A Pilot Study of Simulation-Free Hippocampal-Avoidance Whole Brain Radiation Therapy Using Diagnostic MRI-Based and Online Adaptive Planning.

Purpose: We aimed to demonstrate the clinical feasibility and safety of simulation-free hippocampal avoidance whole brain radiation therapy (HA-WBRT) in a pilot study (National Clinical Trial 05096286).

Methods And Materials: Ten HA-WBRT candidates were enrolled for treatment on a commercially available computed tomography (CT)-guided linear accelerator with online adaptive capabilities. Planning structures were contoured on patient-specific diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which were registered to a CT of similar head shape, obtained from an atlas-based database (AB-CT).

CT-based online adaptive radiotherapy improves target coverage and organ at risk (OAR) avoidance in stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for prostate cancer.

Introduction: Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is an emerging treatment modality for clinically localized prostate cancer (PCa). Online daily adaptive radiotherapy (ART) could potentially improve the therapeutic ratio of prostate SBRT by accounting for inter-fraction variation in target and OAR volumes. To our knowledge, no group has evaluated the clinical utility of a novel AI-augmented CT-based ART system for prostate SBRT.

Does Chemo-Radiotherapy Improve Survival Outcomes vs. Radiotherapy Alone for High-Grade cT1 Urothelial Carcinoma of the Bladder?

Background: Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (non-MIBC) that is high-grade and confined to the lamina propria (HGT1) often has an aggressive clinical course. Currently, there is limited data on the comparative effectiveness of RT vs. CRT for HGT1 non-MIBC.

"The Graves Cannot Be Dug Fast Enough": Excess Deaths Among US Amish and Mennonites During the 1918 Flu Pandemic.

Estimating the lethal impact of a pandemic on a religious community with significant barriers to outsiders can be exceedingly difficult. Nevertheless, Stein and colleagues (2021) developed an innovative means of arriving at such an estimate for the lethal impact of COVID-19 on the Amish community in 2020 by counting user-generated death reports in the widely circulated Amish periodical The Budget. By comparing monthly averages of reported deaths before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Stein and colleagues were able to arrive at a rough estimate of "excess deaths" during the first year of the pandemic.

Pharmacist involvement in blood culture follow up for patients discharged from the emergency department.

Study Objective: This study evaluates the time to attempted patient contact for positive blood cultures in patients discharged from the Emergency Department (ED) resulting when an Emergency Medicine (EM) pharmacist is on-duty compared to off-duty.

Methods: This single center, retrospective study included patients who were discharged from the ED and had subsequent positive blood cultures. Blood cultures were reviewed utilizing an algorithm previously approved and implemented by an interdisciplinary team in 2016.