Does Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak in Pituitary Surgery Affect Patient Reported Quality of Life?

Background: Endoscopic techniques allow for improved visualization and tumor debulking of pituitary adenomas. More thorough tumor resection, however, can be associated with higher rates of CSF leaks. We set out to determine if CSF leaks influenced patient perceived quality of life outcomes.

Evaluating Perceptions of Head and Neck Surgeons on the Role of Single-Entry Models in Managing Surgical Waitlists in Ontario: A Qualitative Study.

Background: Long surgical wait times have long plagued health systems in Canada and abroad. This backlog and associated strain on health human resources has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting surgeries of varying degrees of urgency across all surgical specialties, including head and neck surgery. Single-entry models (SEMs) are being increasingly studied as one possible strategy to help manage surgical wait times, and a growing number of health systems have implemented SEMs within departments such as otolaryngology-head and neck surgery.

Reasonable Risk Ratio of Palate Surgery: A New Critical Analysis.

Objective.: A new critical complication risk analysis, the reasonable risk ratio (RRR or R) for palate surgeries in obstructive sleep apnea patients.

Methods.

Accounting for the Quantum Capacitance of Graphite in Constant Potential Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations at a constant electric potential are an essential tool to study electrochemical processes, providing microscopic information on the structural, thermodynamic, and dynamical properties. Despite the numerous advances in the simulation of electrodes, they fail to accurately represent the electronic structure of materials such as graphite. In this work, a simple parameterization method that allows to tune the metallicity of the electrode based on a quantum chemistry calculation of the density of states (DOS) is introduced.

Donnan equilibrium in charged slit-pores from a hybrid nonequilibrium molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo method with ions and solvent exchange.

Ion partitioning between different compartments (e.g., a porous material and a bulk solution reservoir), known as Donnan equilibrium, plays a fundamental role in various contexts such as energy, environment, or water treatment.

Assessing the safety and tolerability of rhinologic surgery under local anesthetic: an 8-year retrospective analysis.

Purpose: Office-based rhinologic procedures (OBRP) have become widely available in North America due to technological advances and appropriate patient selection. Nevertheless, the literature exploring the safety of these procedures remains limited. The objective of this study was to further evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of these procedures with a more robust sample size to allow for capture of rare events.

Data-Driven Path Collective Variables.

Identifying optimal collective variables to model transformations using atomic-scale simulations is a long-standing challenge. We propose a new method for the generation, optimization, and comparison of collective variables that can be thought of as a data-driven generalization of the path collective variable concept. It consists of a kernel ridge regression of the committor probability, which encodes a transformation's progress.

Clinical outcomes of expansion sphincter pharyngoplasty-a 17-year systematic review.

Objectives: To systematically review long-term (> 5 years) outcomes of ESP surgery for OSA treatment over 17 years.

Methods: Systemic review of MEDLINE, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library and Evidence Based Medicine Reviews to identify publications relevant to OSA and Expansion Pharyngoplasty and its variants. All relevant studies published between January 2007 and June 2023 were included.

On analytical theories for conductivity and self-diffusion in concentrated electrolytes.

Describing analytically the transport properties of electrolytes, such as their conductivity or the self-diffusion of the ions, has been a central challenge of chemical physics for almost a century. In recent years, this question has regained some interest in light of Stochastic Density Field Theory (SDFT) - an analytical framework that allows the approximate determination of density correlations in fluctuating systems. In spite of the success of this theory to describe dilute electrolytes, its extension to concentrated solutions raises a number of technical difficulties, and requires simplified descriptions of the short-range repulsion between the ions.

Grand-canonical molecular dynamics simulations powered by a hybrid 4D nonequilibrium MD/MC method: Implementation in LAMMPS and applications to electrolyte solutions.

Molecular simulations in an open environment, involving ion exchange, are necessary to study various systems, from biosystems to confined electrolytes. However, grand-canonical simulations are often computationally demanding in condensed phases. A promising method [L.

