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American Journal of Cardiovascular... Jan 2024Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive, cureless disease, characterized by increased pulmonary vascular resistance and remodeling, with subsequent... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
BACKGROUND
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive, cureless disease, characterized by increased pulmonary vascular resistance and remodeling, with subsequent ventricular dilatation and failure. New therapeutic targets are being investigated for their potential roles in improving PAH patients' symptoms and reversing pulmonary vascular pathology.
METHOD
We aimed to address the available knowledge from the published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) regarding the role of Rho-kinase (ROCK) inhibitors, bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) inhibitors, estrogen inhibitors, and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activators on the PAH evaluation parameters. This systematic review (SR) was registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) database (CDR42022340658) and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.
RESULTS
Overall, 5092 records were screened from different database and registries; 8 RCTs that met our inclusion criteria were included. The marked difference in the study designs and the variability of the selected outcome measurement tools among the studies made performing a meta-analysis impossible. However, the main findings of this SR relate to the powerful potential of the AMPK activator and the imminent antidiabetic drug metformin, and the BMP2 inhibitor sotatercept as promising PAH-modifying therapies. There is a need for long-term studies to evaluate the effect of the ROCK inhibitor fasudil and the estrogen aromatase inhibitor anastrozole in PAH patients. The role of tacrolimus in PAH is questionable. The discrepancy in the hemodynamic and clinical parameters necessitates defining cut values to predict improvement. The differences in the PAH etiologies render the judgment of the therapeutic potential of the tested drugs challenging.
CONCLUSION
Metformin and sotatercept appear as promising therapeutic drugs for PAH.
CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION
This work was registered in PROSPERO (CDR42022340658).
Topics: Humans; Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension; Hypertension, Pulmonary; AMP-Activated Protein Kinases; Familial Primary Pulmonary Hypertension; Estrogens; Metformin
PubMed: 37945977
DOI: 10.1007/s40256-023-00613-5 -
PloS One 2023Amputation is an irreversible, last-line treatment indicated for a multitude of medical problems. Delaying amputation in favor of limb-sparing treatment may lead to...
Amputation is an irreversible, last-line treatment indicated for a multitude of medical problems. Delaying amputation in favor of limb-sparing treatment may lead to increased risk of morbidity and mortality. This systematic review aims to synthesize the literature on how ML is being applied to predict amputation as an outcome. OVID Embase, OVID Medline, ACM Digital Library, Scopus, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore were searched from inception to March 5, 2023. 1376 studies were screened; 15 articles were included. In the diabetic population, models ranged from sub-optimal to excellent performance (AUC: 0.6-0.94). In trauma patients, models had strong to excellent performance (AUC: 0.88-0.95). In patients who received amputation secondary to other etiologies (e.g.: burns and peripheral vascular disease), models had similar performance (AUC: 0.81-1.0). Many studies were found to have a high PROBAST risk of bias, most often due to small sample sizes. In conclusion, multiple machine learning models have been successfully developed that have the potential to be superior to traditional modeling techniques and prospective clinical judgment in predicting amputation. Further research is needed to overcome the limitations of current studies and to bring applicability to a clinical setting.
Topics: Humans; Prospective Studies; Amputation, Surgical; Peripheral Vascular Diseases; Machine Learning
PubMed: 37934767
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293684 -
EXCLI Journal 2023Classic decision theory requires that rational agents show description invariance: which description is chosen should not matter for judgments, preferences, or choices... (Review)
Review
Classic decision theory requires that rational agents show description invariance: which description is chosen should not matter for judgments, preferences, or choices given the descriptions are co-extensive. Framing research has amply demonstrated a failure of description invariance by showing that the choice of the description has a systematic effect on judgments, preferences, and choices. Specifically, framing research has shown that linguistically different descriptions of seemingly equivalent options frequently lead to preference reversals. I summarize the research on framing in situations entailing risk. This includes the characterization of different research designs used, the size and robustness of the framing effects reported for those designs, and the theoretical accounts put forward to explain framing effects. The theoretical accounts are evaluated with respect to their merits, empirically and theoretically. I end by providing the implications of framing research. My central point is that the existence of framing effects points to the adaptiveness of the processes underlying human judgment and choice rather than simply showing human irrationality.
