. Adjusting the image quality and display angle is very important when applying STIC. The 4D images confirmed our diagnosis. After multidisciplinary counseling and discussion with her family, this female patient decided to terminate the pregnancy.
CONCLUSION
Our review of the literature summarized nine combinations classified into three types of BDA and aortic arch pathology. However, our case differs because it is a novel combination of intracardiac structural abnormalities and vascular rings in a fetus. Prenatal ultrasound diagnosis of BDA is important and requires a combination of 2D grayscale, CDFI, and STIC images to assist in scanning.
PubMed: 38784172
DOI: 10.3389/fcvm.2024.1389759 -
ISA Transactions Jul 2024Marine intelligent net tank aquaculture monitoring plays an important role in improving aquaculture efficiency, environmental monitoring efficiency, and environmental...
Marine intelligent net tank aquaculture monitoring plays an important role in improving aquaculture efficiency, environmental monitoring efficiency, and environmental safety. The underwater environment has complex light, often with problems such as scattering and absorption, resulting in poor image quality, making it difficult to accurately analyze and judge the aquaculture environment. Improving marine intelligent net tank aquaculture monitoring has the following three advantages: 1) better observation and monitoring of the aquaculture process, timely detection of problems and abnormalities, to protect the benefits of aquaculture and product quality. 2) more convenient and rapid monitoring of the aquaculture environment, improving monitoring efficiency and reducing monitoring costs. 3) effective monitoring of the underwater environment around the farm, and timely detection of foreign pollution, harmful substances, and other problems, to protect the safety of the aquaculture environment. Therefore, in order to solve the two degradation problems of scattering and absorption in the process of marine smart net farm monitoring, we propose a marine smart net farm monitoring method using multiple scattering models and multiple spatial transformations, called MINM. Specifically, inspired by the image chromatic aberration correction method, we design a color correction method in the multicolor space, which is implemented by using the Lab and RGB color space by performing contrast-constrained adaptive histogram equalization and gray world assumptions, respectively, to correct color shifts in different color models. Based on this, we propose a de-scattering method using a multi-scattering model, which eliminates the effect of scattering on underwater imaging by embedding a complete multi-scattering underwater imaging model to guide the extraction of different features in the multi-scattering model. To obtain more qualified results, we also propose an efficient perceptual fusion to mix the output of the de-scattering and color correction. Thus, our method can take advantage of multiple scattering models and multiple spatial transformations to effectively improve the visual quality of underwater images, producing enhanced results that fit the complete underwater imaging model and have bio-visual characteristics. In extensive experimental demonstrations, our MINM method has shown higher performance than the state-of-the-art methods in terms of both visual quality and quantitative metrics. All experimental results and datasets in this paper are available from the following website: https://github.com/An-Shunmin/MINM.
PubMed: 38782640
DOI: 10.1016/j.isatra.2024.05.008 -
Ecology and Evolution May 2024Amphibians can obtain their colour from a combination of several different pigment and light reflecting cell types called chromatophores, with defects in one or several...
Amphibians can obtain their colour from a combination of several different pigment and light reflecting cell types called chromatophores, with defects in one or several of the cells leading to colour abnormalities. There is a need for better recording of colour abnormalities within wild amphibian populations, as this may provide baseline data that can be used to determine changes in environmental conditions and population dynamics, such as inbreeding. In this study, we provide records of several types of chromatophore deficiencies, including those involving iridophores, xanthophores and melanophores, among two Australian tree frog species; the green and golden bell frog, , and the eastern dwarf tree frog, . We explore these colour abnormalities in terms of the chromatophores that have likely been affected and associated with their expression, in combination with typical colour phenotypes, colour variations and colour changes for these species. We intend for our photographs to be used as a visual guide that addresses the need for more accessible information regarding the physical manifestation of different chromatophore defects among amphibians.
PubMed: 38779532
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.11438 -
The Journal of Emergency Medicine Jun 2024A 49-year-old male with history of intravenous drug use presented to the Emergency Department with localized right arm swelling that has been slowly growing for months....
A 49-year-old male with history of intravenous drug use presented to the Emergency Department with localized right arm swelling that has been slowly growing for months. On physical exam, there was a golf ball sized mass in the right antecubital fossa without overlying skin changes and no neurovascular deficits in the distal extremity. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) was performed utilizing a water bath with visualization of bidirectional swirling in a round cavity adjacent to the brachial artery. Aneurysms are abnormal focal dilations that result from vascular wall defects. Ultrasound has been reported to have 94% sensitivity and 97% specificity for diagnosis of pseudoaneurysms. On color doppler ultrasound, pseudoaneurysm is characterized by the pathognomonic "yin-yang" sign. In the case of the 49-year-old male with a right antecubital mass and history of IVDU, the proposed mechanism of injury was trauma to the arterial wall secondary to auto-injection. POCUS has been found to improve identification of abscesses and its incorporation in patient evaluation can guide clinical management, prevent unwanted iatrogenic exsanguination, and determine whether there is a need for urgent vascular surgery intervention, particularly in high-risk patients.
