Lower mini-sternotomy: an approach for treating all valvulopathies?

Background: Lower mini-sternotomy offers the advantage of providing excellent visualization of the 4 cardiac cavities, allowing surgical treatment of aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves as well as any intra-cavitary procedure. Technical issues, as well as safety and echocardiographic results of this approach, are lacking. The aim of this retrospective study was to describe outcomes of lower mini-sternotomy to treat valvulopathies and other intracardiac surgeries.

Estimation of the proportion of cardiovascular disease cases in France attributable to high concentrations of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Background: Elevated concentrations of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) are highly prevalent and are associated with the development of cardiovascular diseases.

Aim: To estimate the proportion of cardiovascular disease cases attributable to high concentrations of LDL-C (population attributable fraction [PAF]) in France in 2017, based on the most recent individual data on LDL-C, and the attributable burden on hospitalizations and death.

Methods: We estimated the PAF of high LDL-C concentrations for ischaemic heart disease (IHD), ischaemic stroke and aortic valve stenosis (AVS).

Sex-related disparities in aortic stenosis from disease awareness to treatment: a state-of-the-art review.

This state-of-the-art review aimed to synthesize evidence from various sex-stratified studies on aortic stenosis (AS), focusing on the difference in clinical presentation, anatomical characteristics, pathophysiology, and management of AS. In comparison to men, women with AS are present at later stages, are older, more symptomatic, frailer, and exhibit higher operative risk [Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) score]. Women tend to have smaller aortic valve (AV) areas and left ventricular (LV) outflow tract, leading to lower stroke volumes (SVs) than men and have a higher prevalence of paradoxical, low-flow, low-gradient AS.

Comparison of Pulsed-Thulium:YAG, Holmium:YAG, and Thulium Fiber Laser.

To characterize the pulse characteristics and risk of fiber fracture (ROF) of the pulsed-Thulium:YAG (p-Tm:YAG) laser and to compare its ablation volumes (AVs) against Holmium:Yttrium-Aluminium-Garnet (Ho:YAG) laser and Thulium fiber laser (TFL). p-Tm:YAG (100 W-Thulio, Dornier-Medtech, Germany) was characterized using single-use 272 μm core-diameter-fibers. p-Tm:YAG characterization included pulse shape, duration, and peak power (PP) studies.

Use of Pretreatment Perfusion MRI-based Intratumoral Heterogeneity to Predict Pathologic Response of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer to Neoadjuvant Chemoimmunotherapy.

Background Neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy (NACI) has significantly increased the rate of pathologic complete response (pCR) in patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), although predictors of response to this regimen have not been identified. Purpose To investigate pretreatment perfusion MRI-based radiomics as a predictive marker for pCR in patients with TNBC undergoing NACI. Materials and Methods This prospective study enrolled women with early-stage TNBC who underwent NACI at two different centers from August 2021 to July 2023.

MATB for assessing different mental workload levels.

Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB) is a computerized flight simulator for aviation-related tasks, suitable for non-pilots and available in many versions, including open source. MATB requires the individual or simultaneous execution of 4 sub-tasks: system monitoring (SYSMON), tracking (TRACK), communications (COMM), and resource management (RESMAN). Fully customizable, the design of test duration, number of sub-tasks used, event rates, response times and overlap, create different levels of mental load.

EBCC-14 manifesto: Addressing disparities in access to innovation for patients with metastatic breast cancer across Europe.

The European Breast Cancer Council (EBCC) traditionally identifies controversies or major deficiencies in the management of patients with breast cancer and selects a multidisciplinary expert team to collaborate in setting crucial principles and recommendations to improve breast cancer care. The 2024 EBCC manifesto focuses on disparities in the care of patients with metastatic breast cancer. There are several reasons for existing disparities both between and within countries.

Marker-based C-arm self-calibration with unknown calibration pattern.

Background: Accurate tomographic reconstructions require the knowledge of the actual acquisition geometry. Many mobile C-arm CT scanners have poorly reproducible acquisition geometries and thus need acquisition-specific calibration procedures. Most of geometric self-calibration methods based on projection data either need prior information or are limited to the estimation of a low number of geometric calibration parameters.

Benefits of Zero-Phase or Linear Phase Filters to Design Multiscale Entropy: Theory and Application.

In various applications, multiscale entropy (MSE) is often used as a feature to characterize the complexity of the signals in order to classify them. It consists of estimating the sample entropies (SEs) of the signal under study and its coarse-grained (CG) versions, where the CG process amounts to (1) filtering the signal with an average filter whose order is the scale and (2) decimating the filter output by a factor equal to the scale. In this paper, we propose to derive a new variant of the MSE.

Subtype Identification of Surgically Curable Primary Aldosteronism During Treatment With Mineralocorticoid Receptor Blockade.

Background: Current guidelines and consensus documents recommend withdrawal of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs) before primary aldosteronism (PA) subtyping by adrenal vein sampling (AVS), but this practice can cause severe hypokalemia and uncontrolled high blood pressure. Our aim was to investigate if unilateral PA can be identified by AVS during MRA treatment.

Methods: We compared the rate of unilateral PA identification between patients with and without MRA treatment in large data sets of patients submitted to AVS while off renin-angiotensin system blockers and β-blockers.

