Recent Publications by CFE Educators

PURPOSE

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is common amongst cancer patients. However, there is growing concern about its safety and efficacy. Online crowdfunding campaigns represent a unique avenue to understand the cancer patient's perspective for using CAM or declining conventional cancer therapy (CCT).

METHODS

Five hundred GoFundMe campaigns from 2012 to 2019 detailing financial need for cancer treatment were randomly selected and reviewed for endorsement of CAM use, reasons for using CAM, and reasons for declining CCT. Descriptive statistics were used to compare patient and campaign characteristics between 250 CAM users and 250 non-CAM users.

RESULTS

Compared to non-CAM users, CAM users were more likely to be female (70% vs. 54%, p  0.01), to report more stage IV cancer (54% vs. 12%, p  0.01), and to have a history of delayed, missed, or misdiagnosis (10% vs. 4%, p  0.01). Reasons for using CAM include endorsing curative/therapeutic effects 212 (85%), pain/stress reduction 137 (55%), and dissatisfaction with current or past medical treatment options 105 (42%). 87 (35%) CAM users that declined CCT reported that they wanted to try to fight off cancer using CAM first 57 (61%), that CCT was too "toxic" to the body 39 (42%), and cancer was already too advanced, so that CCT would be futile or too aggressive 25 (27%).

CONCLUSION

Cancer patients on GoFundMe using CAM highly value quality of life, comfort, and autonomy. Physicians should educate themselves on CAM to set realistic expectations and provide comprehensive counseling of the risks and benefits of CAM usage to patients who choose to use CAM to either augment or completely replace CCT.

Purpose

To investigate the feasibility of automatic identification and classification of hip fractures using deep learning, which may improve outcomes by reducing diagnostic errors and decreasing time to operation.

Materials and Methods

Hip and pelvic radiographs from 1118 studies were reviewed, and 3026 hips were labeled via bounding boxes and classified as normal, displaced femoral neck fracture, nondisplaced femoral neck fracture, intertrochanteric fracture, previous open reduction and internal fixation, or previous arthroplasty. A deep learning-based object detection model was trained to automate the placement of the bounding boxes. A Densely Connected Convolutional Neural Network (or DenseNet) was trained on a subset of the bounding box images, and its performance was evaluated on a held-out test set and by comparison on a 100-image subset with two groups of human observers: fellowship-trained radiologists and orthopedists; senior residents in emergency medicine, radiology, and orthopedics.

Results

The binary accuracy for detecting a fracture of this model was 93.7% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 90.8%, 96.5%), with a sensitivity of 93.2% (95% CI: 88.9%, 97.1%) and a specificity of 94.2% (95% CI: 89.7%, 98.4%). Multiclass classification accuracy was 90.8% (95% CI: 87.5%, 94.2%). When compared with the accuracy of human observers, the accuracy of the model achieved an expert-level classification, at the very least, under all conditions. Additionally, when the model was used as an aid, human performance improved, with aided resident performance approximating unaided fellowship-trained expert performance in the multiclass classification.

Conclusion

A deep learning model identified and classified hip fractures with expert-level performance, at the very least, and when used as an aid, improved human performance, with aided resident performance approximating that of unaided fellowship-trained attending physicians.© RSNA, 2020.

Our objective was to describe the prescribing practices, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of patients treated with ceftolozane-tazobactam (C/T) for multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative infections. This was a multicenter, retrospective, cohort study at eight U.S. medical centers (2015 to 2019). Inclusion criteria were age ≥18 years and receipt of C/T (≥72 hours) for suspected or confirmed MDR Gram-negative infection. The primary efficacy outcome, evaluated among patients with MDR infections, was composite clinical failure, namely, 30-day all-cause mortality, 30-day recurrence, and/or failure to resolve or improve infection signs or symptoms after C/T treatment. In total, 259 patients were included, and was isolated in 236 (91.1%). The MDR and extremely drug-resistant phenotypes were detected in 95.8% and 37.7% of isolates, respectively. The most common infection source was the respiratory tract (62.9%). High-dose C/T was used in 71.2% of patients with a respiratory tract infection (RTI) overall but in only 39.6% of patients with an RTI who required C/T renal dose adjustment. In the primary efficacy population ( = 226), clinical failure and 30-day mortality occurred in 85 (37.6%) and 39 (17.3%) patients, respectively. New C/T MDR resistance was detected in 3 of 31 patients (9.7%) with follow-up cultures. Hospital-acquired infection and Acute Physiological and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) score were independently associated with clinical failure (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.472 and 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.322 to 4.625; and aOR, 1.068 and 95% CI, 1.031 to 1.106, respectively). Twenty-five (9.7%) patients experienced ≥1 adverse effect (9 acute kidney injury, 13 infection, 1 hepatotoxicity, 2 encephalopathy, and 2 gastrointestinal intolerance). C/T addresses an unmet medical need in patients with MDR Gram-negative infections.

