Publications by authors named "Wilkins S"

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of an early, targeted, individualized, intensive rehabilitation program called Rehab2Home, designed to transition surgical patients directly from acute care to home.

Design: The Rehab2Home program was implemented using a quality improvement (QI) approach between March 2023 and June 2023. The outcomes of the program were compared with a historical cohort of similar patients.

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Background: Having a primary care provider is associated with better care experiences and lower care costs. In 2021, INSPIRE-PHC released Primary Care Data Reports - publicly available summaries of administrative billing data about how populations in each of Ontario's 60 health teams use primary care services. Given the characterization of Canadian primary care systems as 'in crisis', publicly available data about primary care at the regional level presented a significant opportunity for knowledge mobilization.

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Importance: Recurrent human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is a relatively rare but serious disease with little empirical data. Previous works have studied patterns of recurrence in HPV-positive OPSCC, but only one has studied truly recurrent disease as opposed to persistent disease, and no work systematically analyzed posttreatment surveillance imaging strategies and how recurrences were detected.

Objective: To refine the understanding of HPV-positive OPSCC recurrence and inform optimal imaging surveillance strategies.

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Tudor Interacting Repair Regulator (TIRR) is an RNA-binding protein (RBP) that interacts directly with 53BP1, restricting its access to DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and its association with p53. We utilized iCLIP to identify RNAs that directly bind to TIRR within cells, identifying the long non-coding RNA NEAT1 as the primary RNA partner. The high affinity of TIRR for NEAT1 is due to prevalent G-rich motifs in the short isoform (NEAT1_1) region of NEAT1.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the experiences of adolescents with chronic pain who may show signs of medical child abuse (MCA), highlighting how the level of disability can exceed medical findings.
  • - Researchers analyzed medical records of 37 adolescents aged 13-18 from an academic children's hospital, categorizing themes into three levels of concern for MCA: 'Green zone' (common issues), 'Yellow zone' (more concerning factors), and 'Red zone' (directly linked to MCA).
  • - The findings identified commonalities in medical narratives and emphasized the need for careful assessment by healthcare providers to determine the potential risk of MCA in adolescents with chronic pain.
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  • - The study aimed to evaluate hydroxyapatite as a potential safe and effective alternative material for repairing defects related to cholesteatoma, specifically looking at tegmen defects and labyrinthine fistulas.
  • - From 2013 to 2022, 22 patients who underwent cholesteatoma surgery using hydroxyapatite were reviewed, showing low recurrence and recidivism rates of 18.2% and 4.5%, respectively, which were comparable to surgeries without hydroxyapatite.
  • - The findings suggested hydroxyapatite is a safe option with minimal postoperative complications and no increase in cholesteatoma recurrence, though further research is necessary to support broader application.
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Right-sided colon cancer (RCC) and left-sided colon cancer (LCC) differ in features and outcomes because of variations in embryology, epidemiology, pathology, and prognosis. This study sought to identify significant factors impacting patient survival through Bayesian modelling. Data was retrospectively analysed from a colorectal neoplasia database.

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Objective: In 2022, the Food and Drug Administration established a new regulatory category for over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids for mild to moderate hearing loss. Herein, we aim to better compare the safety and efficacy of these devices to that of prescription hearing aids.

Study Design: Comparative-effectiveness model.

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Objective: To describe the epidemiology and patterns of gymnastics-related Head & Neck trauma injuries using the NEISS database from 2001 to 2020.

Study Design And Setting: Cross-sectional analysis of a national database.

Methods: Gymnastics-related ED visits between 2001 and 2020 were queried from the NEISS database.

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Context: Upper extremity injuries in baseball pitchers cause significant time loss from competing and decreased quality of life. Although shoulder range of motion (ROM) is reported as a key factor to prevent potential injury, it remains unclear how limited glenohumeral ROM affects pitching biomechanics which may contribute to upper extremity injuries.

Objective: To investigate how pitchers with decreased total arc glenohumeral ROM of the throwing arm differed in upper extremity pitching kinematics and kinetics as well as ball velocity compared with pitchers with greater levels of glenohumeral ROM.

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Article Synopsis
  • Chronic refractory cough lasts over 8 weeks with no clear cause and can be treated effectively with internal branch superior laryngeal nerve (iSLN) blockade, although the effect of other health conditions on treatment response is unclear.
  • A study involving 44 patients analyzed demographics, comorbidities, and cough severity before and after iSLN blockade treatment, focusing on conditions like GERD, smoking, and lung issues.
  • Results showed that patients without lung conditions had significantly better responses to treatment compared to those with such conditions, highlighting the need to consider comorbidities for better treatment outcomes.
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Objective: While tobacco use is understood to negatively impact HPV+ oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) outcomes, debate remains as to how this impact differs between cohorts. Multiple smoking metrics have been identified as having the greatest prognostic significance, and some recent works have found smoking to have no significant impact. Herein, we show through an analysis of four common smoking metrics that while smoking impacts overall survival (OS), it has a limited impact on recurrence-free survival (RFS) in our cohort.

