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OBJECTIVE The objective was to evaluate the trajectories of hematoma resolution and functional improvement after middle meningeal artery embolization (MMAE) for chronic subdural hematoma (cSDH), model the temporal pattern of cSDH resolution, and identify factors associated with favorable outcomes. METHODS This real-world multicenter retrospective study included cSDH patients treated with MMAE at 24 centers between 2019 and 2024. Hematoma thickness was measured at baseline and at follow-up intervals (1–4 weeks, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, and > 12 months after embolization). Resolution patterns were modeled using exponential decay functions. Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scores assessed functional outcomes. Good functional outcome was defined as mRS score ≤ 2. Resolution patterns were modeled using exponential decay functions to estimate time to 50% and 80% reduction. Patients were categorized as complete resolution (≥ 99%) or by quartile of the remaining distribution (substantial [73%–98%], moderate [53%–73%], partial [27%–53%], minimal [< 27%]). The primary outcome was good functional status (mRS score ≤ 2). RESULTS The authors analyzed a total of 1781 patients with 2295 cSDHs who underwent MMAE. The mean ± SD age was 72.8 ± 12.4 years and 68.1% of patients were male. The initial mean hematoma thickness was 15.31 ± 6.53 mm, decreasing to 5.24 ± 5.91 mm at final follow-up (mean reduction 64.3% ± 42.1%). Resolution followed an exponential decay pattern, with an estimated time to 50% reduction of 1.8 months and to 80% reduction of 8.9 months. Complete resolution occurred in 1031 of 2224 patients (46.4%) with complete follow-up. The median (IQR) mRS score improved from 1 (0–3) at baseline to 0 (0–2) at > 12 months. Good functional outcomes were more common in patients with complete versus minimal resolution (68.9% vs 35.0%, p < 0.001). Achieving ≥ 73% resolution within 90 days was associated with better outcomes (good outcome in 76.9% of those with ≥ 73% resolution vs 67.3% in those without, p < 0.001). Neurological deterioration was the strongest predictor of lack of good outcome (23.7% in patients with neurological deterioration vs 82.4% without, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS After MMAE for cSDH, reduction in hematoma thickness follows a predictable exponential decay pattern. Greater extent (≥ 80%) and faster timing (within 90 days) of resolution are valuable prognostic indicators. Functional outcomes improve progressively through 6–12 months after the procedure. The relationship between resolution extent and functional outcomes provides quantitative benchmarks for evaluating treatment response.

Abstract Background Human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA) can cause severe illness requiring intensive care, but factors associated with critical illness among hospitalized patients are incompletely described. Method We performed a retrospective multicenter cohort study of adults hospitalized with PCR-confirmed HGA at Mayo Clinic Rochester and affiliated Mayo Clinic Health System sites in Minnesota and Wisconsin from 2014 through 2024. Patients who required ICU-level care were compared with those managed on general medical wards using exploratory univariate analyses (Fisher exact and Kruskal–Wallis tests). Results Among 101 hospitalized patients, 12 (12%) required ICU-level care. Symptoms documented at hospital presentation/admission were more frequent in ICU patients, including vomiting (64% vs 30%) and abdominal pain (55% vs 26%). On admission, ICU patients had lower sodium (mean 128.8 vs 132.3 mmol/L) and higher total bilirubin (mean 1.3 vs 0.8 mg/dL). Platelet nadir during hospitalization was lower in ICU patients (mean 54.8 × 109/L vs 84.1 × 109/L). Peak ferritin, measured in a subset, was markedly higher in ICU patients (median 21 666 vs 961 µg/L). The composite endpoint of HGA-related complications or serious treatment-related adverse events occurred more often in ICU patients (75% vs 17%); one death occurred in the ICU group. Conclusions In hospitalized adults with HGA, ICU-level care was associated with gastrointestinal symptoms at presentation/admission, admission hyponatremia and hyperbilirubinemia, lower platelet nadir, and marked hyperferritinemia when measured. Because these findings were derived from univariate group-level comparisons with substantial overlap between groups, they should be viewed as hypothesis-generating rather than individually predictive or sufficient as stand-alone triage criteria.

Expert consensus recommendations from 21 academic centers were established for appropriate radiography utilization at 12 potentially low-yield anatomic sites through a multidisciplinary process endorsed by six major American medical societies.

