Association Between Positive Airway Pressure Therapy and Healthcare Costs Among Older Adults with Comorbid Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Common Chronic Conditions: An Actuarial Analysis.

Study Objectives: To determine the association between adherence to positive airway pressure and healthcare costs among a national sample of older adults with comorbid OSA and common chronic conditions.

Methods: Our data source was a random sample of Medicare administrative claims for years 2016-2019. Inclusion criteria included age >65 years and new diagnosis of OSA.

Semi automatic quantification of REM sleep without atonia in natural sleep environment.

Polysomnography, the gold standard diagnostic tool in sleep medicine, is performed in an artificial environment. This might alter sleep and may not accurately reflect typical sleep patterns. While macro-structures are sensitive to environmental effects, micro-structures remain more stable.

Regional variations in hyperpolarized 129Xe lung MRI: Insights from CSI-CSSR and CSSR in healthy and irradiated rat models.

Purpose: To compare pulmonary function metrics obtained with hyperpolarized xenon-129 (HXe) MRS, using chemical shift saturation recovery (CSSR) and CSI-CSSR, in healthy rats and a rat model of radiation-induced lung injury.

Methods: HXe-MR data were acquired in two healthy rats and one rat with radiation-induced lung injury using whole-lung spectroscopy and CSI-CSSR techniques. The CSI-CSSR acquisitions were performed with both fixed TE and variable TE.

Artificial intelligence-driven automated lung sizing from chest radiographs.

Lung size measurements play an important role in transplantation, as optimal donor-recipient size matching is necessary to ensure the best possible outcome. Although several strategies for size matching are currently used, all have limitations, and none has proven superior. In this pilot study, we leveraged deep learning and computer vision to develop an automated system for generating standardized lung size measurements using portable chest radiographs to improve accuracy, reduce variability, and streamline donor/recipient matching.

Comparative evaluation of the web-based contiguous cartogram generation tool go-cart.io.

Area cartograms are map-based data visualizations in which the area of each map region is proportional to the data value it represents. Long utilized in print media, area cartograms have also become increasingly popular online, often accompanying news articles and blog posts. Despite their popularity, there is a dearth of cartogram generation tools accessible to non-technical users unfamiliar with Geographic Information Systems software.