Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Prognostic and Diagnostic Assessments in Peripheral Artery Disease: A Scoping Review.

Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is a major public health concern worldwide, associated with high risk of mortality and morbidity related to cardiovascular and adverse limb events. Despite significant advances in both medical and interventional therapies, PAD often remains under-diagnosed, and the prognosis of patients can be difficult to predict. Artificial intelligence (AI) has brought a wide range of opportunities to improve the management of cardiovascular diseases, from advanced imaging analysis to machine-learning (ML)-based predictive models, and medical data management using natural language processing (NLP).

Steam Vein Sclerosis for Nonsaphenous varicose veins.

Background: The treatment of nonsaphenous varicose veins (NSVV), including incompetent perforating veins (IPV) and recurrent varicose veins (RVV), remains challenging for many reasons, including vein tortuosity, deep location and short vein to be treated. Data and recommendations are lacking. Steam vein sclerosis (SVS) is an endothermal therapy that has been used in the treatment of incompetent saphenous veins, achieving occlusion rates similar to other thermal ablation techniques with good patient tolerance and minimal postoperative pain.

A Nationwide Analysis in France on Sex Difference and Outcomes Following Carotid Intervention in Asymptomatic Patients.

The impact of sex on outcomes following carotid endarterectomy (CEA) and carotid artery stenting (CAS) is not fully elucidated. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between sex and outcomes of asymptomatic patients who underwent primary carotid interventions in France. This nationwide retrospective study was performed using the French National Health Insurance Information System and included asymptomatic patients who underwent primary carotid intervention over a 10-year period (1 January 2013 to 31 August 2023).

Open E-survey on the Use and Perception of Chatbots in Vascular Surgery.

Objective: Large language models and artificial intelligence (AI) based chatbots have brought new insights in healthcare, but they also raise major concerns. Their applications in vascular surgery have scarcely been investigated to date. This international survey aimed to evaluate the perceptions and feedback from vascular surgeons on the use of AI chatbots in vascular surgery.

Large language models and artificial intelligence chatbots in vascular surgery.

Natural language processing is a subfield of artificial intelligence that aims to analyze human oral or written language. The development of large language models has brought innovative perspectives in medicine, including the potential use of chatbots and virtual assistants. Nevertheless, the benefits and pitfalls of such technology need to be carefully evaluated before their use in health care.

High unrecognized SARS-CoV-2 exposure of newly admitted and hospitalized psychiatric patients.

Background: Patients with pre-existing mental disorders are at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse outcomes, and severe mental illness, including mood and psychosis spectrum disorders, is associated with increased mortality risk. Despite their increased risk profile, patients with severe mental illness have been understudied during the pandemic, with limited estimates of exposure in inpatient settings.

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and antibody titers, and pro-inflammatory cytokine concentrations of newly admitted or hospitalized psychiatric inpatients without known history of COVID-19 infection, using robust quantitative multi-antigen assessments, and compare patients' exposure to that of hospital staff.

Patients with psychosis spectrum disorders hospitalized during the COVID-19 pandemic unravel overlooked SARS-CoV-2 past infection clustering with HERV-W ENV expression and chronic inflammation.

Epidemiology has repeatedly associated certain infections with a risk of further developing psychiatric diseases. Such infections can activate retro-transposable genetic elements (HERV) known to trigger immune receptors and impair synaptic plasticity of neuroreceptors. Since the HERV-W ENV protein was recently shown to co-cluster with pro-inflammatory cytokines in a subgroup of patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, we questioned the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with psychosis spectrum disorders (PSD).

Patterns of pharmacotherapy for bipolar disorder: A GBC survey.

Objectives: To understand treatment practices for bipolar disorders (BD), this study leveraged the Global Bipolar Cohort collaborative network to investigate pharmacotherapeutic treatment patterns in multiple cohorts of well-characterized individuals with BD in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Methods: Data on pharmacotherapy, demographics, diagnostic subtypes, and comorbidities were provided from each participating cohort. Individual site and regional pooled proportional meta-analyses with generalized linear mixed methods were conducted to identify prescription patterns.

Identification of inflammatory subgroups of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients with HERV-W ENV antigenemia by unsupervised cluster analysis.

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are remnants of infections that took place several million years ago and represent around 8% of the human genome. Despite evidence implicating increased expression of HERV type W envelope (HERV-W ENV) in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, it remains unknown whether such expression is associated with distinct clinical or biological characteristics and symptoms. Accordingly, we performed unsupervised two-step clustering of a multivariate data set that included HERV-W ENV protein antigenemia, serum cytokine levels, childhood trauma scores, and clinical data of cohorts of patients with schizophrenia (n = 29), bipolar disorder (n = 43) and healthy controls (n = 32).

A new mutational hotspot in the SKI gene in the context of MFS/TAA molecular diagnosis.

SKI pathogenic variations are associated with Shprintzen-Goldberg Syndrome (SGS), a rare systemic connective tissue disorder characterized by craniofacial, skeletal and cardiovascular features. So far, the clinical description, including intellectual disability, has been relatively homogeneous, and the known pathogenic variations were located in two different hotspots of the SKI gene. In the course of diagnosing Marfan syndrome and related disorders, we identified nine sporadic probands (aged 2-47 years) carrying three different likely pathogenic or pathogenic variants in the SKI gene affecting the same amino acid (Thr180).

Cardiomyopathy due to PRDM16 mutation: First description of a fetal presentation, with possible modifier genes.

PRDM16 (positive regulatory domain 16) is localized in the critical region for cardiomyopathy in patients with deletions of chromosome 1p36, as defined by Gajecka et al., American Journal of Medical Genetics, 2010, 152A, 3074-3083, and encodes a zinc finger transcription factor. We present the first fetal case of left ventricular non-compaction (LVNC) with a PRDM16 variant.