PubMed: 37927347
DOI: 10.17179/excli2023-6169 -
Nurse Education in Practice Nov 2023This review aimed to systematically scope undergraduate or postgraduate tertiary higher education nursing students' clinical practice teaching and assessment methods to... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVES
This review aimed to systematically scope undergraduate or postgraduate tertiary higher education nursing students' clinical practice teaching and assessment methods to identify features that align with promoting students' evaluative judgement.
INTRODUCTION
Evaluative judgement is a new concept to nursing tertiary education. Currently, there are no published reviews of evaluative judgement in nursing clinical practice education. This review aims to assist nursing educators to operationalise the concept of evaluative judgement in clinical practice education. As such the starting point was to determine features of evaluative judgement in current clinical teaching and assessment designs.
INCLUSION CRITERIA
Peer reviewed qualitative or quantitative studies that have evaluated teaching and/or assessment of tertiary (university/higher education) pre-registration (undergraduate) or post-registration (postgraduate) nursing students' clinical practice.
METHODS
The systematic scoping review was prospectively registered systematic review (OSF DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/PYWZ6) reported using PRISMA guidelines. A systematic search of five databases (Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, CINAHL) was conducted, limited from 1989 onwards and in English. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, then full text, with disagreements resolved with a third independent author. Data were extracted, including the frequency and methods of developing students' evaluative judgement across the categories of discerning quality, judgement process, calibration and feedback. A narrative synthesis was performed.
RESULTS
Seventy-one studies were included (n=53 teaching, n=18 assessment). Most of the included studies, included some, but not all, of the features to develop nursing students' evaluative judgment. For teaching methods, the most identified evaluative judgement features in the included studies were discerning quality (n=47), feedback (n=41) and judgement process (n=21). Only three studies included a method of calibration. For the assessment methods, feedback (n=16), discerning quality (n=15), judgement process (n=9) and calibration (n=4) were included. Many clinical practice teaching and assessment methods in nursing included features that develop students' evaluative judgement, with methods relating to discerning quality and feedback well embedded. Further adjustments are required to include methods to assist students to judge and calibrate their own performance.
CONCLUSION
This systematic scoping review identified that evaluative judgement in current nursing clinical teaching and assessment is not an overt aim. With minor adjustment to teaching and assessment design, nursing students could be better supported to develop their ability to judge the value of their own work.
Topics: Humans; Judgment; Clinical Competence; Education, Nursing; Students, Nursing; Nurses
PubMed: 37925834
DOI: 10.1016/j.nepr.2023.103818 -
Neurocritical Care Apr 2024The objective of this document is to provide recommendations on the formal reliability of major clinical predictors often associated with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH)...
BACKGROUND
The objective of this document is to provide recommendations on the formal reliability of major clinical predictors often associated with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) neuroprognostication.
METHODS
A narrative systematic review was completed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation methodology and the Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome, Timing, Setting questions. Predictors, which included both individual clinical variables and prediction models, were selected based on clinical relevance and attention in the literature. Following construction of the evidence profile and summary of findings, recommendations were based on Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation criteria. Good practice statements addressed essential principles of neuroprognostication that could not be framed in the Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome, Timing, Setting format.
RESULTS
Six candidate clinical variables and two clinical grading scales (the original ICH score and maximally treated ICH score) were selected for recommendation creation. A total of 347 articles out of 10,751 articles screened met our eligibility criteria. Consensus statements of good practice included deferring neuroprognostication-aside from the most clinically devastated patients-for at least the first 48-72 h of intensive care unit admission; understanding what outcomes would have been most valued by the patient; and counseling of patients and surrogates whose ultimate neurological recovery may occur over a variable period of time. Although many clinical variables and grading scales are associated with ICH poor outcome, no clinical variable alone or sole clinical grading scale was suggested by the panel as currently being reliable by itself for use in counseling patients with ICH and their surrogates, regarding functional outcome at 3 months and beyond or 30-day mortality.
