Publications by authors named "Saksham Gupta"

The discovery of oncogene addiction in cancer has led to the development of over a dozen FDA-approved biomarker-driven therapies in lung adenocarcinoma. Somatic mutations of the "Ras-like in all tissues" (RIT1) gene are non-canonical driver events in lung cancer, occurring in ~2% of lung adenocarcinomas in a mutually exclusive fashion with and mutations. Patients with -mutant lung cancer lack targeted therapy treatment options, and a lack of pre-clinical models has hindered the development of therapeutic strategies for -mutant lung cancer.

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Objective: Spinal meningioma (SM) is a pathology with an estimated incidence of nearly 1000 diagnoses per year in the United States and presents in 20% of patients with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). This multi-institutional retrospective cohort study aimed to assess clinical outcomes for patients with SM who underwent surgery between 1998 and 2020 with stratification by NF2 mutation status.

Methods: Medical records were reviewed retrospectively to collect data on patient demographics, clinical presentation, tumor characteristics, treatment, and outcomes.

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  • The study aimed to analyze the global neurosurgery training workforce, focusing on the types of training programs, trainee support, diversity of experiences, and accreditation processes.
  • Data were collected from 187 countries and 25 territories, revealing an estimated 1,261 training programs and over 10,500 trainees, with significant variations in density based on country income levels and WHO regions.
  • High-income countries had a much higher density of trainees (0.48 per 100,000 people) compared to lower-income countries, which faced challenges like limited subspecialty training and resources.
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  • The study aimed to assess the global distribution and growth of consultant neurosurgeons, especially in low- and middle-income countries, to understand the impact of efforts to expand access to neurosurgery worldwide.
  • A comprehensive electronic survey was conducted across 192 countries and 25 territories, revealing an estimated 72,967 neurosurgeons, with a global density of 0.93 per 100,000 people, and significant variation by income level.
  • Findings indicated that neurosurgeon density increases with national income level, highlighting the shortage in low-income areas, particularly in WHO African and Southeast Asia regions, while the Western Pacific region showed the highest density of neurosurgeons.
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Background: Appropriate surgical infrastructure is important for improving patient outcomes. However, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often struggle to provide adequate brain tumor surgery due to fractured infrastructure. This study aims to identify and evaluate barriers to surgical care infrastructure for brain tumors in LMICs.

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  • CPA meningiomas are challenging to treat due to their location near vital nerves and blood vessels, leading to potential postoperative complications and unpredictable recovery outcomes.
  • A study of 95 patients at Mass General Brigham found that common symptoms included hearing loss, ataxia, and headaches, with gross total resection achieved in 62.1% of cases, which was more likely with smaller tumors and when the internal auditory canal was drilled.
  • Post-surgery, most patients experienced stable or improved hearing, but 25.3% showed tumor progression or recurrence, with lower odds of progression linked to complete resection grades and older age.
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Global Neurosurgery has been described as the clinical and public health practice of neurosurgery with the primary purpose of ensuring timely, safe, and affordable neurosurgical care to all who need it. Global Neurosurgery activities in the form of mission trips, educational partnerships, and research collaborations have been in place for decades. Still, there have been no central organizing efforts to improve the harmonization of these endeavors until recently.

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Background: Adjuvant therapy is an important tool in the arsenal of brain tumor management and can improve patients' outcomes significantly but low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often face challenges in provision. Therefore, our study aims to highlight barriers and strategies to adjuvant therapy of brain tumors in low-resource settings.

Method: A comprehensive search of literature was conducted using PubMed, CINAHL, Google Scholar, and Scopus, from inception to October 20, 2022.

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Objective: While early diagnosis of brain tumors is essential for improving prognoses, several challenges prevent early diagnosis of these illnesses in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The objective of this systematic review is to identify and evaluate the barriers and challenges to early detection of brain tumors in LMICs, as well as to propose potential solutions.

Methods: A thorough search of the literature was carried out with the aid of multiple databases, including Google Scholar, CINAHL, PubMed, and Scopus.

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Background: Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often struggle to provide adequate neurosurgical care due to poor governance and institutional efforts, making access to care difficult. Therefore, our review of literature aims to identify gaps in government, national, and institutional efforts to combat barriers to neurosurgical care of brain tumors in LMICs, to inform future policy and action planning.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted using PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and CINAHL without language restrictions from inception to October 20, 2022.

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  • Health care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) struggles with inadequate data management and national cancer registries, hindering the understanding and treatment of brain tumors.
  • A literature review identified 23 studies revealing significant challenges such as poor hospital records (43%), absence of a national brain tumor registry (67%), and low research output (33%).
  • Strategies to improve data management include enhancing recording systems (45%), establishing a population-based brain tumor registry (64%), and creating local treatment guidelines (9%), requiring government and public health support for effective implementation.
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Background And Objectives: Brain tumors have a poor prognosis and a high death rate. Sufficient aftercare is necessary to enhance patient results. But follow-up care provision is fraught with difficulties in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where a variety of variables can impede access to care.