Abstract Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), principally Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are common chronic disorders involving inflammation and often progressive tissue damage. Genome-wide association studies have mapped many risk signals, but the causal variants, effector genes and relevant cellular contexts remain difficult to resolve, limiting mechanistic interpretation and therapeutic translation. Here we performed a multi-ancestry GWAS meta-analysis of 125,992 individuals with IBD and more than 1.2 million controls, identifying 619 independent association signals (374 novel) at 420 IBD regions that account for 77–80% of SNP-based heritability. Fine-mapping resolved 81 high-confidence variants, 41 not previously reported. Although most signals were shared between CD and UC, 39% showed IBD subtype specificity, with UC signals showing stronger enrichment in functional annotations from intestinal epithelial, secretory and enteroendocrine cells, and CD showing stronger genetic correlations with circulating inflammatory biomarkers, including C-reactive protein and glycoprotein acetylation. Latent causal modelling supported a causal effect of decreased high-density lipoprotein on CD risk. By integrating bulk and single-cell eQTL and pQTL resources using colocalisation and Mendelian randomisation, together with coding-variant evidence from exome sequencing, we prioritised 664 candidate effector genes across 341 signals, including 390 newly implicated IBD genes, revealing new biological mechanisms and candidate therapeutic targets supported by human genetics.

Abstract Introduction Sedation is routinely administered to facilitate comfort and tolerance of life support for critically ill adults dependent on invasive mechanical ventilation. Isoflurane, a widely used anesthetic during surgery, has properties that may also benefit ICU patients requiring continuous sedation. However, efficacy as a sedative and safety in this population is not well established. Methods We conducted two identically designed multicenter randomized trials, INSPIRE ICU1 and INSPIRE ICU2, at hospitals across the US. Ventilator-dependent adults were randomly assigned in a 1.5:1 ratio to receive either inhaled isoflurane or intravenous propofol as the first-line sedative for up to 48 ± 6 hours, targeting a sedation depth between Richmond agitation-sedation scale (RASS) -1 (drowsy) to -4 (responsive only to physical stimuli). Isoflurane was administered via an anesthetic conserving device (Sedaconda ACD-S). In both arms, opioids were permitted at the lowest dose required to achieve freedom from pain. The primary outcome was the percentage of time at target sedation level, assessed as a noninferiority outcome with pre-specified margin of 15%. Secondary outcomes included opioid exposure, wake-up time after end of treatment, time to extubation, and proportion of time with spontaneous breathing effort. Results A total of 470 combined participants were included in the two trials. In each trial, 142 patients were randomly assigned to isoflurane and 93 to propofol. In INSPIRE ICU1, percentage of time within target sedation depth was 77.1 [53.2, 89.9] % with isoflurane and 80.9 [58.2, 96.4] % with propofol (difference -1.5 [-8.9, &gt;99] %; p &lt; 0.01 for noninferiority). In INSPIRE ICU2, percentage of time within target sedation depth was 72.6 [66.4, 78.9] % with isoflurane and 74.5 [67.5, 81.5] % with propofol (difference -1.9 [-9.4, &gt;99] %; p &lt; 0.01 for noninferiority). In both trials, patients assigned to isoflurane received significantly less opioid, measured as fentanyl equivalents, during the treatment period. In INSPIRE ICU2, participants receiving isoflurane were significantly likelier to exhibit spontaneous breathing efforts, but this finding was not replicated in INSPIRE ICU1. There were no significant differences in time to wake-up or time to extubation between groups in either trial. No episodes of malignant hyperthermia or propofol infusion syndrome were reported. Adverse events were comparable in type and frequency between groups. Conclusions In two US multicenter trials, isoflurane was noninferior to propofol for maintaining target sedation depth in adults undergoing invasive ventilation, and was associated with significantly lower opioid exposure. (NCT05327296, NCT05312385) This abstract is funded by: Sedana Medical

