The authors regret that the initial article did not include the following acknowledgement. This study was partially supported by R01AA025914 from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the NIH. The authors would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused. Assessing screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) compliance and disparities for pediatric inpatients at a tertiary care facilityJournal of Pediatric SurgeryVol. 57Issue 1PreviewPediatric trauma centers are required to screen patients for alcohol or other drug use (AOD), Briefly Intervene, and Refer these patients to Treatment (SBIRT) to meet Level 1 and 2 trauma center requirements set by the American College of Surgeons. We evaluated if a mandatory electronic medical record tool increased SBIRT screening compliance for all trauma and non-trauma adolescent inpatients. Full-Text PDF
Iodine-125 (I-125) labelled radioactive seeds were the first published wireless pre-operative image-guided breast localization technique. Radioseeds offer benefit to radiologists as a relatively intuitive procedure with precise mammographic or sonographic-guided localization and improved patient experience. Localization and surgical dates can be uncoupled, which facilitates efficient scheduling for radiologists and surgeons. Surgeons can better tailor their surgery with intra-operative localization using a special probe to detect the emitted gamma energy. Due to radioactivity, implementation of a radioseed program requires compliance with the National Regulatory Commission and therefore multidisciplinary involvement. Seeds have a high placement success rate, and comparable surgical success and re-excision rate to wires.
Prostate cancer afflicts a substantial portion of the male population with increasing incidence each decade after the age of 40. Standard of care for localized disease at presentation includes prostatectomy and/or radiation therapy which can include management of pelvic lymph nodes. However, the selection of lymph nodes treated by radiotherapy remains variable among practitioners including individual practitioners in the same institution. We present a patient with prostate adenocarcinoma who underwent radical prostatectomy with adjuvant radiotherapy for lymph node involvement and developed mesorectal failure secondary to metastatic spread to untreated tissue.
As of September 18th, 2021, global casualties due to COVID-19 infections approach 200 million, several COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized to prevent COVID-19 infection and help mitigate the spread of the virus. Despite the vast majority having safely received vaccination against SARS-COV-2, the rare complications following COVID-19 vaccination have often been life-threatening or fatal. The mechanisms underlying (multi) organ complications are associated with COVID-19, either through direct viral damage or from host immune response (i.e., cytokine storm). The purpose of this manuscript is to review the role of imaging in identifying and elucidating multiorgan complications following SARS-COV-2 vaccination—making clear that, in any case, they represent a minute fraction of those in the general population who have been vaccinated. The authors are both staunch supporters of COVID-19 vaccination and vaccinated themselves as well.
Objectives:BI-RADS 3 is an established assessment category in which the probability of malignancy is equal to or less than 2%. However, monitoring adherence to imaging criteria can be challenging and there are few established benchmarks for auditing BI-RADS 3 assignments. In this study, we explore some parameters that could serve as useful tools for quality control and clinical practice management.Materials and Methods:This retrospective study covered a 4-year period (Jan 2014-Dec 2017) and included all women over 40 years who were recalled from a screening exam and had an initial assignment of BI-RADS 3 (probably benign) category after diagnostic workup. A follow-up period of 2 years following the assignment of BI-RADS 3 was used for quantitative quality control metrics.Results:Among 135,765 screening exams, 13,453 were recalled and 1,037 BI-RADS 3 cases met inclusion criteria. The follow-up rate at 24 months was 86.7%. The upgrade rate was 7.4% (77/1,037) [CI: 5.9-9.2%] and the PPV3 was 33.8% (26/77) [CI: 23.4-45.5%]. The cancer yield was 2.51% (26/1,037) [CI: 1.64-3.65%] and did not differ (p=0. 243) from the 2% probability of malignancy. The initial BI-RADS3 per screening exam and per recall from screening were 0.76% (1,037/135,765) [CI: 0.72-0.81%] and 7.7% (1,037/13,453) [CI: 7.26-8.17%], respectively.Conclusion:Regular audit of BIRADS 3 metrics has the potential to provide additional insights for clinical practice management. Data from varied clinical settings with input from an expert committee could help establish benchmarks for these metrics.
Radiation therapy is an important tool in the care of patients with breast cancer.Today's breast cancer clinical trials demonstrate the volumetric-based strategies for contouring breast and regional lymph node targets and normal tissue can be common threads as well as points of differentiation.In this paper, we review approaches for contouring targets in breast cancer clinical trials to help site investigators effectively treat targets and meet normal tissue constraints.
Radiation therapy remains important in the modern management of both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Radiation is applied as both consolidation therapy post chemotherapy and primary therapy for selected limited volume clinically favorable histology. Application of modern therapy techniques permits more sparing of normal tissue in all anatomical locations. Modern image guidance permits both security in daily patient treatment set up and permits strategic titration of the planning target volume to further spare normal tissue. Four-dimensional planning makes certain targets are fully treated in all phases of the breathing cycle. Dose painting with altered fractionation permits identification of low, intermediate, and high-risk areas of concern and treat each in a single plan with multiple fractionation schemes saving both time of treatment and cost of therapy. In this paper we present multiple examples of the application of modern therapy techniques in lymphoma management and demonstrate advantages of modern radiation in several anatomical regions.
