Publications by authors named "Heymans M"

Background: Inhibitor eradication to restore factor (F)VIII efficacy is the treatment goal for persons with severe hemophilia A (HA) and inhibitors. Immune tolerance induction (ITI) is demanding and successful in about 70% of people. Until now, it has remained difficult to quantify the probability of ITI success or failure, complicating the decision to initiate or not initiate ITI.

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Background Context: Lumbar microdiscectomy is an effective treatment for short-term pain relief and improvements in disability in patients with lumbar radiculopathy, however, many patients experience residual pain and long-term disability. The 'people like me' approach seeks to enhance personalized prognosis and treatment effectiveness, utilizing historical data from similar patients to forecast individual outcomes.

Purpose: The primary objective was to develop and test the 'people-like-me' approach for leg pain intensity and disability at 12-month follow-up after lumbar microdiscectomy and postoperative physical therapy.

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Background: Low back pain is the leading cause of global disability for which exercise therapy is a widely recommended treatment. Research indicates that contextual factors may also influence treatment outcomes in low back pain. Examples include the patient-therapist relationship and other treatment-related circumstances that affect patient expectations.

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Article Synopsis
  • The World Falls Guidelines (WFG) propose a fall risk classification system (low, intermediate, high) and were evaluated against other fall screening tools, like the AGS/BGS algorithm and fall history.
  • A study with 1509 older adults assessed falls over one year, using various methods to measure the algorithm’s predictive performance.
  • The WFG algorithm can effectively identify fall risk, especially when using the 3KQ tool, but shows similar performance to other tools, with the 3KQ being more sensitive but less specific.
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Aims: Although the neuroanatomical distribution of tau and amyloid-β is well studied in Alzheimer's disease (AD) (non)-amnestic clinical variants, that of neuroinflammation remains unexplored. We investigate the neuroanatomical distribution of activated myeloid cells, astrocytes, and complement alongside amyloid-β and phosphorylated tau in a clinically well-defined prospectively collected AD cohort.

Methods: Clinical variants were diagnosed antemortem, and brain tissue was collected post-mortem.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to validate a deep learning model for predicting treatment outcomes in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma patients across 5 clinical trials, comparing it to the international prognostic index (IPI) and radiomic models.
  • The deep learning model, trained on PET/CT scans, demonstrated a higher predictive performance (AUC of 0.66) than IPI (AUC of 0.60) and performed well across all trials.
  • While the deep learning and clinical PET models showed similar performance (AUC of 0.69), the PET model achieved the highest AUC (0.71), although the deep learning model provided outcomes without requiring tumor delineation.
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Objective: Patients with back pain (BP) and radiating leg pain have poorer clinical outcomes compared to patients with BP alone. We aimed to describe the 1-year clinical course and to identify prognostic factors associated with non-recovery in older BP patients with radiating leg pain.

Design: Patients in the BACE cohort aged >55 years with a new episode of BP and radiating leg pain were included (n = 377).

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  • The study aimed to create and validate diagnostic prediction models for diagnosing structural spinal osteoarthritis (OA) in older patients experiencing back pain, addressing the challenge of relying solely on imaging.
  • Three models were developed using data from a cohort of 669 older adults, incorporating factors like age, gender, and back pain characteristics, with the combined model showing the best performance and clinical utility.
  • Results suggest that while the models demonstrate potential for aiding clinicians in identifying structural spinal OA, they require further refinement and external validation before being used in clinical practice.
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Background: Prediction models can identify fall-prone individuals. Prediction models can be based on either data from research cohorts (cohort-based) or routinely collected data (RCD-based). We review and compare cohort-based and RCD-based studies describing the development and/or validation of fall prediction models for community-dwelling older adults.

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Objective: Current risk algorithms do not accurately predict cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). An area of interest is that of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), of which several have been associated with CVD in the general population. We investigated whether these SNPs are associated with CVD in RA and whether SNPs could improve CVD risk prediction in RA.

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Background: Unplanned admissions to hospital represent a hazardous event for older people. Timely identification of high-risk individuals using a prediction tool may facilitate preventive interventions.

Aim: To develop and validate an easy-to-use prediction model for unplanned admissions to hospital in community-dwelling older adults using readily available data to allow rapid bedside assessment by GPs.

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Periprosthetic femoral fractures (PPFF) around total hip arthroplasty (THA) are one of the leading causes of hip revision. High mortality rates are observed after revision in case of PPFF around THA. To modify risk factors, early postoperative mobilization is necessary.

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Objective: Preterm birth is one of the most frequent complications of pregnancy in women with systemic lupus erythematosus. The high indicated preterm birth proportion due to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and/or fetal growth restriction is well known, and preventive measures and screening for early detection are performed. The risk of spontaneous preterm birth is less well recognized.