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Glioblastoma is the most common and lethal central nervous system malignancy with a median survival after progression of only 6-9 months. Major biochemical mechanisms implicated in glioblastoma recurrence include aberrant molecular pathways, a recurrence-inducing tumor microenvironment, and epigenetic modifications. Contemporary standard-of-care (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and tumor treating fields) helps to control the primary tumor but rarely prevents relapse.

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Limited neurosurgical workforces remain one of the critical problems experienced in low resource settings. Therefore, our study aims to explore and summarize the key challenges to neurosurgical care of brain tumors in terms of workforce in LMICs. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using Scopus, PubMed, CINAHL, and Google Scholar from inception to October 20, 2022.

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  • Nearly all neurosurgeons in the U.S. will face a malpractice claim before they retire, so this study looks at trends in those lawsuits to help them understand their risks.
  • Researchers checked databases for malpractice cases involving open brain surgery from 1987 to 2023, finding out details like how much money was awarded and what went wrong.
  • Out of 1,550 cases studied, they found 252 related to surgery, with the average payout being about $2.75 million, and many claims were due to complications during or after surgery.
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Background: Making neurosurgical care accessible to a larger portion of the population in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is integral due to the high mortality and morbidity associated with brain tumors. However, the high cost of care often makes it financially out of reach for many individuals. Therefore, this review aims to identify barriers to neurosurgical care of brain tumors in terms of financing in LMICs.

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Introduction: Brain tumors pose a major challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to limited resources and high costs, resulting in hampered service delivery of neurosurgical care and significant disparities in patient outcomes compared to high-income nations. Therefore, our systematic review aims to identify barriers to service delivery in providing adequate surgical care for the management of brain tumors in LMICs.

Methods: We searched Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, and CINAHL, from inception to October 20, 2022.

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Background: Although prior work demonstrated the surprising accuracy of Large Language Models (LLMs) on neurosurgery board-style questions, their use in day-to-day clinical situations warrants further investigation. This study assessed GPT-4.0's responses to common clinical questions across various subspecialties of neurosurgery.

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Importance: Image guidance is an important adjunct for endoscopic sinus and skull base surgery. However, current systems require bulky external tracking equipment, and their use can interrupt efficient surgical workflow.

Objective: To evaluate a trackerless surgical navigation system using 3-dimensional (3D) endoscopy and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms in the anterior skull base.

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Purpose: Pituitary adenomas are the most common tumor of the pituitary gland and comprise nearly 15% of all intracranial masses. These tumors are stratified into functional or silent categories based on their pattern of hormone expression and secretion. Preliminary evidence supports differential clinical outcomes between some functional pituitary adenoma (FPA) subtypes and silent pituitary adenoma (SPA) subtypes.

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The World Health Organization's Intersectoral Global Action Plan (IGAP) on Epilepsy and Other Neurological Diseases 2022-2031 is a holistic, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral plan with a strong focus on equity and human rights. The IGAP was unanimously approved by all World Health Organization Member States at the 75th World Health Assembly in May 2022 and provides a framework for researchers and clinicians to study and address national and global inadequacies in the evaluation and management of people suffering from neurological disorders and their prevention. While IGAP has applied epilepsy as an entry point for other neurological disorders, advocacy by neurologists and neurosurgeons has broadened it to include diseases with a large and growing global health footprint such as stroke, hydrocephalus, traumatic brain injury, and brain and spine cancers.

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  • Giant aneurysms in pediatric patients are rare but can lead to serious neurological issues; this study aimed to analyze the clinical outcomes of such cases.
  • The research involved a cohort study of 103 patients from multiple institutions and revealed that most aneurysms were located in the middle cerebral artery and that ruptures were more common in the posterior circulation.
  • Treatment often occurred (97%), with a noted mortality rate of 3% for unruptured aneurysms and 18% for ruptured ones; favorable neurological outcomes were linked to unruptured aneurysms and endovascular treatment.
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Background And Objectives: As of January 1, 2021, all US hospitals are required by the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule (HPTFR) to publish standard charges for all items and services, yet the state of price transparency for cervical spinal fusion is unknown. Here, we assess the nationwide price transparency landscape for cervical spinal fusion among high-performing spine centers in the United States.

Methods: In this cross-sectional economic evaluation, we queried publicly available price transparency websites of 332 "high-performing" spine centers, as defined by the US News and World Report.

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