Publications by authors named "Martin O'Halloran"

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare cancer with poor prognosis, treated primarily through surgery and chemotherapy. Other treatments like radiation or thermal ablation for metastases have limited success, and recurrence is common. More effective management options are needed.

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Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignancy of the adrenal cortex that is associated with a poor prognosis. Developing effective treatment options for ACC is challenging owing to the current lack of representative preclinical models. This study addressed this limitation by developing and characterizing 3-dimensional (3D) cell cultures incorporating the ACC cell lines, MUC-1, HAC15, and H295R in a type I collagen matrix.

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Purpose: An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a dilation of the aorta over its normal diameter (> 3 cm). The minimally invasive treatment adopted uses a stent graft to be deployed into the aneurysm by a catheter to flow blood through it. However, this approach demands frequent monitoring using imaging modalities that involve radiation and contrast agents.

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Adrenal gland-induced hypertension results from underlying adrenal gland disorders including Conn's syndrome, Cushing's syndrome, and Pheochromocytoma. These adrenal disorders are a risk for cardiovascular and renal morbidity and mortality. Clinically, treatment for adrenal gland-induced hypertension involves a pharmaceutical or surgical approach.

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Over the past two decades, there has been extensive research into surveillance methods for the post-endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms, highlighting the importance of these technologies in supplementing or even replacing conventional image-screening modalities. This review aims to provide an overview of the current status of alternative surveillance solutions for endovascular aneurysm repair, while also identifying potential aneurysm features that could be used to develop novel monitoring technologies. It offers a comprehensive review of these recent clinical advances, comparing new and standard clinical practices.

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Birth asphyxia is a potential cause of death that is also associated with acute and chronic morbidities. The traditional and immediate approach for monitoring birth asphyxia (i.e.

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Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a dilation of the aorta artery larger than its normal diameter (>3 cm). Endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) is a minimally invasive treatment option that involves the placement of a graft in the aneurysmal portion of the aorta artery. This treatment requires multiple follow-ups with medical imaging, which is expensive, time-consuming, and resource-demanding for healthcare systems.

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Microwave thermal ablation is an established therapeutic technique for treating malignant tissue in various organs. Its success greatly depends on the knowledge of dielectric properties of the targeted tissue and on how they change during the treatment. Innovation in lung navigation has recently increased the clinical interest in the transbronchial microwave ablation treatment of lung cancer.

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Intrapartum fetal hypoxia is related to long-term morbidity and mortality of the fetus and the mother. Fetal surveillance is extremely important to minimize the adverse outcomes arising from fetal hypoxia during labour. Several methods have been used in current clinical practice to monitor fetal well-being.

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Cardiac catheter ablation (CCA) is a common method used to correct cardiac arrhythmia. Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) is a recently-adapted CCA technology whose ablation is dependent on electrode and waveform parameters (factors). In this work, the use of the Design of Experiments (DoE) methodology is investigated for the design and optimization of a PFA device.

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Asphyxia, a leading cause of illness and death in newborns, can be improved by early detection and management. Arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis is commonly used to diagnose and manage asphyxia, but it is invasive and carries risks. Dermal interstitial fluid (ISF) is an alternative physiological fluid that can provide valuable information about a person's health.

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Atrial fibrillation is the most common type of cardiac arrhythmias in humans, mostly caused by hyper excitation of specific areas in the atrium resulting in dyssynchronous atrial contractions, leading to severe consequences such as heart failure and stroke. Current therapeutics aim to target this condition through both pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches. To test and validate any of these treatments, an appropriate preclinical model must be carefully chosen to refine and optimise the therapy features to correctly reverse this condition.

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Microwave thermal ablation is a promising emerging treatment for early-stage lung cancer. Applicator design optimisation and treatment planning rely on accurate knowledge of dielectric tissue properties. Limited dielectric data are available in the literature for human lung tissue and pulmonary tumours.

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Objectives: To develop and assess a system for shared ventilation using clinically available components to individualize tidal volumes.