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Molecules containing short-lived, radioactive nuclei are uniquely positioned to enable a wide range of scientific discoveries in the areas of fundamental symmetries, astrophysics, nuclear structure, and chemistry. Recent advances in the ability to create, cool, and control complex molecules down to the quantum level, along with recent and upcoming advances in radioactive species production at several facilities around the world, create a compelling opportunity to coordinate and combine these efforts to bring precision measurement and control to molecules containing extreme nuclei. In this manuscript, we review the scientific case for studying radioactive molecules, discuss recent atomic, molecular, nuclear, astrophysical, and chemical advances which provide the foundation for their study, describe the facilities where these species are and will be produced, and provide an outlook for the future of this nascent field.

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Background: Previous studies have shown that malnutrition before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is associated with poor patient prognoses. There is inconsistency among studies on which nutritional status screening tool is appropriate for malnutrition diagnosis before allo-HSCT. The present study aimed to compare nutritional screening tools in patients with leukemia before allo-HSCT.

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Until now, no study evaluated the impact of optimum intake of omega-3 fatty acids on inflammatory factors. We aimed to investigate the dose-dependent effects of omega-3 fatty acids supplementation on inflammatory factors in cancer patients. PubMed, Scopus and ISI Web of Science were searched until July 2022 to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for examining the efficacy of omega-3 fatty acids on inflammatory factors.

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With the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) 8th edition staging guidelines update, human papillomavirus-positive (HPV+) oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is now staged separately from its HPV-negative counterpart, preventing meaningful comparison of cases staged with the 7th versus 8th edition criteria. Manual restaging is time-consuming and error-prone, hindering multiyear analyses for HPV+ OPSCC. We developed an automated computational tool for re-classifying HPV+ OPSCC pathological and clinical tumor staging from AJCC 7th to 8th edition.

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Objective: Cognitive impairment is a potential drawback of antiseizure medications. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of different levetiracetam drug regimens on cognitive function.

Methods: A retrospective analysis identified 221 patients diagnosed with seizures who underwent cognitive screening.

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In order to supply adequate iron during pregnancy, the levels of the iron regulatory hormone hepcidin in the maternal circulation are suppressed, thereby increasing dietary iron absorption and storage iron release. Whether this decrease in maternal hepcidin is caused by changes in factors known to regulate hepcidin expression, or by other unidentified pregnancy factors, is not known. To investigate this, we examined iron parameters during pregnancy in mice.

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Context: Early sport specialization is a growing concern among youth sport athletes, particularly in baseball. Motivation to participate in sports is an important factor in determining which sports youth athletes participate in and why.

Objective: To qualitatively investigate the youth sport participation behaviors and motivations of collegiate baseball players.

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During the first 500 million years of cosmic history, the first stars and galaxies formed, seeding the Universe with heavy elements and eventually reionizing the intergalactic medium. Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered a surprisingly high abundance of candidates for early star-forming galaxies, with distances (redshifts, z), estimated from multiband photometry, as large as z ≈ 16, far beyond pre-JWST limits. Although such photometric redshifts are generally robust, they can suffer from degeneracies and occasionally catastrophic errors.

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Background: Veterans with psychiatric disorders want additional career development services to support their recovery and pursuit of meaningful employment. However, no career counseling programs have been designed for this specific population. We developed the Purposeful Pathways intervention to fill this need.

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Preoperative optimization programs are becoming more common for patients seeking total joint arthroplasty; yet, limited research has been conducted to monitor the long-term effects of these programs on patient outcomes. Our aim was to develop a set of metrics that programs can use to monitor the success of preoperative optimization programs. As part of a larger survey of orthopaedic nurses, we collected data regarding current monitoring techniques for preoperative optimization programs and the feasibility of collecting specific variables.

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Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) is an autoimmune disease primarily affecting the optic nerves and spinal cord, which is usually associated with anti-aquaporin-4 antibodies. Here, we present two individuals who were negative for anti-aquaporin-4 antibodies and were initially diagnosed with seronegative NMOSD. Each patient's clinical course and radiographic features raised suspicion for an alternative disease process.

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Background: Colorectal surgical procedures can have a significant impact on quality-of-life (QoL), functional and symptom outcomes. This retrospective study conducted in a tertiary care center evaluated the influence of four colorectal surgical procedures on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).

Methods: 512 patients undergoing colorectal neoplasia surgery between June 2015 and December 2017 were identified via the Cabrini Monash Colorectal Neoplasia database.

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