Acute and mid-term outcomes of ablation for atrial fibrillation with VISITAG SURPOINT: the Japan MIYABI registry.

Aims: The effectiveness of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) guided by VISITAG SURPOINT (VS) has been demonstrated in Western populations. However, data for Asian populations are limited. VS settings may differ for Asians, given their smaller body size.

Adaptive Cohort Size Determination Method for Bayesian Optimal Interval Phase I/II Design to Shorten Clinical Trial Duration.

Purpose: Recently, the strategy for dose optimization in oncology has shifted toward conducting phase II randomized controlled trials with multiple doses. Optimal biologic dose (OBD) selection from phase I trial data to determine candidate doses for phase II trials has been gaining attention. Trials to identify the OBD have a fixed cohort size, which increases the trial duration.

Estimating generation time of SARS-CoV-2 variants in Italy from the daily incidence rate.

The identification of the transmission parameters of a virus is fundamental to identify the optimal public health strategy. These parameters can present significant changes over time caused by genetic mutations or viral recombination, making their continuous monitoring fundamental. Here we present a method, suitable for this task, which uses as unique information the daily number of reported cases.

Identifying risk factors for adverse events of pyridoxal phosphate in infantile epileptic spasms syndrome.

Introduction: Infantile epileptic spasms syndrome (IESS) is characterized by epileptic spasms, regardless of hypsarrhythmia on electroencephalogram or neurodevelopmental delay. In Japan, pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) is often used as the first-line treatment for IESS because it is effective in a certain number of patients. Although several studies have reported serious adverse events following PLP treatment, no study has investigated the risk factors for such occurrences.

Clinical utility of diaphragmatic ultrasonography for mechanical ventilator weaning in adults: A study protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background And Aims: Mechanical ventilation is associated with several risks, including barotrauma, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and ventilator-induced diaphragmatic dysfunction. A delay in weaning from mechanical ventilation increases these risks, and prolonged weaning has been shown to increase hospital mortality. Various tools have been used in clinical practice to predict successful weaning from mechanical ventilation; however, they have a low prognostic accuracy.

A Cross-Sectional Study Based on Forty Systematic Reviews of Foods with Function Claims (FFC) in Japan: Quality Assessment Using AMSTAR 2.

Background: The Foods with Function Claims (FFC) was introduced in Japan in April 2015 to make more products available that are labeled with health functions. The products' functionality of function claims must be explained by scientific evidence presented in systematic reviews (SRs), but the quality of recent SRs is unclear. This study assessed the quality of SRs in the FFC registered on the Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA) website in Japan.

Bayesian estimation and prediction for network meta-analysis with contrast-based approach.

Network meta-analysis is gaining prominence in clinical epidemiology and health technology assessments that enable comprehensive assessment of comparative effectiveness for multiple available treatments. In network meta-analysis, Bayesian methods have been one of the standard approaches for the arm-based approach and are widely applied in practical data analyses. Also, for most cases in these applications, proper noninformative priors are adopted, which does not incorporate subjective prior knowledge into the analyses, and reference Bayesian analyses are major choices.

Improved methods to construct prediction intervals for network meta-analysis.

Network meta-analysis has played an important role in evidence-based medicine for assessing the comparative effectiveness of multiple available treatments. The prediction interval has been one of the standard outputs in recent network meta-analysis as an effective measure that enables simultaneous assessment of uncertainties in treatment effects and heterogeneity among studies. To construct the prediction interval, a large-sample approximating method based on the t-distribution has generally been applied in practice; however, recent studies have shown that similar t-approximation methods for conventional pairwise meta-analyses can substantially underestimate the uncertainty under realistic situations.

Tokyo's COVID-19: An urban perspective on factors influencing infection rates in a global city.

This research investigates the relationship between COVID-19 and urban factors in Tokyo. To understand the spread dynamics of COVID-19, the study examined 53 urban variables (including population density, socio-economic status, housing conditions, transportation, and land use) in 53 municipalities of Tokyo prefecture. Using spatial models, the study analysed the patterns and predictors of COVID-19 infection rates.

Activated volcanism of Mount Fuji by the 2011 Japanese large earthquakes.

The relation between earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, each of which is manifested by large-scale tectonic plate and mantle motions, has been widely discussed. Mount Fuji, in Japan, last erupted in 1707, paired with a magnitude (M)-9-class earthquake 49 days prior. Motivated by this pairing, previous studies investigated its effect on Mount Fuji after both the 2011 M9 Tohoku megaquake and a triggered M5.

Stieltjes Transforms and -Transforms Associated with Two-Parameter Lambert-Tsallis Functions.

In this paper, we study a two-parameter family of Stieltjes transformations related to holomorphic Lambert-Tsallis functions, which are a two-parameter generalization of the Lambert function. Such Stieltjes transformations appear in the study of eigenvalue distributions of random matrices associated with some growing statistically sparse models. A necessary and sufficient condition on the parameters is given for the corresponding functions being Stieltjes transformations of probabilistic measures.

