Publications by authors named "Wiest G"

Article Synopsis
  • Medicare enrollment is increasing, but reimbursement rates for interventional pain procedures have dropped significantly, with a 3.63% average annual decrease from 2014-2023.
  • A study analyzed Medicare reimbursement trends for interventional pain procedures compared to evaluation and management services, revealing a larger decrease in procedural reimbursements.
  • While states like Illinois and Wyoming faced the steepest declines in reimbursements, others like Puerto Rico and Massachusetts showed smaller decreases, with no substantial regional differences noted.
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Article Synopsis
  • Biallelic SUFU variants are linked to severe conditions like Joubert syndrome, while heterozygous truncating variants are associated with milder issues such as developmental delay and ocular motor apraxia, though limited cases have been studied. !* -
  • The study examined nine individuals across three families with truncating SUFU variants, detailing their neuroimaging and developmental assessments to explore the phenotypic expression of these variants. !* -
  • Findings revealed a wide range of symptoms including motor developmental delays and subtle neuroimaging abnormalities, indicating that SUFU haploinsufficiency presents with varying severity, even among family members. !*
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Downbeat nystagmus (DBN) is the most common form of acquired central vestibular nystagmus. Gravity perception in patients with DBN has previously been investigated by means of subjective visual straight ahead (SVA) and subjective visual vertical (SVV) in the pitch and roll planes only during whole-body tilts. To our knowledge, the effect of head tilt in the roll plane on the SVV and on DBN has not yet been systematically studied in patients.

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Background: Although benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is the most common cause of vertigo in clinical practice, factors influencing the pathophysiology remain not fully understood.

Objective: Here we aim to investigate possible seasonal influences on the occurrence of BPPV in Vienna, a city located in a Central European country with pronounced seasonal fluctuations.

Methods: We retrospectively investigated data from 503 patients presenting with BPPV to the outpatient clinics of the Medical University of Vienna between 2007 and 2012.

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Article Synopsis
  • Surgical replacement of the aortic root is crucial for preventing life-threatening complications in Marfan syndrome (MFS), but sleep apnea is also a common concern in these patients and may heighten cardiovascular death risk.
  • In a study of 105 MFS individuals, 21% were found to have sleep apnea, and after nearly 8 years of follow-up, 10% had died, with sleep apnea being a significant independent risk factor for cardiovascular death.
  • Researchers suggest routine sleep apnea screening for all MFS patients and recommend further studies to explore preventive strategies for those with both conditions to improve cardiovascular outcomes.
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Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo of the horizontal semicircular canal may present a differential diagnostic challenge. In addition to the classical positional nystagmus, a persistent nystagmus in a seated position occasionally occurs, so-called pseudo-spontaneous nystagmus (PSN), which can be mistaken for a central or peripheral spontaneous nystagmus. We report a case with cupulolithiasis of the horizontal semicircular canal presenting with horizontal PSN in a sitting position, with implications for a new pathomechanism of PSN.

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Students' use of working memory (WM) is a key to academic success, as many subject areas and various tasks school-aged children encounter require the ability to attend to, work with, and recall information. Children with poor WM ability typically struggle with academic work compared to similar-aged peers without WM deficits. Further, WM has been shown to be significantly correlated with inattention and disorganization in those with ADHD, and WM deficits have also been identified as a potential underpinning of specific learning disorder (SLD).

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Objective: Anti-IgLON5 disease forms an interface between neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration and includes clinical phenotypes that are often similar to those of neurodegenerative diseases. An early diagnosis of patients with anti-IgLON5 disease and differentiation from neurodegenerative diseases is necessary and may have therapeutic implications.

Methods: In our small sample size study we investigated oculomotor function as a differentiating factor between anti-IgLON5 disease and neurodegenerative disorders.

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Background: Several strategies have been investigated to improve the 4% survival advantage of adjuvant chemotherapy in early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In this investigator-initiated study we aimed to evaluate the predictive utility of the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression levels of excision repair cross complementation group 1 (ERCC1) and thymidylate synthase (TS) as assessed in resected tumor.

