Publications by authors named "M Loesche"

Article Synopsis
  • A study explored the development of a clinical decision rule (CDR) called the TICS-Rule, which aims to diagnose diverticulitis using ultrasound (US) instead of requiring CT scans.
  • The TICS-Rule integrates patient factors like heart rate, age, and US findings to effectively rule out diverticulitis, achieving a sensitivity increase to 100% for complicated cases.
  • Results showed that using the TICS-Rule can significantly reduce the number of CT scans and decrease the time patients spend in the emergency department.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human spaceflight has historically been managed by government agencies, such as in the NASA Twins Study, but new commercial spaceflight opportunities have opened spaceflight to a broader population. In 2021, the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission launched the first all-civilian crew to low Earth orbit, which included the youngest American astronaut (aged 29), new in-flight experimental technologies (handheld ultrasound imaging, smartwatch wearables and immune profiling), ocular alignment measurements and new protocols for in-depth, multi-omic molecular and cellular profiling. Here we report the primary findings from the 3-day spaceflight mission, which induced a broad range of physiological and stress responses, neurovestibular changes indexed by ocular misalignment, and altered neurocognitive functioning, some of which match those of long-term spaceflight, but almost all of which did not differ from baseline (pre-flight) after return to Earth.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Space travel has transformed in the past several years. Given the burgeoning market for space tourism, in-flight medical emergencies are likely to be expected. Ultrasound is one of the few diagnostic and therapeutic modalities available for astronauts in space.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The study aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in identifying small bowel obstruction (SBO) and to investigate the impact of clinician experience level and body mass index (BMI) on POCUS performance for diagnosing SBO in the Emergency Department.

Methods: We systematically searched PubMed and Cochrane databases from January 2011-2022. We performed a meta-analysis using individual patient-level data from prospective diagnostic accuracy studies from which we obtained data from the corresponding authors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (US) has been suggested as the primary imaging in evaluating patients with suspected diverticulitis. Discrimination between simple and complicated diverticulitis may help to expedite emergent surgical consults and determine the risk of complications. This study aimed to: (1) determine the accuracy of an US protocol (TICS) for diagnosing diverticulitis in the emergency department (ED) setting and (2) assess the ability of TICS to distinguish between simple and complicated diverticulitis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF