Preventing unnecessary tympanostomy tube placement in children: A 5-year Update.

Objective: In 2022 the American Academy of Otolaryngology (AAO) published updated clinical guidelines for pediatric tympanostomy tube placement. Statement 6 recommended that clinicians should not perform tympanostomy tube insertion in children with recurrent acute otitis media (rAOM) who do not have middle ear effusion (MEE) at the time of evaluation. We performed a 5-year update on a study evaluating this recommendation in our pediatric patient population.

Persistent sleep apnea after adenotonsillectomy in pediatric patients with head and neck burns.

Background: To determine if face, head, or neck burns increases risk of persistent sleep disordered breathing (SDB) or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) after adenotonsillectomy.

Methods: The TriNetX database was used to gather data for patients who had face, head, or neck burn including mouth and pharynx and history of sleep study with adenotonsillectomy. A comparison of persistent SDB or OSA was done between cohort 1, a group with sleep study and adenotonsillectomy after burn injury, and cohort 2, a group with treatment before a burn.

Viral voices: A multi-platform analysis of tonsillectomy on social media.

Objectives: To assess the influence of social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, in shaping public perceptions about tonsillectomies and to identify the nature of the content disseminated on these platforms.

Methods: A comprehensive analysis of 1482 relevant social media posts related to tonsillectomies was conducted across major platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Content was categorized based on author, topic of the post, timeframe, and overall tone.

Large Angiomatous Nasal Polyp Presents With Epistaxis Imitating Juvenile Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma.

An angiomatous nasal polyp is a rare subtype of sinonasal polyp that is commonly found in the middle meatus and characterized by the presence of blood vessels within polyp tissue. It is a benign lesion but is prone to misdiagnosis as a malignant tumor because it typically grows larger and is more vascular than other types of polyps. In this report, a 16-year-old male with no significant past medical history presents with a six-month history of epistaxis and progressive nasal obstruction.

In-the-Wild Affect Analysis of Children with ASD Using Heart Rate.

Recognizing the affective state of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in real-world settings poses challenges due to the varying head poses, illumination levels, occlusion and a lack of datasets annotated with emotions in in-the-wild scenarios. Understanding the emotional state of children with ASD is crucial for providing personalized interventions and support. Existing methods often rely on controlled lab environments, limiting their applicability to real-world scenarios.

WAVE: A Web-Based Platform for Delivering Knowledge-Driven Virtual Experiences.

Many studies have demonstrated the usefulness of virtual characters in educational settings; however, widespread adoption of such tools is limited by development costs and accessibility. This article describes a novel platform, web automated virtual environment (WAVE), to deliver virtual experiences through the web. The system integrates data acquired from a variety of sources in a manner that allows the virtual characters to exhibit behaviors that are appropriate to the designer's goals, such as providing support for users based on understanding their activities and their emotional states.

Acute Ischemic Stroke: Acute Management and Selection for Endovascular Therapy.

Stroke is a medical emergency and expeditious treatment is critical to reducing permanent disability or death. Acute management of patients suffering from acute ischemic stroke (AIS) requires early recognition of symptoms, rapid assessment and stabilization (hyperacute workup), and appropriate selection of patients for reperfusion with intravenous alteplase and/or mechanical thrombectomy. Established stroke protocols which involve both prehospital emergency medical services and in-hospital multidisciplinary stroke teams have been shown to be crucial to reducing the long term, devastating effects of stroke.

Analysis of 334 Cases of Pediatric Esophageal Foreign Body Removal Suggests that Traditional Methods Have Similar Outcomes Whereas a Magnetic Tip Orogastric Tube Appears to Be an Effective, Efficient, and Safe Technique for Disc Battery Removal.

Procedures and outcomes for pediatric esophageal foreign body removal were analyzed. Traditional methods of battery removal were compared with a magnetic tip orogastric tube (MtOGT). A single institution retrospective review from 1997 to 2014 of pediatric patients with esophageal foreign bodies was performed.

Otolaryngology workforce analysis.

Objectives/hypothesis: The number of trained otolaryngologists available is insufficient to supply current and projected US health care needs. The goal of this study was to assess available databases and present accurate data on the current otolaryngology workforce, examine methods for prediction of future health care needs, and explore potential issues with forecasting methods and policy implementation based on these predictions.

Study Design: Retrospective analysis of research databases, public use files, and claims data.

PhyloPen: Phylogenetic Tree Browsing Using a Pen and Touch Interface.

Phylogenetic trees are used by researchers across multiple fields of study to display historical relationships between organisms or genes. Trees are used to examine the speciation process in evolutionary biology, to classify families of viruses in epidemiology, to demonstrate co-speciation in host and pathogen studies, and to explore genetic changes occurring during the disease process in cancer, among other applications. Due to their complexity and the amount of data they present in visual form, phylogenetic trees have generally been difficult to render for publication and challenging to directly interact with in digital form.

Arbor: comparative analysis workflows for the tree of life.

We describe our efforts to develop a software package, Arbor, that will enable scientific research in all aspects of comparative biology. This software will enable developmental biologists, geneticists, ecologists, geographers, paleobiologists, educators, and students to analyze diverse types of comparative data at multiple phylogenetic and spatiotemporal scales using an intuitive visual interface. Arbor's user-defined workflows will be exported and shared so that entire analyses can be quickly replicated with new or updated data.

Prenatal ultrasound exposure and association with postnatal hearing outcomes.

Objective: Prenatal ultrasound exams have become increasingly frequent. Although no serious adverse effects are known, the public health implications would be enormous should adverse effects on auditory development be shown. This study looks to establish a possible correlation between hearing loss and increased prenatal ultrasound exposure.

Randomized trial of a peer resistance skill-building game for Hispanic early adolescent girls.

Background: Adolescents can use peer resistance skills to avoid being pressured into risky behavior, such as early sexual behavior. Avatar-based virtual reality technology offers a novel way to help build these skills.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to evaluate the feasibility of an avatar-based virtual reality peer resistance skill building game (DRAMA-RAMA), to explore the impact of game play on peer resistance self-efficacy, and to assess how positively the game was perceived.

Cognitive Therapy Using Mixed Reality for Those Impaired by a Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA).

There is new research showing that interactive multimodal rehabilitation may enhance cognitive therapy after cerebrovascular accident. A well-designed Mixed Reality system provides a diverse, controllable and versatile therapeutic environment to help promote neural plasticity during recovery. In addition to stroke patients, there are other groups, such as those with traumatic brain injury (TBI) that could benefit from the system.

Mixed Reality for PTSD/TBI Assessment.

Mixed Reality (MR) refers to the blending of virtual content into the real world. Using MR, we create contextually meaningful scenarios in which users carry out tasks encountered in the presence of visual and aural distracters. Visual distracters can include subtle ones - people walking; and more abrupt ones - cartons falling.

Effectiveness of a test-taking strategy on achievement in essay tests for students with learning disabilities.

Research was conducted to ascertain if an essay-writing strategy was effective at improving the achievement on essay tests for 7th- and 8th-grade students with reading and writing disabilities. Students were assigned via a stratified random sample to treatment or control group. Student scores were also compared to students without learning disabilities nominated by teachers as average writers.