Patients And Methods: Seven hundred and seventy-three completely resected stage II-III NSCLC patients were enrolled and randomly assigned in each of the four genomic subgroups to investigator's choice of platinum-based chemotherapy (C, n = 389) or tailored chemotherapy (T, n = 384).

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Background: Chemotherapy plus immune-checkpoint inhibitor (CTx+ICI) therapy has become the preferred 1st line treatment in patients with metastatic NSCLC without oncogenic driven mutations. However, the optimal subsequent 2nd line treatment is not defined and several alternatives exist. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the efficacy of 2nd line docetaxel plus ramucirumab (D+R) initiated after failure of 1st line CTx+ICI.

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Purely torsional spontaneous nystagmus almost always has a central vestibular cause. We describe a man with spontaneous pulse-synchronous torsional nystagmus in which the clockwise component corresponded to his pulse upswing, in keeping with a peripheral vestibular cause; following imaging we diagnosed left-sided superior canal dehiscence syndrome. Identifying pulse synchronicity of spontaneous nystagmus may help to distinguish central from peripheral vestibular torsional nystagmus, and is readily confirmed at the bedside using Frenzel's glasses and a pulse oximeter.

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Background: Antiangiogenic agents have been shown to stimulate the immune system and cause synergistic effects with chemotherapy. Effects might be even stronger after immune-checkpoint-inhibitor (ICI) therapy. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the efficacy of ramucirumab plus docetaxel (R + D) as third-line treatment after failure of a first-line platinum-based chemotherapy and a second-line ICI treatment in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) stage IV.

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Vestibular disorders are among the most common syndromes in medicine. In recent years, new vestibular diagnostic systems have been introduced that allow the examination of all semicircular canals in the clinical setting. Assessment methods of the otolithic system, which is responsible for the perception of linear acceleration and perception of gravity, are far less in clinical use.

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Anecdotal oculomotor disturbances have been described in spastic paraplegia type 7 (SPG7). We investigated oculomotor and vestibular dysfunction in five patients with genetically verified SPG7. All five patients exhibited significantly slower velocities of vertical saccades compared to controls, but significantly faster than in progressive supranuclear palsy, with upward saccades being particularly affected.

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A 47-year-old man presented with fever, weight loss and pulmonary consolidations and cavitation in the x-ray of the thorax. The comprehensive diagnostics resulted pulmonary epitholoid cell granulomas, therefore an immunosuppressive therapy was applied on suspicion of sarcoidosis. Progressivly the pulmonary infiltration increased and cerebral and abdominal abscesses were determined with microbiological detection of Nocardia farcinica.

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Vestibular parxoysmia (VP) is a rare vestibular disorder. A neurovascular cross-compression (NVCC) between the vestibulochochlear nerve and an artery seems to be responsible for short attacks of vertigo in this entity. An NVCC can be seen in up to every fourth subject.

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Purpose: To investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of cortical activation during the initiation of optokinetic nystagmus using magnetoencephalography.

Background: Previous imaging studies of optokinetic nystagmus in humans using positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging discovered activation of a large set of cortical and subcortical structures during steady-state optokinetic stimulation, but did not provide information on the temporal dynamics of the initial response. Imaging studies have shown that cortical areas responsible for vision in occipital and temporo-occipital areas are involved, i.

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The vestibular system conveys information about body motion and gravity. It was one of the first sensory systems to emerge in evolution; however, it was also the last to be discovered. The causal relationship between diseases of the ear and the symptom of vertigo was not recognized until the mid-19th century.

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The prognostic role of estrogen receptors in lung cancer is not validated. Results from patients with early stage non-small lung cancer patients indicate a prognostic role of estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1) mRNA expression in these patients. Automated RNA extraction from paraffin and RT-quantitative PCR was used for evaluation of tumoral ESR1 and progesterone receptor (PGR) mRNA expression.

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Neural and mental hierarchies.

Front Psychol

November 2012

The history of the sciences of the human brain and mind has been characterized from the beginning by two parallel traditions. The prevailing theory that still influences the way current neuroimaging techniques interpret brain function, can be traced back to classical localizational theories, which in turn go back to early phrenological theories. The other approach has its origins in the hierarchical neurological theories of Hughlings-Jackson, which have been influenced by the philosophical conceptions of Herbert Spencer.

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