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Background And Objective: Owing to the greater use of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with biochemical recurrence (BCR) of prostate cancer (PCa) after robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP), patient selection for local salvage radiation therapy (sRT) has changed. Our objective was to determine the short-term efficacy of sRT in patients with BCR after RARP, and to develop a novel nomogram predicting BCR-free survival after sRT in a nationwide contemporary cohort of patients who underwent PSMA PET/CT before sRT for BCR of PCa, without evidence of metastatic disease.

Methods: All 302 eligible patients undergoing PCa sRT in four reference centers between September 2015 and August 2020 were included.

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Background: Falls involve dynamic risk factors that change over time, but most studies on fall-risk factors are cross-sectional and do not capture this temporal aspect. The longitudinal clinical notes within electronic health records (EHR) provide an opportunity to analyse fall risk factor trajectories through Natural Language Processing techniques, specifically dynamic topic modelling (DTM). This study aims to uncover fall-related topics for new fallers and track their evolving trends leading up to falls.

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Background : Necrotizing soft-tissue infections (NSTIs) present a surgical emergency of increasing incidence, which is often misdiagnosed and associated with substantial mortality and morbidity. A retrospective multicenter (11 hospitals) cohort study was initiated to identify the early predictors of misdiagnosis, mortality, and morbidity (skin defect size and amputation). Methods : Patients of all ages who presented with symptoms and were admitted for acute treatment of NSTIs between January 2013 and December 2017 were included.

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Background: Over 50% of adults with visual impairment experience severe fatigue. Therefore, we developed a guided E-health intervention based on cognitive behavioral therapy and self-management to reduce fatigue in this population. This pilot study evaluated the usability, feasibility, fidelity and potential effectiveness of E-nergEYEze.

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Background: Convolutional neural networks (CNNs), applied to baseline [F]-FDG PET/CT maximum intensity projections (MIPs), show potential for treatment outcome prediction in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The aim of this study is to investigate the robustness of CNN predictions to different image reconstruction protocols. Baseline [F]FDG PET/CT scans were collected from 20 DLBCL patients.

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Investigating prognostic factors in patients with relapsed or primary refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma (R/R cHL) is essential to optimize risk-adapted treatment strategies. We built a prognostic model using baseline quantitative 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET) radiomics features and clinical characteristics to predict the progression-free survival (PFS) among patients with R/R cHL treated with salvage chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation. Metabolic tumor volume and several novel radiomics dissemination features, representing interlesional differences in distance, volume, and standard uptake value, were extracted from the baseline PET.

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Objective: This study aimed to examine the presence of distinct trajectories of adherence to home-based exercise recommendations among people with low back pain (LBP). This study also aimed to identify differences in baseline characteristics among groups.

Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of a prospective, multicenter cluster randomized controlled trial investigating the cost-effectiveness of a stratified blended physical therapist intervention compared to usual care physical therapy in patients with LBP.

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Background: Over the past years, patient specific instrumentation (PSI) for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has been implemented and routinely used. No clear answer has been given on its associated cost and cost-effectiveness when compared to conventional instrumentation (CI) for TKA.

Aim: To compare the cost and cost-effectiveness of PSI TKA compared to CI TKA.

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Objectives: Before being used in clinical practice, a prediction model should be tested in patients whose data were not used in model development. Previously, we developed the ADFICE_IT models for predicting any fall and recurrent falls, referred as Any_fall and Recur_fall. In this study, we externally validated the models and compared their clinical value to a practical screening strategy where patients are screened for falls history alone.

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Purpose: Lumbar spinal fusion surgery (LSFS) is common for lumbar degenerative disorders. The objective was to develop clinical prediction rules to identify which patients are likely to have a favourable outcome to inform decisions regarding surgery and rehabilitation.

Methods: A prospective observational study recruited 600 (derivation) and 600 (internal validation) consecutive adult patients undergoing LSFS for degenerative lumbar disorder through the British Spine Registry.

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Although organic solvents have been associated with CNS toxicity, neurotoxicity testing is rarely a regulatory requirement. We propose a strategy to assess the potential neurotoxicity of organic solvents and predict solvent air concentrations that will not likely produce neurotoxicity in exposed individuals. The strategy integrated an in vitro neurotoxicity, an in vitro blood-brain barrier (BBB), and an in silico toxicokinetic (TK) model.

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Background: Preoperative assessment of the probability of pelvic lymph-node metastatic disease (pN1) is required to identify patients with prostate cancer (PCa) who are candidates for extended pelvic lymph-node dissection (ePLND).

Objective: To develop a novel intuitive prognostic nomogram for predicting pathological lymph-node (pN) status in contemporary patients with primary diagnosed localized PCa, using preoperative clinical and histopathological parameters, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positron emission tomography (PET).

Design, Setting, And Participants: In total, 700 eligible patients who underwent robot-assisted radical prostatectomy and ePLND were included in the model-building cohort.

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