Topics: Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Aneurysm, False; Point-of-Care Systems; Ultrasonography; Emergency Service, Hospital; Brachial Artery
PubMed: 38777708
DOI: 10.1016/j.jemermed.2024.01.011 -
BMC Psychiatry May 2024Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) show abnormalities in glucolipid metabolism and reproductive hormone levels, which are of concern in women with BD. This study was...
BACKGROUND
Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) show abnormalities in glucolipid metabolism and reproductive hormone levels, which are of concern in women with BD. This study was dedicated to investigating the glucolipid and reproductive hormone levels of female patients, and to preliminarily investigating their relationships with cognition.
METHODS
A total of 58 unmedicated female BD patients, 61 stable-medicated female BD patients, and 63 healthy controls (HC) were recruited in this study. Serum glycolipid indexes and reproductive hormones were measured. Cognitive function was assessed using the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) and the Stroop Color-Word Test (Stroop test).
RESULTS
Patients with BD showed significant cognitive impairment (p < 0.05), which was not affected by medication. Triglycerides (TG), luteinizing hormone (LH), and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c) were altered in stable-medicated BD patients. In addition, regression analysis showed that progesterone (PRGE) and prolactin (PRL) were negatively associated with cognitive performance in stable-medicated BD patients.
CONCLUSIONS
Female BD patients may have cognitive deficits and abnormal levels of glycolipids and reproductive hormones. And abnormal levels of glycolipids and reproductive hormones may be associated with cognitive dysfunction in female BD patients.
Topics: Humans; Female; Bipolar Disorder; Adult; Glycolipids; Cognitive Dysfunction; Luteinizing Hormone; Prolactin; Progesterone; Triglycerides; Cholesterol, HDL; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 38773397
DOI: 10.1186/s12888-024-05831-y -
Heliyon May 2024Diagnosing liver disease presents a significant medical challenge in impoverished countries, with over 30 billion individuals succumbing to it each year. Existing models...
Diagnosing liver disease presents a significant medical challenge in impoverished countries, with over 30 billion individuals succumbing to it each year. Existing models for detecting liver abnormalities suffer from lower accuracy and higher constraint metrics. As a result, there is a pressing need for improved, efficient, and effective liver disease detection methods. To address the limitations of current models, this method introduces a deep liver segmentation and classification system based on a Customized Mask-Region Convolutional Neural Network (cm-RCNN). The process begins with preprocessing the input liver image, which includes Adaptive Histogram Equalization (AHE). AHE helps dehaze the input image, remove color distortion, and apply linear transformations to obtain the preprocessed image. Next, a precise region of interest is segmented from the preprocessed image using a novel deep strategy called cm-RCNN. To enhance segmentation accuracy, the architecture incorporates the ReLU activation function and the modified sigmoid activation function. Subsequently, a variety of features are extracted from the segmented image, including ResNet features, shape features (area, perimeter, approximation, and convex hull), and enhanced median binary pattern. These extracted features are then used to train a hybrid classification model, which incorporates classifiers like SqueezeNet and DeepMaxout models. The final classification outcome is determined by averaging the scores obtained from both classifiers.
PubMed: 38765046
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e30528 -
Audiology & Neuro-otology May 2024Otosclerosis is a bone disorder affecting the labyrinthine capsule that leads to conductive and occasionally sensorineural hearing loss. The etiology of otosclerosis...
INTRODUCTION
Otosclerosis is a bone disorder affecting the labyrinthine capsule that leads to conductive and occasionally sensorineural hearing loss. The etiology of otosclerosis remains unknown; factors such as infection, hormones, inflammation, genetics, and autoimmunity have been discussed. Treatment consists primarily of surgical stapes replacement and cochlear implantation. High-resolution computed tomography is routinely used to visualize bone pathology. In the present study, we used synchrotron radiation phase-contrast imaging (SR-PCI) to examine otosclerosis plaques in a temporal bone for the first time. The primary aim was to study their three-dimensional (3D) outline, vascular interrelationships, and connections to the middle ear.
METHODS
A donated ear from a patient with otosclerosis who had undergone partial stapedectomy with the insertion of a stapes wire prosthesis was investigated using SR-PCI and compared with a control ear. Otosclerotic lesions were 3D rendered using the composite with shading technique. Scalar opacity and color mapping were adjusted to display volume properties with the removal of bones to enhance surfaces. Vascular bone channels were segmented, and the communications between lesions and the middle ear were established.
