Imaging of pediatric gastrointestinal tumors: A tertiary center experience over 19 years.

Purpose: Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) tumors in children are rare and there is a scarcity of data on their imaging features. The purpose of this study was to determine thefrequency of various GIT tumor types in children and to identify key imaging characteristics.

Methods: This retrospective, single-center study was approved by the local ethics committee.

Fatal Pediatric Streptococcal Infection: A Clinico-Pathological Study.

Purpose And Context: Streptococcal Infection (SI) is an important cause of pediatric death in children, yet limited reports exist on autopsy findings in fatal SI cases.

Method: Case records (1997-2019) of SI with no pre-existing risk factors were reviewed and selected. Their clinical and pathological findings in the autopsy reports were analyzed.

Paediatric dilated cardiomyopathy with and without endocardial fibroelastosis - a pathological analysis of 89 explants.

Heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy is a major indication for paediatric cardiac transplantation. Endocardial fibroelastosis is a recognised pathological finding of unknown prognostic significance in paediatric dilated cardiomyopathy. To evaluate the nature of the association between left ventricular endocardial fibroelastosis and paediatric dilated cardiomyopathy, we reviewed surgical pathology reports of dilated cardiomyopathy explants (1986-2016) in order to characterise the pathological findings and to compare and contrast their frequency among four age groups: less than 1 year; 1-5 years; 6-10 years; and greater than 11 years.

Cardiopulmonary Effects of Fine Particulate Matter Exposure among Older Adults, during Wildfire and Non-Wildfire Periods, in the United States 2008-2010.

Background: The effects of exposure to fine particulate matter ([Formula: see text]) during wildland fires are not well understood in comparison with [Formula: see text] exposures from other sources.

Objectives: We examined the cardiopulmonary effects of short-term exposure to [Formula: see text] on smoke days in the United States to evaluate whether health effects are consistent with those during non-smoke days.

Methods: We examined cardiopulmonary hospitalizations among adults [Formula: see text] y of age, in U.

Temporal Trends in Exposures to Six Phthalates from Biomonitoring Data: Implications for Cumulative Risk.

Phthalates are used in a wide range of consumer goods, resulting in exposures to specific phthalates that vary over time in accordance with changes in product use and how phthalates are utilized. We investigated trends in estimates of daily intake dose and several cumulative risk metrics, including the Hazard Quotient (HQ), Hazard Index (HI), and Maximum Cumulative Ratio (MCR) for six phthalates from 2005 to 2014 using metabolite biomonitoring data collected from spot urine samples under the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Over this period, there was a 2.

Sudden Unexpected Death in Neonates: A Clinico-pathological Study.

Clinico-pathological studies that focus on sudden unexpected death (SUD) in the neonatal period are rare. The objective of this study was to elucidate the frequency and pathological spectrum of anatomical causes of death (CODs), found in the setting of sudden unexpected death in neonates (SUD-N), and to correlate the COD with premortem circumstantial information. We conducted a detailed review of all autopsy reports on SUD-N cases at our institution from 1997 to 2015.

Predicting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using a mass fraction approach in a geostatistical framework across North Carolina.

Currently in the United States there are no regulatory standards for ambient concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a class of organic compounds with known carcinogenic species. As such, monitoring data are not routinely collected resulting in limited exposure mapping and epidemiologic studies. This work develops the log-mass fraction (LMF) Bayesian maximum entropy (BME) geostatistical prediction method used to predict the concentration of nine particle-bound PAHs across the US state of North Carolina.

An analysis of cumulative risks based on biomonitoring data for six phthalates using the Maximum Cumulative Ratio.

The Maximum Cumulative Ratio (MCR) quantifies the degree to which a single chemical drives the cumulative risk of an individual exposed to multiple chemicals. Phthalates are a class of chemicals with ubiquitous exposures in the general population that have the potential to cause adverse health effects in humans. This work used the MCR to evaluate coexposures to six phthalates as measured in biomonitoring data from the most recent cycle (2013-2014) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Regionalized PM2.5 Community Multiscale Air Quality model performance evaluation across a continuous spatiotemporal domain.

The regulatory Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model is a means to understanding the sources, concentrations and regulatory attainment of air pollutants within a model's domain. Substantial resources are allocated to the evaluation of model performance. The Regionalized Air quality Model Performance (RAMP) method introduced here explores novel ways of visualizing and evaluating CMAQ model performance and errors for daily Particulate Matter ≤ 2.

Community Vulnerability to Health Impacts of Wildland Fire Smoke Exposure.

Identifying communities vulnerable to adverse health effects from exposure to wildfire smoke may help prepare responses, increase the resilience to smoke and improve public health outcomes during smoke days. We developed a Community Health-Vulnerability Index (CHVI) based on factors known to increase the risks of health effects from air pollution and wildfire smoke exposures. These factors included county prevalence rates for asthma in children and adults, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, percent of population 65 years of age and older, and indicators of socioeconomic status including poverty, education, income and unemployment.

The Association between Dust Storms and Daily Non-Accidental Mortality in the United States, 1993-2005.

Background: The impact of dust storms on human health has been studied in the context of Asian, Saharan, Arabian, and Australian storms, but there has been no recent population-level epidemiological research on the dust storms in North America. The relevance of dust storms to public health is likely to increase as extreme weather events are predicted to become more frequent with anticipated changes in climate through the 21st century.

Objectives: We examined the association between dust storms and county-level non-accidental mortality in the United States from 1993 through 2005.

A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study Reveals Local Brain Structural Alterations Associated with Ambient Fine Particles in Older Women.

Exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM: PM with aerodynamic diameters < 2.5 μm) has been linked with cognitive deficits in older adults. Using fine-grained voxel-wise analyses, we examined whether PM exposure also affects brain structure.

Bayesian Maximum Entropy Integration of Ozone Observations and Model Predictions: A National Application.

To improve ozone exposure estimates for ambient concentrations at a national scale, we introduce our novel Regionalized Air Quality Model Performance (RAMP) approach to integrate chemical transport model (CTM) predictions with the available ozone observations using the Bayesian Maximum Entropy (BME) framework. The framework models the nonlinear and nonhomoscedastic relation between air pollution observations and CTM predictions and for the first time accounts for variability in CTM model performance. A validation analysis using only noncollocated data outside of a validation radius rv was performed and the R(2) between observations and re-estimated values for two daily metrics, the daily maximum 8-h average (DM8A) and the daily 24-h average (D24A) ozone concentrations, were obtained with the OBS scenario using ozone observations only in contrast with the RAMP and a Constant Air Quality Model Performance (CAMP) scenarios.

An LUR/BME framework to estimate PM2.5 explained by on road mobile and stationary sources.

Knowledge of particulate matter concentrations <2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5) across the United States is limited due to sparse monitoring across space and time.

Value of postmortem thoracic CT over radiography in imaging of pediatric rib fractures.

Background: Studies have reported that thoracic CT may provide greater sensitivity compared with radiography in detection of pediatric rib fractures and fracture healing. The additional sensitivity afforded by thoracic CT may have medicolegal implications where abuse is suspected.

Objective: To determine the additional value of postmortem thoracic CT compared with radiography in detecting pediatric rib fractures, and fracture healing, using autopsy findings as a gold standard.