GEN-RWD Sandbox: bridging the gap between hospital data privacy and external research insights with distributed analytics.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a pivotal tool in advancing contemporary personalised medicine, with the goal of tailoring treatments to individual patient conditions. This has heightened the demand for access to diverse data from clinical practice and daily life for research, posing challenges due to the sensitive nature of medical information, including genetics and health conditions. Regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.

European intersocietal recommendations for the biomarker-based diagnosis of neurocognitive disorders.

The recent commercialisation of the first disease-modifying drugs for Alzheimer's disease emphasises the need for consensus recommendations on the rational use of biomarkers to diagnose people with suspected neurocognitive disorders in memory clinics. Most available recommendations and guidelines are either disease-centred or biomarker-centred. A European multidisciplinary taskforce consisting of 22 experts from 11 European scientific societies set out to define the first patient-centred diagnostic workflow that aims to prioritise testing for available biomarkers in individuals attending memory clinics.

Diagnostic performance of molecular imaging methods in predicting the progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia: an updated systematic review.

Purpose: Epidemiological and logistical reasons are slowing the clinical validation of the molecular imaging biomarkers in the initial stages of neurocognitive disorders. We provide an updated systematic review of the recent advances (2017-2022), highlighting methodological shortcomings.

Methods: Studies reporting the diagnostic accuracy values of the molecular imaging techniques (i.

Psychobiological effects of an eHealth psychoeducational intervention to informal caregivers of persons with dementia: a pilot study during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

Background: The workload associated with caring for a person with dementia (PwD) could negatively affect informal caregivers' physical and mental health. According to the recent literature, there is a need for studies testing the implementation of affordable and accessible interventions for improving caregivers' well-being.

Aims: This study aimed to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of an 8 week eHealth psychoeducation intervention held during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy in reducing the psychological burden and neuroendocrine markers of stress in caregivers of PwD.

The new therapy for Alzheimer's disease: from a hope for a few to a false hope?

Since the late ninety, research on Alzheimer's disease has been focused on the search of drugs able to modify the disease course. Patients and caregivers waiting for news on this topic, received enthusiastically the advice of the approval of Aducanumab-anti-amyloid β monoclonal antibody-by the FDA, and that of its rejection by the EMA with even greater disappointment. To estimate the number of patients that we would be able to treat-hypothesizing a possible future approval by EMA- in the memory clinic of the IRCCS S.

What Role Can Process Mining Play in Recurrent Clinical Guidelines Issues? A Position Paper.

In the age of Evidence-Based Medicine, Clinical Guidelines (CGs) are recognized to be an indispensable tool to support physicians in their daily clinical practice. Medical Informatics is expected to play a relevant role in facilitating diffusion and adoption of CGs. However, the past pioneering approaches, often fragmented in many disciplines, did not lead to solutions that are actually exploited in hospitals.

Age at onset reveals different functional connectivity abnormalities in prodromal Alzheimer's disease.

Age at symptom onset (AAO) underlies different Alzheimer's disease (AD) clinical variants: late-onset AD (LOAD) is characterized by memory deficits, while early-onset AD (EOAD) presents predominantly with non-memory symptoms. The involvement of different neural networks may explain these distinct clinical phenotypes. In this study, we tested the hypothesis of an early and selective involvement of neural networks based on AAO in AD.

Clinical utility of FDG PET in Parkinson's disease and atypical parkinsonism associated with dementia.

Purpose: There are no comprehensive guidelines for the use of FDG PET in the following three clinical scenarios: (1) diagnostic work-up of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) at risk of future cognitive decline, (2) discriminating idiopathic PD from progressive supranuclear palsy, and (3) identifying the underlying neuropathology in corticobasal syndrome.

Methods: We therefore performed three literature searches and evaluated the selected studies for quality of design, risk of bias, inconsistency, imprecision, indirectness and effect size. Critical outcomes were the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive/negative predictive value, area under the receiving operating characteristic curve, and positive/negative likelihood ratio of FDG PET in detecting the target condition.

Diagnostic utility of 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) in asymptomatic subjects at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Purpose: To assess the clinical utility of 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) for detection of early signs of neurodegeneration in conditions of increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) as defined by: subjective cognitive decline (SCD), evidence of cerebral amyloid-pathology, apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4-positive genotype, or autosomal dominant forms of AD (ADAD) in asymptomatic stages.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted using the PICO model to extract evidence from relevant studies. An expert panel then voted using the Delphi method on three different diagnostic scenarios.

Diagnostic utility of FDG-PET in the differential diagnosis between different forms of primary progressive aphasia.