RESULTS
Fenestral, cochlear, meatal, and vestibular lesions were outlined three-dimensionally. Vascular bone channels were found to be frequently connected to the middle ear mucosa, perilabyrinthine air spaces, and facial nerve vessels. Round window lesions partly embedded the cochlear aqueduct which was pathologically narrowed, while the inferior cochlear vein was significantly dilated in its proximal part.
CONCLUSION
Otosclerotic/otospongiotic lesions were imaged for the first time using SR-PCI and 3D rendering. The presence of shunts and abnormal vascular connections to the labyrinth appeared to result in hyper-vascularization, overloading the venous system, and leading to sensorineural hearing loss. We speculate about possible local treatments to alleviate the impact of such critical lesions on the labyrinthine microcirculation.
PubMed: 38763131
DOI: 10.1159/000539422 -
Journal of Huntington's Disease May 2024Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder marked by cognitive impairment, movement abnormalities, and behavioral disturbances. The Stroop Color Word Test...
BACKGROUND
Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder marked by cognitive impairment, movement abnormalities, and behavioral disturbances. The Stroop Color Word Test (SCWT) is a widely used tool to detect cognitive decline in HD. Variations in SCWT formats-horizontal (original) and vertical (Golden)-may influence performance, given HD's impact on cognitive and oculomotor abilities.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of the horizontal and Golden vertical SCWT formats in detecting cognitive decline in HD, and to determine how performance may have been influenced by eye movement abnormalities.
METHODS
Forty-five participants with genetically confirmed HD were recruited. Both SCWT formats were administered to each participant in a counterbalanced fashion. Individual performance of all three sections on each format was standardized across 2 different norms. Raw and normed scores on each variation were compared and correlated with eye movement ratings on the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale.
RESULTS
The Golden variation elicited significantly slower responses, particularly in the Word Reading section, across two benchmark norms. Statistical analysis revealed significant performance differences between the two formats. Correlations between vertical eye movement ratings and performance on the Golden SCWT were highly significant, highlighting the impact of oculomotor coordination on cognitive assessments in HD.
CONCLUSION
This study underscores the importance of considering test format in cognitive assessments for HD. The Golden vertical SCWT demonstrates increased sensitivity in detecting deficits in HD, possibly linked to vertical saccade abnormalities. These insights are important for improving the sensitivity of cognitive assessments and monitoring disease progression in HD research and clinical practice.
PubMed: 38759020
DOI: 10.3233/JHD-231528 -
American Journal of Physiology. Heart... Jul 2024Mouse models of congenital aortic valve malformations are useful for studying disease pathobiology, but most models have incomplete penetrance [e.g., ∼2 to 77%...
Mouse models of congenital aortic valve malformations are useful for studying disease pathobiology, but most models have incomplete penetrance [e.g., ∼2 to 77% prevalence of bicuspid aortic valves (BAVs) across multiple models]. For longitudinal studies of pathologies associated with BAVs and other congenital valve malformations, which manifest over months in mice, it is operationally inefficient, economically burdensome, and ethically challenging to enroll large numbers of mice in studies without first identifying those with valvular abnormalities. To address this need, we established and validated a novel in vivo high-frequency (30 MHz) ultrasound imaging protocol capable of detecting aortic valvular malformations in juvenile mice. Fifty natriuretic peptide receptor 2 heterozygous mice on a low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient background ;; 32 males and 18 females) were imaged at 4 and 8 wk of age. Fourteen percent of the ; mice exhibited features associated with aortic valve malformations, including ) abnormal transaortic flow patterns on color Doppler (recirculation and regurgitation), ) peak systolic flow velocities distal to the aortic valves reaching or surpassing ∼1,250 mm/s by pulsed-wave Doppler, and ) putative fusion of cusps along commissures and abnormal movement elucidated by two-dimensional (2-D) imaging with ultrahigh temporal resolution. Valves with these features were confirmed by ex vivo gross anatomy and histological visualization to have thickened cusps, partial fusions, or Sievers type-0 bicuspid valves. This ultrasound imaging protocol will enable efficient, cost effective, and humane implementation of studies of congenital aortic valvular abnormalities and associated pathologies in a wide range of mouse models. We developed a high-frequency ultrasound imaging protocol for diagnosing congenital aortic valve structural abnormalities in 4-wk-old mice. Our protocol defines specific criteria to distinguish mice with abnormal aortic valves from those with normal tricuspid valves using color Doppler, pulsed-wave Doppler, and two-dimensional (2-D) imaging with ultrahigh temporal resolution. This approach enables early identification of valvular abnormalities for efficient and ethical experimental design of longitudinal studies of congenital valve diseases and associated pathologies in mice.
Topics: Animals; Aortic Valve; Female; Male; Receptors, Atrial Natriuretic Factor; Disease Models, Animal; Mice; Mice, Knockout; Receptors, LDL; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease
PubMed: 38758128
DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.00769.2023