Predictive ability of pulse oximetry-derived indices for hypotension after spinal anaesthesia for caesarean section: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: In general, caesarean sections are performed under spinal anaesthesia. Hypotension after spinal anaesthesia adversely affects both the mother and fetus. Although several studies have used pulse oximetry-derived indices, such as pulse perfusion index (PI) and Pleth variability index (PVI), to predict hypotension after spinal anaesthesia, the predictive ability of the PI and PVI remain controversial.

Maternal-neonatal events resulting from medications for preventing hypertensive disorders in high-risk pregnant women: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.

Background: There have been few studies reporting on maternal and neonatal events in high-risk pregnant women receiving medications for preventing hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP).

Objective: To identify placental abruption, postpartum hemorrhage, neonatal intraventricular hemorrhage, and neonates with small for gestational age (SGA) or growth restriction resulting from medications for preventing HDP in high-risk pregnant women using a network meta-analysis.

Search Strategy: All randomized controlled trials comparing the most commonly used medications (antiplatelet agents, anticoagulants, antioxidants, nitric oxide, and calcium) for preventing HDP in high-risk pregnant women were searched from the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth's Specialized Register of Controlled Trials until July 31, 2020, without language restriction.

Multivariate epidemic count time series model.

An infectious disease spreads not only over a single population or community but also across multiple and heterogeneous communities. Moreover, its transmissibility varies over time because of various factors such as seasonality and epidemic control, which results in strongly nonstationary behavior. In conventional methods for assessing transmissibility trends or changes, univariate time-varying reproduction numbers are calculated without taking into account transmission across multiple communities.

Data-dependent contrast test for dose-finding clinical trials.

We propose a simple and powerful data-dependent contrast test with ordinal-constraint contrast coefficients of the dose response determined from observed responses. The contrast coefficients are easily calculated using a pool-adjacent-violators algorithm and making assumptions for the contrast coefficients. Once the dose response is determined for p < 0.

Acceptability of self-sampling human papillomavirus test for cervical cancer screening in Japan: A questionnaire survey in the ACCESS trial.

Purpose: In terms of medical policy for cervical cancer prevention, Japan lags far behind other industrialized countries. We initiated a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the self-sampling human papillomavirus (HPV) test as a tool to raise screening uptake and detection of pre-cancer. This study was conducted to explore the acceptability and preference of self-sampling using a subset of the data from this trial.

Optimization of smartphone psychotherapy for depression and anxiety among patients with cancer using the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) framework and decentralized clinical trial system (SMartphone Intervention to LEssen depression/Anxiety and GAIN resilience: SMILE AGAIN project): a protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Cancer patients experience various forms of psychological distress. Their distress, mainly in the form of depression and anxiety, leads to poor quality of life, increased medical spending due to frequent visits, and decrease in treatment adherence. It is estimated that 30-50% among them would require support from mental health professionals: in reality, much less actually receive such support partly due to a shortage of qualified professionals and also due to psychological barriers in seeking such help.

Predictive ability of visit-to-visit blood pressure indices for adverse events in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation: Subanalysis of the J-RHYTHM Registry.

Background: We previously reported that standard deviation (SD) of systolic blood pressure (SBP), an index of BP variability, and SBP-time in target range (TTR), an index of BP consistency, were significantly associated with adverse events in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). Thus, this study aimed to compare predictive ability for adverse events among visit-to-visit BP variability/consistency indices using data from the J-RHYTHM Registry.

Methods: Of 7406 outpatients with NVAF, 7226 (age, 69.

Posterior Covariance Information Criterion for Weighted Inference.

For predictive evaluation based on quasi-posterior distributions, we develop a new information criterion, the posterior covariance information criterion (PCIC). PCIC generalizes the widely applicable information criterion (WAIC) so as to effectively handle predictive scenarios where likelihoods for the estimation and the evaluation of the model may be different. A typical example of such scenarios is the weighted likelihood inference, including prediction under covariate shift and counterfactual prediction.

Factors affecting reasonable duration of continuous electrocardiographic monitoring to detect atrial fibrillation in acute ischemic stroke.

Background: To examine the reasonable duration of continuous electrocardiographic monitoring (CEM) to detect AF at acute ischemic stroke.

Materials And Method: 811 consecutive patients admitted to Tsuruga Municipal Hospital by acute ischemic stroke between April 2013 and December 2021 were enrolled in this study. Excluding 78 patients, 733 patients were analyzed by cluster analysis with SurvCART algorithm, followed by Kaplan-Meier analysis.

Outcomes of discontinuing renin-angiotensin system inhibitors: a study protocol for conducting systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Renin-angiotensin system (RAS) plays a key role in various types of cardiovascular disease and many kinds of RAS inhibitors have been developed. The effect of discontinuation of RAS inhibitors on clinical outcomes is still controversial. This study aims to evaluate the effects of discontinuing RAS inhibitor medication on the clinical outcomes of patients continuously taking these agents.