Helical coil design with controlled dispersion for bunching enhancement of protons generated by the target normal sheath acceleration.

The quality of the proton beam produced by target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) with high-power lasers can be significantly improved with the use of helical coils. While they showed promising results in terms of focusing, their performances in terms of the of cut-off energy and bunching stay limited due to the dispersive nature of helical coils. A new scheme of helical coil with a tube surrounding the helix is introduced, and the first numerical simulations and an analytical model show a possibility of a drastic reduction of the current pulse dispersion for the parameters of high-power-laser facilities.

Reduction of cone-beam CT artifacts in a robotic CBCT device using saddle trajectories with integrated infrared tracking.

Background: Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) is widely used in many medical fields. However, conventional CBCT circular scans suffer from cone beam (CB) artifacts that limit the quality and reliability of the reconstructed images due to incomplete data.

Purpose: Saddle trajectories in theory might be able to improve the CBCT image quality by providing a larger region with complete data.

Negative Impact of Mutations on Long-Term Survival After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement.

Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) is considered as being a novel age-related risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. By capture-sequencing of a 67-gene panel, we established a large spectrum of CHIP in 258 patients with aortic valve stenosis undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and assessed their association with long-term survival after TAVR. One or several CHIP variants in 35 genes were identified in 68% of the cohort, and being the 2 most frequently mutated genes.

HIV-1 drug resistance in people on dolutegravir-based antiretroviral therapy: a collaborative cohort analysis.

Background: The widespread use of the integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) dolutegravir in first-line and second-line antiretroviral therapy (ART) might facilitate emerging resistance. The DTG RESIST study combined data from HIV cohorts to examine patterns of drug resistance mutations (DRMs) and identify risk factors for dolutegravir resistance.

Methods: We included cohorts with INSTI resistance data from two collaborations (ART Cohort Collaboration, International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS in Southern Africa), and the UK Collaborative HIV Cohort.

International guidelines for the prevention of sexual violence: A systematic review and perspective of WHO, UN Women, UNESCO, and UNICEF's publications.

Background: Sexual violence is a major public health issue worldwide, with a high prevalence and extensive human and financial costs. Implementing prevention programs is complex, requiring not only evidence-based practices and high ethical standards, but also close collaboration with local governments and non-governmental organizations. In order to guide and support all stakeholders necessary to achieve large-scale prevention (e.

ALK fusions in the pan-cancer setting: another tumor-agnostic target?

Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) alterations (activating mutations, amplifications, and fusions/rearrangements) occur in ~3.3% of cancers. ALK fusions/rearrangements are discerned in >50% of inflammatory myofibroblastic tumors (IMTs) and anaplastic large cell lymphomas (ALCLs), but only in ~0.

The 'invisible gorilla' during pedestrian-AV interaction: Effects of secondary tasks on pedestrians' reaction to eHMIs.

In road traffic, mental overload often leads to a failure to notice new and distinctive stimuli. Such phenomenon is known as 'inattentional blindness'. Safe and efficient interaction between automated vehicles (AVs) and pedestrians is expected to rely heavily on external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs), a tool AVs are equipped with to communicate their intentions to pedestrians.

A scoping review of sexual and reproductive health recommendations in the context of migration to Europe.

In recent years, growing instability and conflict around the world have continued to fuel outward migration, including migration to the EU/EEA. Many migrants hail from countries and regions with a higher burden of STIs-including HIV-and are exposed to enhanced risks of sexual and gender-based violence leading to sexual health issues during their journeys. This scoping review aims to identify existing sexual health recommendations for non-European migrants in the EU/EEA and identify gaps in their implementation.

Road traffic safety assessment in self-driving vehicles based on time-to-collision with motion orientation.

Traffic conflict analysis based on Surrogate Safety Measures (SSMs) helps to estimate the risk level of an ego-vehicle interacting with other road users. Nonetheless, risk assessment for autonomous vehicles (AVs) is still incipient, given that most of the AVs are currently prototypes and current SSMs do not directly apply to autonomous driving styles. Therefore, to assess and quantify the potential risk arising from AV interactions with other road users, this study introduces the TTC (Time-to-Collision with motion orientation), a metric that considers the yaw angle of conflicting objects.

Evaluation of Single-Trial Classification to Control a Visual ERP-BCI under a Situation Awareness Scenario.

An event-related potential (ERP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) can be used to monitor a user's cognitive state during a surveillance task in a situational awareness context. The present study explores the use of an ERP-BCI for detecting new planes in an air traffic controller (ATC). Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of different visual factors on target detection.

Comparison of vestibular input statistics during natural activities and while piloting an aircraft.

The present study investigates the statistics and spectral content of natural vestibular stimuli experienced by healthy human subjects during three unconstrained activities. More specifically, we assessed how the characteristics of vestibular inputs are altered during the operation of a complex human-machine interface (a flight in a helicopter simulator) compared with more ecological tasks, namely a walk in an office space and a seated visual exploration task. As previously reported, we found that the power spectra of vestibular stimuli experienced during self-navigation could be modeled by two power laws but noted a potential effect of task intensity on the transition frequency between the two fits.