Indirect Decompression in Lumbar Degenerative Pathology: Analysis of Imaging Changes at 48 Hours with One-year Follow-up.

Objectives: Investigate the immediate resonance magnetic image changes undergone by the lumbar canal after indirect decompression and compare them at one-year post-intervention. We also investigate the clinical outcome of indirect decompression at one-year follow-up.

Methods: Imaging changes in patients who underwent indirect lumbar decompression and percutaneous posterior fixation were analyzed with one-year follow-up.

Mortality Among Severely Injured Adolescents Admitted to Pediatric vs Adult Trauma Centers.

Importance: Care in a pediatric (vs adult) trauma center improves outcomes for injured children aged 0 to 12 years, but whether pediatric care benefits injured adolescents is unclear.

Objective: To evaluate the association of pediatric vs adult trauma center care with mortality among severely injured adolescents.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study was conducted between April 1, 2012, and March 31, 2020, among adolescents aged 12 to 16 years who were admitted to level I or level II adult trauma centers or a level I pediatric trauma center in British Columbia, Canada.

Development and characterization of pyridyl carboxamides as potent and highly selective Na1.8 inhibitors.

The voltage-gated sodium channel Na1.8 (SCN10A) has strong genetic and pharmacological validation as a potential target for treating acute and chronic pain. While several different chemotypes have been advanced as selective inhibitors, a quinoxaline carboxamide core structure was identified as a particularly attractive core structure due to very high sodium channel subtype selectivity.

PKCα Activation via the Thyroid Hormone Membrane Receptor Is Key to Thyroid Cancer Growth.

Thyroid carcinoma (TC) is the most common endocrine neoplasia, with its incidence increasing in the last 40 years worldwide. The determination of genetic and/or protein markers for thyroid carcinoma could increase diagnostic precision. Accumulated evidence shows that Protein kinase C alpha (PKCα) contributes to tumorigenesis and therapy resistance in cancer.

Crossectional Study on the Performance of Screening Questionnaires for Prediction of Moderate to Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Women.

 The clinical manifestations of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are different between genders. Though there are several screening questionnaires for OSA, their performance in females is not fully understood, as women have been historically underrepresented in research studies.  To assess the performance of screening questionnaires and their capacity to identify a moderate to severe apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) in women.

Advancing Soil Risk Assessment: A Novel Earthworm Cocoon Test with a Complementary Toxicokinetic-Toxicodynamic Modeling Approach.

In the current European Union pesticide risk assessment for soil organisms, effect endpoints from laboratory studies (Tier 1) and field studies (higher-tier risk assessment) are compared with predicted environmental concentrations in soil, derived from the proposed use pattern. The simple but conservative initial Tier 1 risk assessment considers a range of worst-case assumptions. In contrast, the higher-tier assessment focuses on specific conditions tested in the corresponding field study.

Indocyanine green uptake by human tumor and non‑tumor cell lines and tissue.

Indocyanine green (ICG) is a potential promising dye for a better intraoperative tumor border definition and an improved patient outcome by potentially improving tumor border visualization compared with traditional white light guided surgery. Here, the cellular uptake of ICG in human squamous cell carcinoma (SCC026) and immortalized non-cancer skin (HaCaT) cell lines was evaluated to study the tumor-specific cellular uptake of ICG. The spatial distribution of ICG inside tumor tissue was investigated in tissue sections of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma at a microscopic level.

Identification and Characterization of a Blood-Brain Barrier Penetrant Inositol Hexakisphosphate Kinase (IP6K) Inhibitor.

Inositol hexakisphosphate kinases (IP6Ks) have been studied for their role in glucose homeostasis, metabolic disease, fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease, neurological development, and psychiatric disease. IP6Ks phosphorylate inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6) to the pyrophosphate, 5-diphosphoinositol-1,2,3,4,6-pentakisphosphate (5-IP7). Most of the currently known potent IP6K inhibitors contain a critical carboxylic acid which limits blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration.

[Challenges in the treatment of opioid dependence].

Background: The number of persons using opioids has increased worldwide in the last decade, particularly the use of opioid analgesics in North America and Africa. In Germany, the prevalence of heroin addiction has remained relatively stable.

Method: Narrative review of the literature.

Cerebral vasospasm in patients with traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage, a possible point of intervention?

Objective: To determine the incidence of vasospasm in traumatic brain injury patients with traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Methods: IRB approval was obtained for this retrospective chart review. An institutional trauma database was queried for adult patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (tSAH) seen on CT head obtained within 20 days.

Give Due Consideration ….

The new EU Regulation on health technology assessment (HTAR) provides for joint clinical assessments (JCA) of health technologies at EU level. When Member States carry out health technology assessments (HTA) at the national level, they shall give due consideration to the results of a JCA and comply with other obligations of the Regulation. This article aims to clarify what these obligations mean for the Member States and whether JCA results have to be considered outside a national health technology assessment as well.

Can Distalisation and Lateralisation Shoulder Angles in Reverse Arthroplasty Interfere with the Functional Results in Patients with Rotator Cuff Arthropathy?

 To evaluate the influence of radiographic values on clinical and functional results in patients treated with reverse arthroplasty for rotator cuff arthropathy (RCA) using a lateralized design.  A retrospective analysis was performed. Patient demographics were recorded, as well as preoperative and postoperative range of motion.

Dialysis disequilibrium syndrome in neurosurgery: literature review and illustrative case example.

Introduction: The dialysis disequilibrium syndrome (DDS) is a complication in those undergoing dialysis for chronic kidney disease (CKD) or acute kidney injury (AKI), characterized by nonspecific symptoms that may progress to coma and death secondary to cerebral edema. This syndrome is associated with rapid change in electrolytes during dialysis with changes in intracranial pressure (ICP) and may have a higher incidence in the elderly neurosurgical patient population.

Methods: Literature review and illustrative case example.

Ecotoxicological soil risk assessment under the new soil exposure framework - an impact assessment.

For the European risk assessment (RA) for soil organisms exposed to plant protection products (PPPs) endpoints from ecotoxicological laboratory studies are compared with predicted environmental concentrations in soil (PEC) at first tier. A safety margin must be met; otherwise, a higher tier RA is triggered (usually soil organism field studies). A new tiered exposure modeling guidance was published by EFSA to determine PEC.

Performance of the NOSE Questionnaire in Mask Selection for Home CPAP Titration.

 Many patients abandon CPAP treatment because they find the mask uncomfortable. Therefore, specialists may benefit from the predictive value of airway assessment tools.  To identify nasal ventilation failure through the Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) scale in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who undergo home-based auto-adjusting CPAP titration and to determine whether there is a correlation between NOSE score and the type of mask selected.

The Cervical Fat Tissue Volume is a Predictor for Moderate to Severe OSA.

 Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a disorder characterized by recurrent pharyngeal obstruction during sleep, in which upper airway anatomy plays a key role in its pathogenesis. The aim of this study was to describe whether the quantification of cervical fat tissue volume (CFTV) obtained by Computed Tomography (CT)cephalometry is related to the severity of OSA.  Retrospective study between 2018 and 2020 in those patients > 18 years old, with diagnosis of OSA who performed a volumetric cephalometric imaging.

DIY Flap Monitoring: The Glucose Index.

Background: Flap loss is reduced by monitoring, which detects vascular compromise. Glucose levels vary in suffering flaps; therefore, we aimed to show that monitoring flaps with glucose pinprick test is a cheap, reliable, ubiquitous, and easy method.

Methods: We reviewed a prospectively kept database.

Fragment-Based Screening Identifies New Quinazolinone-Based Inositol Hexakisphosphate Kinase (IP6K) Inhibitors.

A high-throughput fragment-based screen has been employed to discover a series of quinazolinone inositol hexakisphosphate kinase (IP6K) inhibitors. IP6Ks have been studied for their role in glucose homeostasis, metabolic disease, fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease, blood coagulation, neurological development, and psychiatric disease. IP6Ks phosphorylate inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6) to form pyrophosphate 5-diphospho-1,2,3,4,6-pentakisphosphate (IP7).

Use of a flow diverter in a small-caliber end artery anterior choroidal dissecting pseudoaneurysm: illustrative case.

Background: Anterior choroidal artery (AChA) fusiform aneurysms are exceedingly rare and associated with high rebleeding and mortality rates. Their difficult anatomy comes with a broad range of treatment options, including bypass, stent-assisted coiling, and flow diversion. Currently, flow diverters are approved for large-caliber internal carotid artery segment aneurysms.