Introduction: Low-cost laparoscopic box trainers built using home computers and webcams may provide residents with a useful tool for practice at home. This study set out to evaluate the image quality of low-cost laparoscopic box trainers compared with a commercially available model.
Methods: Five low-cost laparoscopic box trainers including the components listed were compared in random order to one commercially available box trainer: A (high-definition USB 2.0 webcam, PC laptop), B (Firewire webcam, Mac laptop), C (high-definition USB 2.0 webcam, Mac laptop), D (standard USB webcam, PC desktop), E (Firewire webcam, PC desktop), and F (the TRLCD03 3-DMEd Standard Minimally Invasive Training System). Participants observed still image quality and performed a peg transfer task using each box trainer. Participants rated still image quality, image quality with motion, and whether the box trainer had sufficient image quality to be useful for training.
Results: Sixteen residents in obstetrics and gynecology took part in the study. The box trainers showing no statistically significant difference from the commercially available model were A, B, C, D, and E for still image quality; A for image quality with motion; and A and B for usefulness of the simulator based on image quality. The cost of the box trainers A-E is approximately $100 to $160 each, not including a computer or laparoscopic instruments.
Conclusions: Laparoscopic box trainers built from a high-definition USB 2.0 webcam with a PC (box trainer A) or from a Firewire webcam with a Mac (box trainer B) provide image quality comparable with a commercial standard.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/SIH.0b013e31821cdb68 | DOI Listing |
Endocrine
January 2025
Department of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, Manisa Celal Bayar University Hospital, Manisa, Turkey.
Purpose: Our study evaluated skeletal muscle mass, function and quality among mild autonomous cortisol secretion (MACS) patients and non-functioning adrenal incidentaloma (NFAI) patients in comparison with the control group without adrenal mass.
Methods: 63 NFAI (49 female, 14 male) and 31 MACS (24 female, 7 male) patients were included in the study. As the control group, 44 patients (31 women, 13 men) who were known to have no radiological adrenal pathology on computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging performed for other reasons were selected.
Calcif Tissue Int
January 2025
Endocrinology Department, School of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Diagonal Paraguay 262, Cuarto Piso, Santiago, Chile.
X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare metabolic disorder characterized by elevated FGF23 and chronic hypophosphatemia, leading to impaired skeletal mineralization and enthesopathies that are associated with pain, stiffness, and diminished quality of life. The natural history of enthesopathies in XLH remains poorly defined, partly due to absence of a sensitive quantitative tool for assessment and monitoring. This study investigates the utility of 18F-NaF PET/CT scans in characterizing enthesopathies in XLH subjects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Musculoskelet Disord
January 2025
Department of Orthopedics, Peking University Third Hospital, No. 49. North Garden Street, Hai Dian District, Beijing, 100191, People's Republic of China.
Background: For degenerative lumbar scoliosis (DLS), prior studies mainly focused on the preoperative relationship between spinopelvic parameters and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), lacking an exhaustive evaluation of the postoperative situation. Therefore, the postoperative parameters most closely bonded with clinical outcomes has not yet been well-defined in DLS patients. The objective of this study was to comprehensively assess the correlation between radiographic parameters and HRQoL before and after surgery, and to identified the most valuable spinopelvic parameters for postoperative curative effect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Electrical Power, Adama Science and Technology University, Adama, 1888, Ethiopia.
Although the Transformer architecture has established itself as the industry standard for jobs involving natural language processing, it still has few uses in computer vision. In vision, attention is used in conjunction with convolutional networks or to replace individual convolutional network elements while preserving the overall network design. Differences between the two domains, such as significant variations in the scale of visual things and the higher granularity of pixels in images compared to words in the text, make it difficult to transfer Transformer from language to vision.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, 4515 McKinley Ave., St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has dramatically advanced non-invasive human brain mapping and decoding. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) non-invasively measure blood oxygen fluctuations related to brain activity, like fMRI, at the brain surface, using more-lightweight equipment that circumvents ergonomic and logistical limitations of fMRI. HD-DOT grids have smaller inter-optode spacing (~ 13 mm) than sparse fNIRS (~ 30 mm) and therefore provide higher image quality, with spatial resolution ~ 1/2 that of fMRI, when using the several source-detector distances (13-40 mm) afforded by the HD-DOT grid.
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