Impact Absorption Power of Polyolefin Fused Filament Fabrication 3D-Printed Sports Mouthguards: In Vitro Study.

Background/aim: This study aims to evaluate and compare the impact absorption capacities of thermoformed ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) mouthguards and 3D-printed polyolefin mouthguards used in sports dentistry applications. The objective is to determine whether 3D-printed polyolefin mouthguards offer superior impact toughness compared to traditional EVA mouthguards commonly used in sports settings.

Materials And Methods: Six material samples were assessed: five pressure-formed EVA mouthguards (PolyShok, Buffalo Dental, Erkoflex, Proform, and Drufosoft) and one 3D-printed synthetic polymer (polyolefin).

Exploring CT pixel and voxel size effect on anatomic modeling in mandibular reconstruction.

Background: Computer-aided modeling and design (CAM/CAD) of patient anatomy from computed tomography (CT) imaging and 3D printing technology enable the creation of tangible, patient-specific anatomic models that can be used for surgical guidance. These models have been associated with better patient outcomes; however, a lack of CT imaging guidelines risks the capture of unsuitable imaging for patient-specific modeling. This study aims to investigate how CT image pixel size (X-Y) and slice thickness (Z) impact the accuracy of mandibular models.

Machine Learning in Spine Oncology: A Narrative Review.

Study Design: Narrative Review.

Objective: Machine learning (ML) is one of the latest advancements in artificial intelligence used in medicine and surgery with the potential to significantly impact the way physicians diagnose, prognose, and treat spine tumors. In the realm of spine oncology, ML is utilized to analyze and interpret medical imaging and classify tumors with incredible accuracy.

Power wheelchair usage and repair are associated: a retrospective analysis.

: This study evaluates the effect of power wheelchair telemonitoring and battery charging training on user charging behavior and repair measures and assesses the relationship between wheelchair usage and repair measures to support technician-led servicing.: This is a retrospective analysis of two matched cohorts with a total of =237 users from the NHS service dataset. In the training cohort, a wheelchair usage telemonitoring device monitored the battery usage of =119 power wheelchair users for 12 months.

Investigating cryopreserved PBMC functionality in an antigen-induced model of sarcoidosis granuloma formation.

Sarcoidosis, a systemic inflammatory disease, poses challenges in understanding its etiology and variable clinical courses. Despite ongoing uncertainty about causative agents and genetic predisposition, granuloma formation remains its hallmark feature. To address this, we developed a validated in vitro human granuloma model using patient-derived peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), offering a dynamic platform for studying early granuloma formation and sarcoidosis pathogenesis.

Maternal exercise preserves offspring cardiovascular health via oxidative regulation of the ryanodine receptor.

Objective: The intrauterine environment during pregnancy is a critical factor in the development of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease in offspring. Maternal exercise prevents the detrimental effects of a maternal high fat diet on the metabolic health in adult offspring, but the effects of maternal exercise on offspring cardiovascular health have not been thoroughly investigated.

Methods: To determine the effects of maternal exercise on offspring cardiovascular health, female mice were fed a chow (C; 21% kcal from fat) or high-fat (H; 60% kcal from fat) diet and further subdivided into sedentary (CS, HS) or wheel exercised (CW, HW) prior to pregnancy and throughout gestation.

Patient-driven decisions and perceptions of the 'safest possible choice': insights from patient-provider conversations about how some breast cancer patients choose contralateral prophylactic mastectomy.

Objective: Observe patient-clinician communication to gain insight about the reasons underlying the choice of patients with unilateral breast cancer to undergo contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM), despite lack of survival benefit, risk of harms, and cautions expressed by surgical guidelines and clinicians.

Methods & Measures: WORDS is a prospective study that explored patient-clinician communication and patient decision making. Participants recorded clinical visits through a downloadable mobile application.

Higher Computed Tomography (CT) Scan Resolution Improves Accuracy of Patient-specific Mandibular Models When Compared to Cadaveric Gold Standard.

Background: 3D-printed patient-specific anatomical models are becoming an increasingly popular tool for planning reconstructive surgeries to treat oral cancer. Currently there is a lack of information regarding model accuracy, and how the resolution of the computed tomography (CT) scan affects the accuracy of the final model.

Purpose: The primary objective of this study was to determine the CT z-axis resolution necessary in creating a patient specific mandibular model with clinically acceptable accuracy for global bony reconstruction.

Tissue Engineering: Current Technology for Facial Reconstruction.

Facial reconstruction is a complex surgical process that requires intricate three-dimensional (3D) concepts for optimal functional and aesthetic outcomes. Conventional reconstruction of structural facial anomalies, such as those including cartilage or bony defects, typically rely on hand-carving autologous constructs harvested from a separate donor site, and shaping that cartilage or bone into a new structural framework. Tissue engineering has emerged in recent decades as a potential approach to mitigate the need for donor site morbidity while improving precision in the design of reconstructive construct.