OBJECTIVE

We examined the impact of video editing and rater expertise in surgical resident evaluation on operative performance ratings of surgical trainees.

DESIGN

Randomized independent review of intraoperative video.

SETTING

Operative video was captured at a single, tertiary hospital in Boston, MA.

PARTICIPANTS

Six common general surgery procedures were video recorded of 6 attending-trainee dyads. Full-length and condensed versions (n = 12 videos) were then reviewed by 13 independent surgeon raters (5 evaluation experts, 8 nonexperts) using a crossed design. Trainee performance was rated using the Operative Performance Rating Scale, System for Improving and Measuring Procedural Learning (SIMPL) Performance scale, the Zwisch scale, and ten Cate scale. These ratings were then standardized before being compared using Bayesian mixed models with raters and videos treated as random effects.

RESULTS

Editing had no effect on the Operative Performance Rating Scale Overall Performance (-0.10, p = 0.30), SIMPL Performance (0.13, p = 0.71), Zwisch (-0.12, p = 0.27), and ten Cate scale (-0.13, p = 0.29). Additionally, rater expertise (evaluation expert vs. nonexpert) had no effect on the same scales (-0.16 (p = 0.32), 0.18 (p = 0.74), 0.25 (p = 0.81), and 0.25 (p = 0.17).

CONCLUSIONS

There is little difference in operative performance assessment scores when raters use condensed videos or when raters who are not experts in surgical resident evaluation are used. Future validation studies of operative performance assessment scales may be facilitated by using nonexpert surgeon raters viewing videos condensed using a standardized protocol.

BACKGROUND

The ratio of transmitral early filling velocity to early diastolic strain rate (E/e'sr) has recently emerged as a novel and accurate non-invasive measure of left ventricular (LV) filling pressure. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to give an overview of the possible clinical implications of E/e'sr.

METHODS

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all studies involving E/e'sr. Of 598 identified studies, 16 met our inclusion criteria. Studies involving E/e'sr either investigated its prognostic value (n = 9) or its correlation with invasively measured LV filling pressure (n = 7).

RESULTS

The pooled meta-analysis showed a significant correlation between E/e'sr and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) measured invasively across the studies assessing this relationship (Cohen's d = 3.90 95% CI [2.38-6.39], p  0.001) and between E/e'sr and left ventricle end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP) measured invasively across the studies assessing this relationship (Cohen's d = 5.30 95% CI [2.83-9.96], p  0.001). The pooled analysis of the prognostic studies showed that E/e'sr was a significant predictor of adverse outcomes after multivariable adjustment across the different study populations in a random effects model (overall estimated HR: 1.58 95% CI [1.28-1.96], p  0.001, per 1 m increase).

CONCLUSION

E/e'sr correlates well with invasive measures of LV filling pressure. In addition, E/e'sr provides significant prognostic information across various patient populations. Further studies are needed to test if E/e'sr has an advantage to E/e'.

Assessment of the nose is critical in evaluating obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) because the nose plays an important role in the physiology of sleep by regulating nasal airway resistance and stimulating ventilation. Nasal obstruction is common in sleep apnea, contributes to OSA, and interferes with tolerance of OSA treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or oral appliances. Medical treatment of nasal obstruction and rhinitis with nasal corticosteroid sprays is associated with improved OSA severity and sleep symptoms. Surgery for nasal obstruction, including septoplasty, turbinate reduction, rhinoplasty, and sinus surgery, improves OSA-related quality-of-life measures and CPAP tolerance.