[A short history of the concept of bias in epidemiology].

Background: Bias is a major methodological issue for epidemiology. However, only a few studies have been dedicated to the past and present formulations of the concept of bias. Moreover, the classical definition of bias as systematic deviation from the truth of results or inferences, definition which can be found in dictionaries of epidemiology, does not seem to either match the way epidemiologists use it in practice, or correspond to the different definitions given throughout its history.

Three-Dimensional Custom-Made Surgical Guides in Facial Feminization Surgery: Prospective Study on Safety and Accuracy.

Background: Facial feminization surgery (FFS) includes several osseous modifications of the forehead, mandible, and chin, procedures that require precision to provide the patient with a satisfactory result. Mispositioned osteotomies can lead to serious complications and poor aesthetic outcomes. Surgical cutting guides are commonly employed in plastic and maxillofacial surgery to improve safety and accuracy.

For a critical appraisal of artificial intelligence in healthcare: The problem of bias in mHealth.

Rationale, Aims And Objectives: Artificial intelligence and big data are more and more used in medicine, either in prevention, diagnosis or treatment, and are clearly modifying the way medicine is thought and practiced. Some authors argue that the use of artificial intelligence techniques to analyze big data would even constitute a scientific revolution, in medicine as much as in other scientific disciplines. Moreover, artificial intelligence techniques, coupled with mobile health technologies, could furnish a personalized medicine, adapted to the individuality of each patient.

Intrascrotal injection of botulinum toxin A, a male genital aesthetic demand: Technique and limits.

Introduction: Scrotal rejuvenation is a real male aesthetic demand. Scrotal injection of botulinum toxin makes the testicles smoother, less dangling and subjectively larger.

Methods: Intrascrotal botulinum toxin injections were performed to a 44-year-old patient for aesthetic purposes.

[Superficial circumflex iliac artery perforator free flap in pediatric reconstruction: A case report].

The dorsalis pedis reconstruction requires to bring a thin tissue to recover every noble structure of the foot including tendons, nerves and vessels while resisting the stress induced on these structures when walking or wearing shoes. We report the case of a thirteen year-old child who presented a third-degree burn sequelae on the dorsalis pedis with scar retraction and chronic ulceration on the fifth metatarsal despite multiple skin grafts. He couldn't put on his shoes because of the pain and walking was difficult.

Analytical Comparison of Methods for Extraction of Short Cell-Free DNA from Urine.

Urine cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is a valuable noninvasive biomarker for cancer mutation detection, infectious disease diagnosis (eg, tuberculosis), organ transplantation monitoring, and prenatal screening. Conventional silica DNA extraction does not efficiently capture urine cfDNA, which is dilute (ng/mL) and highly fragmented [30 to 100 nucleotides (nt)]. The clinical sensitivity of urine cfDNA detection increases with decreasing target length, motivating use of sample preparation methods designed for short fragments.

[Tongue reconstruction by thoracodorsal perforator flap: A new harvesting technique to reduce morbidity].

The thoracodorsal artery perforator flap is increasingly used in head and neck reconstructions. One of its multiple advantages is the low donor site morbidity compared to the other free flaps usually used for this type of surgery, such as the radial forearm free flap and the anterolateral flap of the thigh. However, the current harvesting technique of the thoracodorsal artery free perforator flap needs a vertical incision rising high in the axillary hollow for the dissection of the pedicle, thus impeding optimal discretion of the donor site, especially for women.

[A giant sacral chordoma resection and reconstruction with a gluteal perforator flap, a case report and literature review].

Background: Sacral chordomas are rare primary bone tumors and represent more than half of all primary malignant sacral tumors. Surgical resection is the only treatment with close to 50% of remission at 10 years, with or without radiotherapy. This tissue removal can be very extensive and morbid, particularly for evolved tumors.

Correction of tuberous breast deformity: A retrospective study comparing lipofilling versus breast implant augmentation.

Breast implants and, more recently, autologous fat grafting are the two most common treatments used to correct tuberous breast deformity (TBD). The post-surgical quality of life between the two techniques is not well demonstrated. This study aimed to compare satisfaction and health-related quality of life in patients affected by TBD between these two techniques.

Separation and dual detection of prostate cancer cells and protein biomarkers using a microchip device.