Reconsidering routine admission for children under age 3 undergoing partial tonsillectomy: a prospective study.

Background: Partial Tonsillectomy (PT) is an alternative method to treat sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and/or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The current guidelines do not differentiate it from traditional tonsillectomy. Thus, children younger than 3 years old undergoing PT are admitted for surveillance similar to traditional tonsillectomy due to possible postoperative complications.

Ionic fluctuations in finite volumes: fractional noise and hyperuniformity.

Observing finite regions of a bigger system is a common aim, from microscopy to molecular simulations. In the latter especially, there is ongoing interest in predicting thermodynamic properties from tracking fluctuations in finite observation volumes. However, kinetic properties have received little attention, especially not in ionic solutions, where electrostatic interactions play a decisive role.

Electrical noise in electrolytes: a theoretical perspective.

Seemingly unrelated experiments such as electrolyte transport through nanotubes, nano-scale electrochemistry, NMR relaxometry and surface force balance measurements, all probe electrical fluctuations: of the electric current, the charge and polarization, the field gradient (for quadrupolar nuclei) and the coupled mass/charge densities. The fluctuations of such various observables arise from the same underlying microscopic dynamics of the ions and solvent molecules. In principle, the relevant length and time scales of these dynamics are encoded in the dynamic structure factors.

Canadian multidisciplinary expert consensus on the use of biologics in upper airways: a Delphi study.

Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis (CRSwNP) often coexists with lower airway disease. With the overlap between upper and lower airway disease, optimal management of the upper airways is undertaken in conjunction with that of the lower airways. Biologic therapy with targeted activity within the Type 2 inflammatory pathway can improve the clinical signs and symptoms of both upper and lower airway diseases.

Frequency-Dependent Impedance of Nanocapacitors from Electrode Charge Fluctuations as a Probe of Electrolyte Dynamics.

The frequency-dependent impedance is a fundamental property of electrical components. We show that it can be determined from the equilibrium dynamical fluctuations of the electrode charge in constant-potential molecular simulations, extending in particular a fluctuation-dissipation relation for the capacitance recovered in the low-frequency limit and provide an illustration on water-gold nanocapacitors. This Letter opens the way to the interpretation of electrochemical impedance measurements in terms of microscopic mechanisms, directly from the dynamics of the electrolyte, or indirectly via equivalent circuit models as in experiments.

Frequency and field-dependent response of confined electrolytes from Brownian dynamics simulations.

Using Brownian dynamics simulations, we investigate the effects of confinement, adsorption on surfaces, and ion-ion interactions on the response of confined electrolyte solutions to oscillating electric fields in the direction perpendicular to the confining walls. Nonequilibrium simulations allows to characterize the transitions between linear and nonlinear regimes when varying the magnitude and frequency of the applied field, but the linear response, characterized by the frequency-dependent conductivity, is more efficiently predicted from the equilibrium current fluctuations. To that end, we (rederive and) use the Green-Kubo relation appropriate for overdamped dynamics, which differs from the standard one for Newtonian or underdamped Langevin dynamics.

Expansion sphincter pharyngoplasty in OSA: a 15 year review.

Objective: A 15 year review of the outcomes and success rates of the Expansion Sphincter Pharyngoplasty (ESP) in the treatment of patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Methods: A systemic review with two independent searches of MEDLINE, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library and Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews to identify publications relevant to OSA and Expansion Pharyngoplasty. All relevant studies published before 31 December 2021 were included.

Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic.

Purpose: Synchronous virtual care rapidly expanded worldwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic to provide remote medical assessment, minimizing contact and disease transmission risk. Despite its benefits, such an abrupt expansion has shed light on the need to address patients' level of satisfaction with this service delivery. The purpose of this study was to investigate patients' satisfaction, travel cost, productivity loss, and CO emissions involved with synchronous virtual care and in-person assessments in rhinology and sleep apnea clinics.