Design: Evaluation and in vitro validation study SETTING: Ventilator shortage during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Participants: The team consisted of physicians, bioengineers, computer programmers, and medical technology professionals.

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Primary aldosteronism is the most common cause of secondary hypertension. The first-line treatment adrenalectomy resects adrenal nodules and adjacent normal tissue, limiting suitability to those who present with unilateral disease. Use of thermal ablation represents an emerging approach as a possible minimally invasive therapy for unilateral and bilateral disease, to target and disrupt hypersecreting aldosterone-producing adenomas, while preserving adjacent normal adrenal cortex.

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Background And Objectives: Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) ablation has been proposed as a non-thermal energy to treat atrial fibrillation (AF) by epicardial ablation of ganglionated plexi (GP), which are embedded within epicardial fat. Our objective was to study the distribution of the electric field through the involved tissues (fat, GPs, myocardium and blood) during epicardial PEF ablation.

Methods: A two-dimensional model was built considering different tissue layers below the ablation device which consists of an irrigated electrode.

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Recent studies have shown that ablation techniques have the potential to eradicate adrenal adenomas while preserving the functionalities of the adrenal gland and the surrounding anatomical structures. This study explores a new microwave ablation (MWA) approach operating at 5.8 GHz and using anatomical and dielectric characteristics of the target tissue to create directional heating patterns.

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The Covid-19 global pandemic has reshaped the requirements of healthcare sectors worldwide. Following the exposure risks associated with Covid-19, this paper aims to design, optimise, and validate a wearable medical device that reduces the risk of transmission of contagious droplets from infected patients in a hospital setting. This study specifically focuses on those receiving high-flow nasal oxygen therapy.

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The electrical properties of many biological tissues are freely available from the INRC and the IT'IS databases. However, particularly in lower frequency ranges, few studies have investigated the optimal measurement protocol or the key confounders that need to be controlled, monitored, and reported. However, preliminary work suggests that the contact force of the measurement probe on the tissue sample can affect the measurements.

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Purpose: To assess the feasibility of delivering microwave ablation for targeted treatment of aldosterone producing adenomas using image-based computational models.

Methods: We curated an anonymized dataset of diagnostic C-metomidate PET/CT images of 14 patients with aldosterone producing adenomas (APA). A semi-automated approach was developed to segment the APA, adrenal gland, and adjacent organs within 2 cm of the APA boundary.

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Background And Objectives: Adrenocortical neoplasms are the main causes of secondary hypertension and related comorbidities including hypokalemia and cardiovascular diseases. Conventional techniques for the management of this condition are often invasive and not resolutive. Recent studies proposed microwave thermal ablation (MWA) to eradicate adrenocortical adenomas arising in proximity to sensitive structures.

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Cardiac ablation with irreversible electroporation (IRE) is quickly being established as a modality of choice for atrial fibrillation treatment. While it has not yet been optimised, IRE has the potential to significantly limit collateral damage and improve cell-specific targeting associated with other energy sources. However, more tissue and cell-specific evidence is required to demonstrate the selective threshold parameters for human cells.

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Background: Irreversible electroporation has emerged as a new modality to overcome issues associated with other energy sources for cardiac ablation. Strong evidence on the optimal, effective, and selective voltage threshold is lacking for both in vitro and preclinical in vivo studies. The aim of this study is to examine the optimal threshold for selective cell ablation on cardiac associated cell types.

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Background: Postoperative surgical adhesions constitute a major health burden internationally. A wide range of materials have been evaluated, but despite constructive efforts and the obvious necessity, there remains no specific barrier widely utilized to prevent postoperative adhesion formation. The aim of this study was to highlight and characterize materials used for prevention of postoperative surgical adhesions in both animal and human studies.

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Background And Objectives: Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) ablation has been proposed as a non-thermal energy to treat atrial fibrillation (AF) by ablation of ganglionated plexi using the epicardial approach. The electric field distribution at the target site (heart) and its surroundings has not yet been assessed previously, using epicardial ablation technique. Our objective was to develop computational models, incorporating the real anatomy of the heart and the patient's torso, to assess the electric field distribution when applying epicardial monopolar PEF.

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