Current efforts for the detection of prostate cancer using only prostate specific antigen are not ideal and indicate a need to develop new assays - using multiple targets - that can more accurately stratify disease states. We previously introduced a device capable of the concurrent detection of cellular and molecular markers from a single sample fluid. Here, an improved design, which achieves affinity as well as size-based separation of captured targets using antibody-conjugated magnetic beads and a silicon chip containing micro-apertures, is presented.

Cellulose paper sensors modified with zwitterionic poly(carboxybetaine) for sensing and detection in complex media.

Poly(carboxybetaine) (PCB) functionalized cellulose paper was used as a paper-based microfluidic device. The results showed that the PCB modified paper sensor was able to achieve (a) more rapid and sensitive glucose detection from undiluted human serum compared to bare cellulose and (b) specific antigen detection via covalently immobilized antibodies.

Directly functionalizable surface platform for protein arrays in undiluted human blood plasma.

Protein arrays are a high-throughput approach for proteomic profiling, vital for achieving a greater understanding of biological systems, in addition to disease diagnostics and monitoring therapeutic treatments. In this work, zwitterionic carboxybetaine polymer (pCB) coated substrates were investigated as an array surface platform to enable convenient amino-coupling chemistry on a single directly functionalizable and unblocked film for the sensitive detection of target analytes from undiluted human blood plasma. Using a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) imaging sensor, the antibody immobilization conditions which provided excellent spot morphology and the largest antigen response were determined.

Zwitterionic polymer-modified silicon microring resonators for label-free biosensing in undiluted human plasma.

A widely acknowledged goal in personalized medicine is to radically reduce the costs of highly parallelized, small fluid volume, point-of-care and home-based diagnostics. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in using complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible silicon photonic circuits for biosensing, with the promise of producing chip-scale integrated devices containing thousands of orthogonal sensors, at minimal cost on a per-chip basis. A central challenge in biosensor translation is to engineer devices that are both sensitive and specific to a target analyte within unprocessed biological fluids.

Two-layer architecture using atom transfer radical polymerization for enhanced sensing and detection in complex media.

A novel, two-layer hierarchical architecture based on surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization was investigated. It combines a thin and highly dense first layer, for nonfouling properties, with a loose second layer for high immobilization levels of active biomolecules. Sodium azide treatment, to reduce the concentration of macroinitiators on the first layer for reinitiation, and by controlling the polydispersity allowed one to achieve three polymer architectures with low, moderate, or high azide substitution.

Simple and robust approach for passivating and functionalizing surfaces for use in complex media.

Pluronic is a popular triblock copolymer used as a surfactant to introduce hydrophilic coatings onto many different types of material surfaces, from engineering to biomedical applications. Unfortunately, this is limited in its ability to resist fouling from complex media (i.e.

Suppressing surface reconstruction of superhydrophobic PDMS using a superhydrophilic zwitterionic polymer.

Poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS) is extensively used for biomedical applications due to its low cost, ease of fabrication, high durability and flexibility, oxygen permeability, and self-healing properties. PDMS, however, has some significant drawbacks. PDMS endures unacceptably high levels of nonspecific protein fouling when used with biological samples due to its superhydrophobic characteristics.

Controlled hierarchical architecture in surface-initiated zwitterionic polymer brushes with structurally regulated functionalities.

Hierarchical polymer films with structurally regulated functionalities are achieved by integrating 2D and 3D structures to enable ultralow nonspecific protein binding and high loading of molecular recognition elements, such as antibodies.

Dry film refractive index as an important parameter for ultra-low fouling surface coatings.

Here we demonstrate that the film refractive index (RI) can be an even more important parameter than film thickness for identifying nonfouling polymer films to undiluted human blood plasma and serum. The film thickness and RI are two parameters obtained from ellipsometry. Previously, film thickness has been correlated to ultra-low fouling properties.

Internal architecture of zwitterionic polymer brushes regulates nonfouling properties.

In this work, we study how film thickness and chain packing density affect the protein-resistant properties of polymer brushes in complex media. Polymer brushes based on dual-functional poly(carboxybetaine acrylamide) (pCB) were prepared via surface-initiated photoiniferter-mediated polymerization. By adjusting UV radiation time and solvent polarity, pCB films with different thicknesses can be achieved and characterized using an ellipsometer.