Abstract Rationale Advances in bronchoscopic technology, including robotic-assisted bronchoscopy (RaB) and cone-beam CT (CBCT), have enabled biopsy of multiple nodules in a single procedure. Here we present the procedural characteristics, safety, diagnostic yield, and use of linear endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) staging in patients with multifocal pulmonary nodules biopsied under a single anesthesia event. Methods This multi-center, retrospective observational study included adults undergoing RaB biopsy of multifocal peripheral pulmonary lesions and lymph node assessment under a single anesthesia event at six U.S. centers from 11/2019 - 8/2025. Procedures utilized either the Ion (Intuitive) or Monarch (Ethicon) systems under general anesthesia. De-identified demographic, radiologic, procedural, pathologic, and safety data were collected in a secure centralized database. Safety outcomes included pneumothorax and its sequelae, hypoxia, and infectious complications. Diagnostic yield was determined using the 2024 ATS/ACCP consensus statement. NGS adequacy was reported from two health systems with well-defined criteria for sufficiency and standard institutional practices for sending NGS testing on both nodules. Statistical analyses utilized included descriptive statistics, t-tests, chi-squared/Fisher’s tests where appropriate, and logistic regression. Results Among 191 patients, 177 underwent biopsy of two and 14 of three nodules. Lymph nodes were sampled in 167 (87.4%), with 18 (10.8%) positive for malignancy; notably, 17 of 18 (94%) patients with nodal metastases had at least one fully solid nodule. Complications occurred in 20 patients (10.5%), including pneumothorax in 14 (7.3%), with 4 (2.1%) requiring tube thoracostomy. There were no cases of bilateral pneumothorax. Transient hypoxia occurred in 3 patients (1.6%) and 3 developed outpatient-managed bronchitis. Seven patients (3.7%) required unplanned admission. Overall diagnostic yield was 72.2%, with 122 (63.9%) patients having two diagnostic nodules and 33 (17.4%) having two non-diagnostic nodules. Bronchus sign (OR 2.9, p = 0.003), radial EBUS use (OR 2.6, p = 0.025), and CBCT use (OR 2.4, p = 0.021) were associated with procedures having two diagnostic nodules. At sites with standardized NGS adequacy reporting, 74 of 81 malignant nodules (91%) provided sufficient tissue for NGS. Conclusions •Single-procedure biopsy of multifocal pulmonary nodules is feasible, safe, and achieves industry-standard strict diagnostic yield. •Complications are slightly higher than single-nodule procedures. Serious events were rare. •17 of 18 patients with malignant nodal disease had at least one fully solid nodule; no patients with two pure ground glass nodules had nodal metastasis. •NGS testing was feasible and adequate on the majority of samples, aiding clinicians in staging multifocal nodules. This abstract is funded by: None

Abstract Introduction Large Language Models (LLMs) have proven effective at analyzing unstructured and structured data from electronic health records (EHR). Their reliance on static EHR data means they miss the dynamic, high-resolution physiological signals that are the first indicators of patient decline, creating a fundamental data lag as clinical documentation of an event may occur hours after its onset. This represents a critical gap in the ability to develop truly effective triage tools. Furthermore, while LLMs can synthesize multi-source data for acuity assessment, they exhibit known limitations, including hallucinations that constrain autonomous use in safety-critical settings. In contrast, a Vision-Language Model (VLM) with strong image-grounded clinical reasoning can interpret vital sign trend images, surpassing the limitations of current EHR-based models. This approach provides immediate triage evaluations that lead to earlier detection of patient deterioration. Methods This mixed-methods study deployed a VLM (Gemini 2.5) integrated within the eICU dashboard. We used near-real-time two-hour trends in heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation from consecutive patient cases during alerts in hospital floor units monitored by eICU that admit acute medical and surgical patients. To increase the diversity of the sample, we sought routine cases from patients without alerts and emergent cases from patients admitted to the medical, surgical, trauma, and mixed ICUs. A structured context prompt was used to generate a standardized summary including clinical interpretation, data quality and artifact assessment, triage recommendation, and the model’s chain-of-thought reasoning. Results We included patients from Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN, using an 800-patient cohort for prompt development and a 100-patient cohort for validation against clinically adjudicated results. In the validation cohort the VLM achieved 80% accuracy (80/100). An analysis of the 20 incorrect predictions revealed a clear pattern of conservative over-triage: 80% (16/20) of errors were clinically acceptable adjacent-class discrepancies (routine↔urgent or urgent↔emergent). Only 4/20 discrepancies represented a substantive misclassification. Most errors therefore reflected conservative prioritization rather than incorrect assessment. The model demonstrated a perfect safety profile, underestimating patient acuity in 0% of cases, and thus avoiding the most clinically dangerous error. These results confirm the feasibility of VLM-based approach and provide a strong foundation for the proposed work. Conclusion This VLM performs cross-modal reasoning by fusing deep visual perception with broad clinical context. The result is a fully contextualized and explainable triage prioritization, which provides direct decision support and integrates into the clinical workflow, allowing for faster and more confident acute care assessments. This abstract is funded by: none