CONCLUSIONS
These guidelines provide recommendations on the formal reliability of predictors of poor outcome in the context of counseling patients with ICH and surrogates and suggest broad principles of neuroprognostication. Clinicians formulating their judgments of prognosis for patients with ICH should avoid anchoring bias based solely on any one clinical variable or published clinical grading scale.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Critical Illness; Reproducibility of Results; Cerebral Hemorrhage; Prognosis; Hospitalization
PubMed: 37923968
DOI: 10.1007/s12028-023-01854-7 -
Journal of Eating Disorders Oct 2023Studies have established the central role of the family in the recognition, treatment, and recovery of anorexia nervosa. The objective of this study was to review,... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Studies have established the central role of the family in the recognition, treatment, and recovery of anorexia nervosa. The objective of this study was to review, synthesize, and critically appraise the literature on parents' views on the treatment and recovery process of anorexia nervosa in their adolescent child.
METHOD
A systematic search of Medline, PsychINFO, CINHAL, EMBASE, Cochrane library, and SSCI was conducted for qualitative studies published regarding parents' views about the treatment of anorexia nervosa. The quality of articles was assessed using the critical appraisal skills program (CASP) and findings were analysed using thematic synthesis.
RESULTS
A total of 25 studies from nine countries reporting the views of 357 parents met the inclusion criteria. Four major themes were developed from the analysis: understanding the child and the disease, experience of services and treatment modalities, the role of professionals, and the experience of recovery.
CONCLUSION
Parents report struggles with delays in finding help, judgmental attitudes of professionals, and uncertainty about the future. Recognition of the challenges faced by parents and families empowers clinicians to build stronger therapeutic relationships essential for long-term recovery from anorexia nervosa.
PubMed: 37904246
DOI: 10.1186/s40337-023-00910-z -
Cureus Sep 2023Artificial intelligence (AI) has been cited as being helpful in the diagnosis of diseases, the prediction of prognoses, and the development of patient-specific... (Review)
Review
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been cited as being helpful in the diagnosis of diseases, the prediction of prognoses, and the development of patient-specific therapeutic strategies. AI can help dentists, in particular, when they need to make important judgments quickly. It can eliminate human mistakes in making decisions, resulting in superior and consistent medical treatment while lowering the workload on dentists. The existing studies relevant to the study and application of AI in the diagnosis of various forms of mouth ulcers are reviewed in this work. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standards were followed in the preparation of the review. There were no rule violations, with the significant exception of the use of a better search method that led to more accurate findings. Using search terms mainly such as AI, oral health, oral ulcers, oral herpes simplex, oral lichen planus, pemphigus vulgaris, recurrent aphthous ulcer (RAU), oral cancer, premalignant and malignant disorders, etc., a comprehensive search was carried out in the reliable sources of literature, namely PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, Ovid, Global Health, and PsycINFO. For all papers, exhaustive searches were done using inclusion criteria as well as exclusion criteria between June 28, 2018, and June 28, 2023. An AI framework for the automatic categorization of oral ulcers from oral clinical photographs was developed by the authors, and it performed satisfactorily. The newly designed AI model works better than the current convolutional neural network image categorization techniques and shows a fair level of precision in the classification of oral ulcers. However, despite being useful for identifying oral ulcers, the suggested technique needs a broader set of data for validation and training purposes before being used in clinical settings. Automated OCSCC identification using a deep learning-based technique is a quick, harmless, affordable, and practical approach to evaluating the effectiveness of cancer treatment. The categorization and identification of RAU lesions through the use of non-intrusive oral pictures using the previously developed ResNet50 and YOLOV algorithms demonstrated better accuracy as well as adequate potential for the future, which could be helpful in clinical practice. Moreover, the most reliable projections for the likelihood of the presence or absence of RAU were made by the optimized neural network. The authors also discovered variables associated with RAU that might be used as input information to build artificial neural networks that anticipate RAU.
