Prognostic factors for outcomes of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss: protocol for the SeaSHeL national prospective cohort study.

Introduction: The mainstay of treatment for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) includes oral steroids, intratympanic steroid injections or a combination of both. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, in their recent hearing loss guidelines, highlighted the paucity of evidence assessing the comparative effectiveness of these treatments; and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme has since released a commissioned call for a trial to identify the most effective route of administration of steroids as a first-line treatment for idiopathic SSNHL. For such trials to be run effectively, reliable information is needed on patients with SSNHL: where they present, numbers, demographics, treatment pathways, as well as outcomes.

Biomechanical Characterization of Human Soft Tissues Using Indentation and Tensile Testing.

Regenerative medicine aims to engineer materials to replace or restore damaged or diseased organs. The mechanical properties of such materials should mimic the human tissues they are aiming to replace; to provide the required anatomical shape, the materials must be able to sustain the mechanical forces they will experience when implanted at the defect site. Although the mechanical properties of tissue-engineered scaffolds are of great importance, many human tissues that undergo restoration with engineered materials have not been fully biomechanically characterized.

Abnormal Middle Cerebral Artery Doppler Associates with Spontaneous Preterm Birth in Normally Grown Fetuses.

Objective: Our aim was to evaluate whether Doppler changes in the fetal middle cerebral (MCA) and umbilical arteries (UA) suggesting fetal hypoxemia precede the onset of spontaneous preterm birth (PTB).

Methods: We studied 2,340 appropriate-for-gestational-age singleton pregnancies that had MCA and UA pulsatility indices (PI) recorded at 28-32 weeks. Values including the cerebroplacental ratio (CPR) were converted into multiples of the median and evaluated according to both gestational age at the onset of labor and the interval between ultrasound and labor.