Hepatocellular Carcinoma Diagnosis and Management in 2021: A National Veterans Affairs Quality Improvement Project.

Background & Aims: The coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic profoundly disrupted preventative health care services including cancer screening. As the largest provider of cirrhosis care in the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Gastroenterology and Hepatology Program aimed to assess factors associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) stage at diagnosis, treatment, and survival.

Methods: Veterans with a new diagnosis of HCC in 2021 were identified from electronic health records (N = 2306).

Effect of individualized feedback on learning curves in EGD and colonoscopy: a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Background And Aims: Gastroenterology fellowships need to ensure that trainees achieve competence in upper endoscopy (EGD) and colonoscopy. Because the impact of structured feedback remains unknown in endoscopy training, this study compared the effect of structured feedback with standard feedback on trainee learning curves for EGD and colonoscopy.

Methods: In this multicenter, cluster, randomized controlled trial, trainees received either individualized quarterly learning curves or feedback standard to their fellowship.

A Prospective Multicenter Study Evaluating Endoscopy Competence Among Gastroenterology Trainees in the Era of the Next Accreditation System.

Purpose: The Next Accreditation System requires training programs to demonstrate competence among trainees. Within gastroenterology (GI), there are limited data describing learning curves and structured assessment of competence in esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and colonoscopy. In this study, the authors aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of a centralized feedback system to assess endoscopy learning curves among GI trainees in EGD and colonoscopy.

Impact of a quarterly report card on colonoscopy quality measures.

Background: Colonoscopy quality is operator-dependent. Studies assessing the effect of interventions to decrease variation in colonoscopy quality have shown inconsistent results. Since 2009, endoscopists at our university-affiliated, Veterans Affairs medical center have received a quarterly "report card" summarizing individual colonoscopy quality indicators as part of an ongoing quality assurance program.

Dysregulated information processing by medium spiny neurons in striatum of freely behaving mouse models of Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant condition that compromises behavioral output. Dysfunction of medium spiny neurons (MSNs), which are the sole output system of the striatum, is thought to underlie HD pathophysiology. What is not known is how HD alters MSN information processing during behavior, which likely drives the HD behavioral phenotype.