Effect of material type, torque value, and sterilization on linear displacements of a scan body: An in vitro study.

Background: There is limited knowledge on the effect of scan body (SB) material type, torque value, and sterilization on linear displacements of implant SBs.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of material type, torque value, and sterilization on linear displacements of SBs during screw tightening by using digital image correlation (DIC) analysis.

Materials And Methods: One polyetheretherketone (PEEK, Zfx Intraoral Scan Body) and one titanium SB (Ti, MPS Zimmer Scanbody R1410) were tightened with 5 Ncm torque on two implants (Zimmer TSV ⌀4.

Invasive or More Direct Measurements Can Provide an Objective Early-Stopping Ceiling for Training Deep Neural Networks on Non-invasive or Less-Direct Biomedical Data.

Early stopping is an extremely common tool to minimize overfitting, which would otherwise be a cause of poor generalization of the model to novel data. However, early stopping is a heuristic that, while effective, primarily relies on ad hoc parameters and metrics. Optimizing when to stop remains a challenge.

Altered Airway Anatomy Course Using 3D-Printed Models for Medical Students.

Objective: Many non-airway-trained personnel are uncomfortable managing altered airway anatomy (AAA), including tracheostomy and total laryngectomy (TL) patients. Significant morbidity and mortality have resulted from first responders' inability to stabilize the airway until expert airway providers arrive. All medical school graduates should demonstrate competency of this life-saving skill.

Improvement of automated analysis of coronary Doppler echocardiograms.

Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of heart disease, and while it can be assessed through transthoracic Doppler echocardiography (TTDE) by observing changes in coronary flow, manual analysis of TTDE is time consuming and subject to bias. In a previous study, a program was created to automatically analyze coronary flow patterns by parsing Doppler videos into a single continuous image, binarizing and separating the image into cardiac cycles, and extracting data values from each of these cycles. The program significantly reduced variability and time to complete TTDE analysis, but some obstacles such as interfering noise and varying video sizes left room to increase the program's accuracy.

Simulation Platform Development for Diabetes and Technology Self-Management.

Background: Specialized education is critical for optimal insulin pump use but is not widely utilized or accessible. We aimed to (1) test the usability and acceptability of A1Control, a simulation platform supporting insulin pump education, and (2) determine predictors of performance.

Method: Rural adult insulin pump users with type 1 diabetes (T1D) participated in a mixed methods usability study in 2 separate rounds.

Self-organizing maps with variable neighborhoods facilitate learning of chromatin accessibility signal shapes associated with regulatory elements.

Background: Assigning chromatin states genome-wide (e.g. promoters, enhancers, etc.

Impact of microwave ablation treatment on the biomechanical properties of the distal radius in the dog: A cadaveric study.

Objective: To determine whether microwave ablation (MWA) modifies the biomechanical properties of the normal distal radius in the dog to better estimate the clinical impact of MWA as a tool for the treatment of neoplastic bone lesions.

Study Design: Biomechanical experimental study.

Sample Population: Sixteen pairs of dog forelimbs from 16 canine cadavers.

Metabolomics and Multi-Omics Integration: A Survey of Computational Methods and Resources.

As researchers are increasingly able to collect data on a large scale from multiple clinical and omics modalities, multi-omics integration is becoming a critical component of metabolomics research. This introduces a need for increased understanding by the metabolomics researcher of computational and statistical analysis methods relevant to multi-omics studies. In this review, we discuss common types of analyses performed in multi-omics studies and the computational and statistical methods that can be used for each type of analysis.

Reduced stiffness and augmented traction force in type 2 diabetic coronary microvascular smooth muscle.

Type 2 diabetic (T2DM) coronary resistance microvessels (CRMs) undergo inward hypertrophic remodeling associated with reduced stiffness and reduced coronary blood flow in both mice and pig models. Since reduced stiffness does not appear to be due to functional changes in the extracellular matrix, this study tested the hypothesis that decreased CRM stiffness in T2DM is due to reduced vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) stiffness, which impacts the traction force generated by VSMCs. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and traction force microscopy (TFM) were conducted on primary low-passage CRM VSMCs from normal / and T2DM / mice in addition to low-passage normal and T2DM deidentified human coronary VSMCs.

Prediction of Antibiotic Susceptibility for Urinary Tract Infection in a Hospital Setting.

Empiric antibiotic prescribing can be supported by guidelines and/or local antibiograms, but these have limitations. We sought to use data from a comprehensive electronic health record to use statistical learning to develop predictive models for individual antibiotics that incorporate patient- and hospital-specific factors. This paper reports on the development and validation of these models with a large retrospective cohort.

The application of digital health to the assessment and treatment of substance use disorders: The past, current, and future role of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network.

The application of digital technologies to better assess, understand, and treat substance use disorders (SUDs) is a particularly promising and vibrant area of scientific research. The National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN), launched in 1999 by the U.S.