Incidence of contralateral metachronous inguinal hernia on long term follow-up after unilateral inguinal hernia repair: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: The repair of inguinal hernias is a common surgical procedure. Some patients will need a second operation after developing a metachronous contralateral inguinal hernia (MCIH). The suggestion has been made to strengthen the contralateral side at the same time as primary unilateral surgery.

New developments in pre-clinical models of ALS to guide translation.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder in which selective death of motor neurons leads to muscle weakness and paralysis. Most research has focused on understanding and treating monogenic familial forms, most frequently caused by mutations in SOD1, FUS, TARDBP and C9orf72, although ALS is mostly sporadic and without a clear genetic cause. Rodent models have been developed to study monogenic ALS, but despite numerous pre-clinical studies and clinical trials, few disease-modifying therapies are available.

A toxic gain-of-function mechanism in C9orf72 ALS impairs the autophagy-lysosome pathway in neurons.

Background: Motor neurons (MNs), which are primarily affected in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), are a specialized type of neurons that are long and non-dividing. Given their unique structure, these cells heavily rely on transport of organelles along their axons and the process of autophagy to maintain their cellular homeostasis. It has been shown that disruption of the autophagy pathway is sufficient to cause progressive neurodegeneration and defects in autophagy have been associated with various subtypes of ALS, including those caused by hexanucleotide repeat expansions in the C9orf72 gene.

The determinants of expert opinion in the development of care pathways: insights from an exploratory cluster analysis.

Background: We performed a secondary exploratory cluster analysis on the data collected from the validation phase of the study leading to the development of the model care pathway (CP) for Myasthenia Gravis (MG), in which a panel of 85 international experts were asked some characteristics about themselves and their opinion about the model CP. Our aim was to identify which characteristics of the experts play a role in the genesis of their opinion.

Methods: We extracted the questions probing an opinion and those describing a characteristic of the expert from the original questionnaire.

Which Framework to Use? A Systematic Review of Ethical Frameworks for the Screening or Evaluation of Health Technology Innovations.

Innovations permeate healthcare settings on an ever-increasing scale. Health technology innovations (HTIs) impact our perceptions and experiences of health, care, disease, etc. Because of the fast pace these HTIs are being introduced in different healthcare settings, there is a growing societal consensus that these HTIs need to be governed by ethical reflection.