Purpose: A joint effort of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) aims at clinical guidance for the use of FDG-PET in neurodegenerative diseases. This paper addresses the diagnostic utility of FDG-PET over clinical/neuropsychological assessment in the differentiation of the three forms of primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

Methods: Seven panelists were appointed by the EANM and EAN and a literature search was performed by using harmonized PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) question keywords.

Clinical utility of FDG-PET for the differential diagnosis among the main forms of dementia.

Aim: To assess the clinical utility of FDG-PET as a diagnostic aid for differentiating Alzheimer's disease (AD; both typical and atypical forms), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), vascular dementia (VaD) and non-degenerative pseudodementia.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted using the PICO model to extract evidence from relevant studies. An expert panel then voted on six different diagnostic scenarios using the Delphi method.

Automated assessment of FDG-PET for differential diagnosis in patients with neurodegenerative disorders.

Purpose: To review literature until November 2015 and reach a consensus on whether automatic semi-quantification of brain FDG-PET is useful in the clinical setting for neurodegenerative disorders.

Methods: A literature search was conducted in Medline, Embase, and Google Scholar. Papers were selected with a lower limit of 30 patients (no limits with autopsy confirmation).

Clinical utility of FDG-PET in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Huntington's disease.

Aim: To evaluate the incremental value of FDG-PET over clinical tests in: (i) diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); (ii) picking early signs of neurodegeneration in patients with a genetic risk of Huntington's disease (HD); and detecting metabolic changes related to cognitive impairment in (iii) ALS and (iv) HD patients.

Methods: Four comprehensive literature searches were conducted using the PICO model to extract evidence from relevant studies. An expert panel then voted using the Delphi method on these four diagnostic scenarios.

Assessing FDG-PET diagnostic accuracy studies to develop recommendations for clinical use in dementia.

Background: FDG-PET is frequently used as a marker of synaptic damage to diagnose dementing neurodegenerative disorders. We aimed to adapt the items of evidence quality to FDG-PET diagnostic studies, and assess the evidence available in current literature to assist Delphi decisions for European recommendations for clinical use.

Methods: Based on acknowledged methodological guidance, we defined the domains, specific to FDG-PET, required to assess the quality of evidence in 21 literature searches addressing as many Population Intervention Comparison Outcome (PICO) questions.

Clinical utility of FDG-PET for the clinical diagnosis in MCI.

Purpose: We aim to report the quality of accuracy studies investigating the utility of [F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET in supporting the diagnosis of prodromal Alzheimer's Disease (AD), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and prodromal dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects, and the corresponding recommendations made by a panel of experts.

Methods: Seven panellist, four from the European Association of Nuclear Medicine, and three from the European Academy of Neurology, produced recommendations taking into consideration the incremental value of FDG-PET, as added on clinical-neuropsychological examination, to ascertain the aetiology of MCI (AD, FTLD or DLB). A literature search using harmonized population, intervention, comparison, and outcome (PICO) strings was performed, and an evidence assessment consistent with the European Federation of Neurological Societies guidance was provided.

Living environment and mobility of older adults.

Background: Older adults often elect to move into smaller living environments. Smaller living space and the addition of services provided by a retirement community (RC) may make living easier for the individual, but it may also reduce the amount of daily physical activity and ultimately reduce functional ability.

Objective: With home size as an independent variable, the primary purpose of this study was to evaluate daily physical activity and physical function of community dwellers (CD; n = 31) as compared to residents of an RC (n = 30).

[A sign of the changing times: neonatal scabies].

Scabies is an itchy-parasitic cutaneous infection; it can spread from person to person directly or through clothing, sheets or mattresses. The incidence had fallen a lot during the last ten years, but recently it is growing up again; this is due to immigration of people coming from countries where local hygienic and social conditions are very poor. In this contest it is more frequent to observe the infection in pediatric age, sometimes also newborn.

[Linear IgA bullous dermatosis: the importance of a correct differential diagnosis].

Linear IgA bullous dermatosis is an acquired subepidermal blistering disease which belongs to bullous autoimmune diseases, along with dermatitis herpetiformis and bullous pemphigoid. Inflammatory blisters are the main clinical characteristics and the areas of common involvement are: perioral region, abdomen, perineum, buttocks and the interior side of thighs. Essential for the diagnosis is to find by direct immunofluorescence the presence of a linear band of IgA antibodies at the level of the basement membrane.

Homocysteine and disability in hospitalized geriatric patients.

Elevated total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations have been found to be associated with cardiovascular disease and dementia in old age. The present study was performed to identify the prevalence of hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) and to analyze the association between tHcy concentration and sociodemographic characteristics, nutritional parameters, and cognitive and functional status in this sample of hospitalized geriatric patients. A total of 214 patients (77% females) 65+ years old admitted into an acute care geriatric ward of an internal medical department in the Northern Italy were studied.