Publications by authors named "Derek Harrison"
Article Synopsis
- Recent brain studies indicate that athletes in contact sports experience measurable cognitive and sensory impairments due to cumulative subconcussive impacts throughout the season.
- This study compares a high-contact group to a low-contact control group and includes both male and female high school athletes, using 231 brain scans over a year.
- Results show that while both genders exhibit similar subconcussive impairments, female athletes respond more significantly overall, indicating the importance of monitoring these changes to improve health outcomes related to repetitive head impacts.
Article Synopsis
Neonatal Sacrococcygeal Fetiform Teratoma Containing Bowel: A Case Report.
European J Pediatr Surg Rep
January 2024
A fetiform sacrococcygeal teratoma (homunculus) is a highly differentiated subgroup of mature cystic teratoma that resembles a malformed fetus. These tumors originate at the base of the coccyx and may vary in their intrapelvic and extrapelvic extent and location. It is important to differentiate this anomaly from fetus-in-fetu which has a higher degree of structural organization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: A comprehensive operative report for cancer surgery is crucial for accurate disease staging, risk stratification, and therapy escalation/de-escalation, which affects the outcome. Narrative operative reports may fail to include some critical findings. Furthermore, standardized operative reports can form the basis of a local registry, which is often lacking in limited-resource settings (LRSs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe pre-surgical factors that determine the decision to proceed to resection in children diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma in a resource limited setting.
Pediatr Hematol Oncol
April 2023
Article Synopsis
- Surgical control plays a crucial role in predicting the outcomes of neuroblastoma (NB) patients, particularly in South Africa where advanced cases are frequently diagnosed.
- A study of 204 high-risk NB patients highlighted that younger children had higher rates of successful surgical resection, while only a fraction of those with metastatic disease underwent surgery.
- Factors such as age, disease stage, and post-induction metastatic complete remission (mCR) significantly influenced surgical decisions and overall survival rates, indicating that these criteria should guide treatment in resource-limited environments.
Article Synopsis
- The study assessed the impact of international fellowships in low-to-middle-income countries (LMIC) on the surgical training of pediatric surgery trainees from high-income countries (HIC).
- Researchers analyzed surgical logbooks of trainees who completed their fellowships at a South African hospital, focusing on the quantity and type of surgeries performed.
- Results indicated that trainees in South Africa had significantly more surgical experience, including performing independent surgeries, which benefited both their training and the local doctors by reducing their workload.
Purpose: The aim of the World Health Organization-International Paediatric Oncology Society is to improve childhood cancer survival in low- and middle-income countries to 60% by 2030. This can be achieved using standardised evidence-based national treatment protocols for common childhood cancers. The aim of the study was to describe the development and implementation of the SACCSG NB-2017 neuroblastoma (NB) treatment protocol as part of the treatment harmonisation process of the South African Children's Cancer Study Group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Participants in two experiments first learned to associate specific labels with line lengths and then used those labels to assess their memory performance in recognizing these lengths.
- Results showed that memory precision (measured by Weber fractions) was poorer for remembered standards compared to perceptual standards, exhibiting effects based on item positioning in memory and the number of items learned.
- Additionally, increasing the number of trials improved memory performance, and there were no significant effects related to the physical spacing of items, indicating a distinct way remembered and perceptual information is processed.