BACKGROUND:Pediatric trauma centers are required to screen patients for alcohol or other drug use (AOD), Briefly Intervene, and Refer these patients to Treatment (SBIRT) to meet Level 1 and 2 trauma center requirements set by the American College of Surgeons. We evaluated if a mandatory electronic medical record tool increased SBIRT screening compliance for all trauma and non-trauma adolescent inpatients. METHODS:A SBIRT electronic medical record tool was implemented for pediatric inpatient AOD screening. A positive screen prompted brief intervention and referral for treatment in coordination with social work and psychiatric consultants. We compared pre and post- implementation screening rates among inpatients age 12-18 years and performed sub-group analyses. RESULTS:There were 873 patients before and 1,091 after implementation. Questionnaire screening increased from 0% to 34.4% (p < 0.001), without an increase in positivity rate, and lab screening decreased by 4.2% (p = 0.003). Females were more likely to receive a social work consultation than males (14.5 vs 7.5%, p < 0.001), despite a greater number of positive questionnaires among males (9.5 vs 17.9%, p = 0.013). White patients were more likely to receive a social work consultation (12.9%) compared to Asian (2%), Black (6.3%), and Other (6.9%) (p = 0.007), despite comparable rates of positive screenings. When comparing English to non-English speakers, English speakers were more likely to have a social work consult (12.0% vs 2.4%, p < 0.001) and psychiatry/psychology consult (13.6 vs 5.6%, p = 0.011). CONCLUSION:Multidisciplinary training along with an electronic medical record tool increased SBIRT protocol compliance. Demographic disparities in intervention rates may exist.
Radiation therapy has undergone an extraordinary transformation in treatment technology. Daily patient care is vastly different today than the past with less normal tissue in the treatment field and fewer acute sequelae during and immediately post therapy. It is anticipated that modern therapy will decrease acute effects during treatment. Modern primary care physicians and internal medicine/emergency physicians will encounter more patients in their practice who are survivors of therapy. In this paper we review current expectations for clinical sequelae of management and strategies to both identify and manage treatment effects moving forward including what is needed in the medical record for evaluation of late effects.
Cancer remains a significant medical challenge for modern health care. Therapies have improved. Chemotherapy can now be applied and targeted to specific expression products and biomarkers. Radiation therapy is directed to specific targets with applied image guidance including less normal tissue in the treatment fields. Surgery has improved with robotics and improvements in rehabilitation and recovery. More patients are surviving their primary challenge from malignancy. As such, more patients now have the imprint of therapy upon their normal tissues. It is important for all practitioners, including primary care physicians and medical subspecialists, to participate in the aftercare of these patients with a comprehensive strategic manner to both prevent normal tissue injury and ameliorate injury if/when it occurs.
Living-donor liver transplant allows for expedited transplant, with outcomes shown to be superior compared with deceased-donor liver transplant due to earlier intervention, with reduced hospital costs. However, they only comprise about 5% of liver transplants nationally. This is due to a limited pool of willing donors and donor exclusions for medical and psycho-social reasons. The leading reason for why potential living liver donors are not eligible is nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Donor hepatic steatosis limits the number of potential living-donor liver transplants because it is associated with perioperative complications in both donors and recipients. Here, we describe a 37-year-old male potential living donor who presented with hepatic steatosis based on preoperative imaging. Over a 1-year period, he was able to completely reverse his hepatic steatosis by losing about 86 pounds (from 279 to 193 pounds), reducing his body mass index from 40 to 28.55 kg/m². Computed tomography and biopsy results after his weight loss showed that he had no hepatic steatosis, allowing him to become a living donor for his mother. Postoperative periods for both the donor and recipient were uncomplicated. This case suggests that the pool of living liver donors could be expanded through dietary and behavior modifications, thus increasing the number of potential living donors and providing potential recipients with more transplant options. Enlarging this pool of donors will also improve transplant outcomes for donors and recipients and lower overall health care costs compared with deceased-donor liver transplant.
Three stable synthetic mono-substituted cationic bacteriochlorins (BC37, BC38 and BC39) were recently reported to show exceptional activity (low nanomolar) in mediating photodynamic killing of human cancer cells after a 24h incubation upon excitation with near-infrared light (730 nm). The presence of cationic quaternary ammonium groups in each compound suggested likely activity as antimicrobial photosensitizers. Herein this hypothesis was tested against a panel of pathogenic microorganisms that have all recently drawn attention due to increased drug-resistance (Gram-positive bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis; Gram-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumannii; and fungal yeasts, Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans). All three bacteriochlorins were highly effective against both Gram-positive species (>6 logs of eradication at ⩽ 200 nM and 10 J/cm(2)). The dicationic bacteriochlorin (BC38) was best against the Gram-negative species (>6 logs at 1-2 μM) whereas the lipophilic monocationic bacteriochlorin (BC39) was best against the fungi (>6 logs at 1 μM). The bacteriochlorins produced substantial singlet oxygen (and apparently less Type-1 reactive-oxygen species such as hydroxyl radical) as judged by activation of fluorescent probes and comparison with 1H-phenalen-1-one-2-sulfonic acid; the order of activity was BC37 > BC38 > BC39. A short incubation time (30 min) resulted in selectivity for microbial cells over HeLa human cells. The highly active photodynamic inactivation of microbial cells may stem from the amphiphilic and cationic features of the bacteriochlorins.