PURPOSE External beam radiation therapy (EBRT) has gained delayed acceptance as a recommended first-line treatment modality for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), given limited evidence that it improves overall survival (OS). We analyzed individual patient data (IPD) from an international cohort to assess OS among patients with HCC treated with EBRT. METHODS We performed a systematic review of publications that assessed EBRT, met prespecified technical standards for HCC, and reported OS (search date December 15, 2022). Corresponding authors were invited to submit IPD for the study. We performed Kaplan-Meier survival analyses to determine OS and restricted mean survival time (RMST) stratified by Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage and treatment status (ie, treatment-naïve and experienced). We performed random effects Cox proportional hazards modeling to assess clinical characteristics associated with OS. RESULTS Data were provided on 4,913 patients treated with EBRT with a median follow-up time of 5.0 years. The median OS was 6.8 years (95% CI, 5.7 to 8.7) for BCLC-0 and 4.6 years (95% CI, 4.1 to 5.1) for BCLC-A. Among treatment-naïve patients, the median OS was not reached (95% CI, 8.6 to not reached) for BCLC-0 and was 5.4 years (95% CI, 4.5 to 6.7) for BCLC-A. In multivariable models, more advanced BCLC stage, higher tumor burden, worse performance status, and Child-Pugh class B or C were associated with a higher risk of mortality. Ablative radiation dose and more recent year of treatment were associated with a reduced risk of death. CONCLUSION To our knowledge, this study represents the largest multinational cohort of patients with HCC treated with EBRT. OS outcomes with EBRT for very early- and early-stage HCC appear to be comparable with resection, thermal ablation, and other ablative locoregional therapies. These data support the inclusion of EBRT in the BCLC HCC clinical decision-making process.

ABSTRACT Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is common in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and is associated with increased morbidity, heart failure (HF) exacerbations, and adverse long‐term outcomes. Although catheter ablation is an established rhythm‐control strategy, data comparing its long‐term clinical outcomes with anti‐arrhythmic drug (AAD) therapy in patients with HCM remain limited. Objective To compare long‐term clinical outcomes of catheter ablation versus medical therapy with AADs in patients with HCM and AF. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the TriNetX Research Network, a global federated database of electronic health records. Adult patients with HCM and AF between January 2010 and December 2020 were identified and stratified according to treatment with catheter ablation or AAD therapy. Outcomes included all‐cause mortality, HF exacerbations, AAD‐related adverse events, all‐cause hospitalization, ischemic stroke, repeat ablation, need for cardioversion, need for long‐term AAD use, and atrioventricular nodal ablation. A 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was performed to balance baseline characteristics. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs). Results After PSM, 3144 patients were included (1572 in each cohort) with a mean follow‐up of approximately 3.4 years. Catheter ablation was associated with lower all‐cause mortality compared with AAD therapy (9.5% vs. 14.8%; HR: 0.60; 95% CI: 0.49–0.74; p < 0.001). Ablation was also associated with reduced risk of HF exacerbations (38.4% vs. 43.3%; HR: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.71–0.88; p < 0.001) and fewer AAD‐related adverse events (8.4% vs. 11.2%; HR: 0.71; 95% CI: 0.55–0.93; p = 0.011). Rates of all‐cause hospitalization (HR: 0.93; p = 0.11) and ischemic stroke (HR: 0.78; p = 0.10) were similar between groups. Conclusion In this large real‐world cohort of patients with HCM and AF, catheter ablation was associated with lower mortality, reduced HF hospitalizations, and decreased AAD therapy‐related adverse events, as compared with medical therapy. These findings suggest that catheter ablation may provide meaningful clinical benefits in selected patients with HCM and AF, although prospective studies are needed to confirm these observations.

Abstract Honoring a patient’s wishes for end-of-life care can be challenging if the patient loses decision-making capacity and the identified alternate decision-maker will not respect the patient’s wishes. This article discusses how to proceed ethically and legally when the alternate decision-maker and care team disagree about respecting a patient’s end-of-life preferences.