Citations

Abstract Background and Aims No consensus criteria or approaches exist regarding assessment of steatosis in the setting of human donor liver suitability for transplantation. The Banff Working Group on Liver Allograft Pathology undertook a study to determine the consistency with which steatosis is assessed and reported in frozen sections of potential donor livers. Approach and Results A panel of 59 pathologists from 16 countries completed a questionnaire covering criteria used to assess steatosis in donor liver biopsies, including droplet size and magnification used; subsequently, steatosis severity was assessed in 18 whole slide images of donor liver frozen sections ( n = 59). Survey results (from 56/59) indicated a wide variation in definitions and approaches used to assess and report steatosis. Whole slide image assessment led to a broad range in the scores. Findings were discussed at a workshop held at the 15th Banff Conference on Allograft Pathology, September 2019. The aims of discussions were to (i) establish consensus criteria for defining “large droplet fat” (LDF) that predisposes to increased risk of initial poor graft function and (ii) develop an algorithmic approach to determine fat droplet size and the percentage of hepatocytes involved. LDF was defined as typically a single fat droplet that expands the involved hepatocyte and is larger than adjacent nonsteatotic hepatocytes. Estimating severity of steatosis involves (i) low magnification estimate of the approximate surface area of the biopsy occupied by fat, (ii) higher magnification determination of the percentage of hepatocytes within the fatty area with LDF, and (iii) final score calculation. Conclusions The proposed guidelines herein are intended to improve standardization in steatosis assessment of donor liver biopsies. The calculated percent LDF should be provided to the surgeon.

Abstract Background The landscape of heart transplantation (HT) has changed significantly with respect to patient selection, surgical techniques, and patient outcomes. We sought to investigate temporal trends in patient characteristics, waitlist and post-transplant outcomes after HT in the U.S. Methods We queried the national database of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) to identify adults listed for HT in the U.S. between 1991 and 2019. Patients were divided into four eras based on the three time points in which changes were made to the patient selection/allocation policy (1999, 2006, and 2018), and patient characteristics as well as waitlist and post-transplant outcomes were evaluated for each era. Results Between 1991 and 2019, a total of 95,179 patients were added to the waitlist for HT in the U.S. Compared to era 1, patients listed in era 4 were older (mean age: 52.4 years), more female (27.6%) and ethnic minorities (40%), and with higher-risk comorbidities (28.8% diabetes, 35.6% obese). Over the study period, there were 22,070 waitlist deaths and 61,687 transplants. Compared to the preceding era, there was significant decrease in waitlist mortality in the last 2 eras (e.g., sub-hazard ratio for era 4 vs era 3 =0.37, 95% CI=0.32–0.44). For each year, only 27.1% to 40.5% of those on the waitlist were transplanted. Among those who were transplanted, there was increase in the rates of in-hospital stroke (2.8% in era 1 to 3.7% in era 4), renal failure requiring dialysis (7.2% to 17.1%), and hospital length of stay (14 to 17 days), p-values<0.001 for all. However, this has not negatively impacted short-term survival when compared to the preceding era (1-year graft survival = 89.7% in era 4). Based on a projection model, we predict a 47% increase in living adult heart transplant recipients to to 44,366 in 2040. Conclusion There have been significant changes in the characteristics of patients listed for HT in the U.S., including an increasing proportion of high-risk co-morbidities. Although the transplant volume has increased, the wide supply-demand gap persisted. The last 2 changes in the allocation policy in 2006 and 2018 achieved their primary objective of reducing waitlist mortality. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None.

The cerebrofacial metameric syndromes are a group of congenital syndromes that result in vascular malformations throughout specific anatomical distributions of the brain, cranium and face. Multiple reports of patients with high-flow or low-flow vascular malformations following a metameric distribution have supported this idea. There has been much advancement in understanding of segmental organization and cell migration since the concept of metameric vascular syndromes was first proposed. We aim to give an updated review of these embryological considerations and then propose a more detailed classification system for these syndromes, predominately incorporating the contribution of neural crest cells and somitomeres to the pharyngeal arches.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has penetrated many aspects of everyday human life. The use of IoT in healthcare has been expanding over the past few years. In this review, we highlighted the current applications of IoT in the medical literature, along with the challenges and opportunities. IoT use mainly involves sensors and wearables, with potential applications in improving the quality of life, personal health monitoring, and diagnosis of diseases. Our literature review highlights that the current main application studied in the literature is physical activity tracking. In addition, we discuss the current technologies that would help IoT-enabled devices achieve safe, quick, and meaningful data transfer. These technologies include machine learning/artificial intelligence, 5G, and blockchain. Data on current IoT-enabled devices are still limited, and future research should address these devices’ effect on patients’ outcomes and the methods by which their integration in healthcare will avoid increasing costs.

Background: Previous studies showed that lifestyle behaviors (cigarette smoking, alcohol, coffee) are inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The prodromal phase of PD raises the possibility that these associations may be explained by reverse causation. Objective: To examine associations of lifestyle behaviors with PD using two-sample Mendelian randomisation (MR) and the potential for survival and incidence-prevalence biases. Methods: We used summary statistics from publicly available studies to estimate the association of genetic polymorphisms with lifestyle behaviors, and from Courage-PD (7,369 cases, 7,018 controls; European ancestry) to estimate the association of these variants with PD. We used the inverse-variance weighted method to compute odds ratios (ORIVW) of PD and 95%confidence intervals (CI). Significance was determined using a Bonferroni-corrected significance threshold (p = 0.017). Results: We found a significant inverse association between smoking initiation and PD (ORIVW per 1-SD increase in the prevalence of ever smoking = 0.74, 95%CI = 0.60–0.93, p = 0.009) without significant directional pleiotropy. Associations in participants ≤67 years old and cases with disease duration ≤7 years were of a similar size. No significant associations were observed for alcohol and coffee drinking. In reverse MR, genetic liability toward PD was not associated with smoking or coffee drinking but was positively associated with alcohol drinking. Conclusion: Our findings are in favor of an inverse association between smoking and PD that is not explained by reverse causation, confounding, and survival or incidence-prevalence biases. Genetic liability toward PD was positively associated with alcohol drinking. Conclusions on the association of alcohol and coffee drinking with PD are hampered by insufficient statistical power.

A patient with trigeminal neuralgia secondary to a vestibular schwannoma underwent fractionated radiotherapy without relief of her pain. She was then effectively treated with microsurgical resection of her tumor. Early identification of the lower cranial nerves and the origin of the facial and vestibulocochlear nerves is key to determining the operative corridors for vestibular schwannoma resection. To effectively treat trigeminal neuralgia, the trigeminal nerve root entry zone and motor branch are clearly identified and decompressed. Fractioned radiotherapy does not effectively treat trigeminal neuralgia secondary to vestibular schwannoma compression. The video can be found here: https://stream.cadmore.media/r10.3171/2021.7.FOCVID21112