PubMed: 37842407
DOI: 10.7759/cureus.45187 -
Frontiers in Neuroscience 2023The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of stimulating the vagus nerve in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOCs). (Review)
Review
PURPOSE
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of stimulating the vagus nerve in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOCs).
METHODS
A comprehensive systematic review was conducted, encompassing the search of databases such as PubMed, CENTRAL, EMBASE and PEDro from their inception until July 2023. Additionally, manual searches and exploration of grey literature were performed. The literature review was conducted independently by two reviewers for search strategy, selection of studies, data extraction, and judgment of evidence quality according to the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) Study Quality Scale.
RESULTS
A total of 1,269 articles were retrieved, and 10 studies met the inclusion criteria. Among these, there were three case reports, five case series, and only two randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Preliminary studies have suggested that stimulation of vagus nerve can enhance the levels of DOCs in both vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness state (VS/UWS) and minimally conscious state (MCS). However, due to a lack of high-quality RCTs research and evidence-based medical evidence, no definitive conclusion can be drawn regarding the intervention's effectiveness on consciousness level. Additionally, there were no significant adverse effects observed following stimulation of vagus nerve.
CONCLUSION
A definitive conclusion cannot be drawn from this systematic review as there was a limited number of eligible studies and low-quality evidence. The findings of this systematic review can serve as a roadmap for future research on the use of stimulation of vagus nerve to facilitate recovery from DOCs.
PubMed: 37781261
DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1257378 -
Scientific Reports Sep 2023A complex pattern of preservation and deterioration in metacognition in aging is found, especially regarding predicting future memory retrieval (i.e.,... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
A complex pattern of preservation and deterioration in metacognition in aging is found, especially regarding predicting future memory retrieval (i.e., feeling-of-knowing, FOK). While semantic FOK (sFOK) is preserved with age, studies on episodic tasks (eFOK) produce equivocal findings. We present a meta-analysis of 20 studies on eFOK and sFOK, analyzing the difference in metacognitive sensitivity between 922 younger and 966 older adults, taking into account the difference in memory performance. The sFOK studies yielded no overall age effect (8 effects, g = -0.10 [-0.29, 0.10]). However, we found a reliable age-group difference on eFOK (22 effects, g = 0.53 [0.28, 0.78]), which was moderated when considering recognition performance. Moreover, using aggregated data of 134 young and 235 older adults from published and unpublished studies from our lab, we investigated memory performance as an explanation of the eFOK deficit. We show that older adults are less metacognitively sensitive than younger adults for eFOKs which is, at least partly, due to the age-related memory decline. We highlight two non-exclusive explanations: a recollection deficit at play in the first and second order tasks, and a confound between first order performance and the measure used to assess metacognitive sensitivity.
Topics: Semantics; Mental Recall; Judgment; Recognition, Psychology; Memory, Episodic
PubMed: 37777585
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36251-9 -
Pediatric Annals Sep 2023The application of fecal calprotectin in the relapse of inflammatory bowel disease remains uncertain in children and adolescents. We systematically searched the common... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
The application of fecal calprotectin in the relapse of inflammatory bowel disease remains uncertain in children and adolescents. We systematically searched the common databases for eligible studies. Judgment of diagnostic accuracy included pooled sensitivity and specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and pooled area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Ultimately, a total of 414 participants from six studies were included. The combined sensitivity, specificity, PLR, and NLR with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were 0.85 (95% = 0.65 to 0.79), 0.71 (95% = 0.52 to 0.85), 2.95 (95% = 1.71 to 5.09), and 0.21 (95% = 0.08 to 0.51), respectively. The area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.85, and the DOR was 14.14 (95% = 4.46 to 44.80). Our study showed that fecal calprotectin as a biomarker to predict the clinical relapse of inflammatory bowel disease during remission in children and adolescents is effective and worth applying. .
Topics: Humans; Adolescent; Child; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases; Chronic Disease; Feces; Leukocyte L1 Antigen Complex
PubMed: 37695282
DOI: 10.3928/19382359-20230720-04