Αρχειοθήκη ιστολογίου

Τετάρτη 3 Νοεμβρίου 2021

Construction of an automatic score for the evaluation of speech disorders among patients treated for a cancer of the oral cavity or the oropharynx: The Carcinologic Speech Severity Index

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Abstract

Background

Speech disorders impact quality of life for patients treated with oral cavity and oropharynx cancers. However, there is a lack of uniform and applicable methods for measuring the impact on speech production after treatment in this tumor location.

Objective

The objective of this work is to (1) model an automatic severity index of speech applicable in clinical practice, that is equivalent or superior to a severity score obtained by human listeners, via several acoustics parameters extracted (a) directly from speech signal and (b) resulting from speech processing and (2) derive an automatic speech intelligibility classification (i.e., mild, moderate, severe) to predict speech disability and handicap by combining the listener comprehension score with self-reported quality of life related to speech.

Methods

Eighty-seven patients treated for cancer of the oral cavity or the oropharynx and 35 controls performed different tasks of speech production and completed questionnaires on speech-related quality of life. The audio recordings were then evaluated by human perception and automatic speech processing. Then, a score was developed through a classic logistic regression model allowing description of the severity of patients' speech disorders.

Results

Among the group of parameters subject to extraction from automatic processing of the speech signal, six were retained, producing a correlation at 0.87 with the perceptual reference score, 0.77 with the comprehension score, and 0.5 with speech-related quality of life.

The parameters that contributed the most are based on automatic speech recognition systems. These are mainly the automatic average normalized likelihood score on a text reading task and the score of cumulative rankings on pseudowords. The reduced automatic YC2SI is modeled in this way: Y C2SIp = 11.48726 + (1.52926 × Xaveraged normalized likelihood reading) + (−1.94e-06 × Xscore of cumulative ranks pseudowords).

Conclusion

Automatic processing of speech makes it possible to arrive at valid, reliable, and reproducible parameters able to serve as references in the framework of follow-up of patients treated for cancer of the oral cavity or the oropharynx.

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Cerebrospinal fluid leak post COVID-19 nasopharyngeal swab for a patient with idiopathic intracranial hypertension: a case report

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J Surg Case Rep. 2021 Oct 28;2021(10):rjab456. doi: 10.1093/jscr/rjab456. eCollection 2021 Oct.

ABSTRACT

Coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is an infectious disease that led to a global pandemic. In this article, we reported a case of a young women who is known to have idiopathic intracranial hypertension, with iatrogenic skull base injury from a nasopharyngeal swab. Her case was complicated by meningitis.

PMID:34729169 | PMC:PMC8557649 | DOI:10.1093/jscr/rjab456

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Radioactive iodine dose and survival in cats with hyperthyroidism (2015-2020)

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J Feline Med Surg. 2021 Nov 3:1098612X211056837. doi: 10.1177/1098612X211056837. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Radioactive iodine (131I) is the preferred treatment for feline hyperthyroidism but neither the optimal 131I dose nor consistent predictors of post-treatment azotaemia have been determined. The aims of the study were to evaluate the relationships between: (1) 131I dose and survival; and (2) pretreatment and post-treatment seru m creatinine concentration.

METHODS: Medical records of hyperthyroid cats treated with 131I at a single referral hospital were reviewed. Information regarding signalment, body weight, pretreatment and post-treatment serum total thyroxine concentration (TT4), serum creatinine concentration, 131I dose and survival were determined. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to identify variables associated with survival. Multivariable linear regression analysis was used to identify variables associated with post-treatment serum creatinine concentration.

RESULTS: One hundred and ninety-eight (79 male, 119 female) cats were treated for hyperthyroidism with 131I (median dose 138 MBq; interquartile range 92-168). Median survival time was 1153 days (range 16-1871). Post-treatment serum creatinine (P <0.001) and age (P = 0.049) were significantly associated with survival. Every 10 µmol/l increase in post-treatment s erum creatinine concentration and every year increase in age was associated with a 1.07 fold (confidence interval [CI] 1.04-1.11) and 1.17-fold (CI 1.00-1.37) increase in the daily hazard of death, respectively. Pretreatment serum creatinine concentration was directly, and post-treatment serum TT4 concentration was inversely, associated with post-treatment serum creatinine concentration. Every 1 μmol/l increase in pretreatment serum creatinine concentration was associated with an increase in post-treatment serum creatinine concentration of 0.7 μmol/l (SE 0.17; P <0.001). Conversely, every 1 nmol/l decrease in post-treatment serum TT4 concentration was associated with a 1.2 μmol/l (SE 0.61; P <0.001) increase in post-treatment serum creatinine concentration.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Post-treatment serum TT4 concentration was associated with post-treatment azotaemia, which was associated with survival. Although 131I dose was not directly assoc iated with survival, dosing strategies that minimise post-treatment hypothyroidism and azotaemia could improve patient survival.

PMID:34730466 | DOI:10.1177/1098612X211056837

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New Drug Approvals

Association between diabetes mellitus and chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps: a population‐based cross‐sectional study

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To investigate the association between physician-diagnosed diabetes mellitus (DM) and chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) phenotypes in a national population-based study.

Study Design

Retrospective cross-sectional study.

Setting

Population-based survey data collected by the Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey between January 2008 and December 2012.

Participants and Methods

A total of 34,670 participants aged over 19 years were enrolled in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 2008 to 2012. The relationship of CRS prevalence, with and without nasal polyps, with physician-diagnosed DM and non-DM were assessed. Differences in sinonasal symptoms between patients with and without DM were analyzed in this cross-sectional study.

Results

A significant association was observed between DM and CRS with nasal polyps after adjustment for multiple variables. No substantial association was observed between DM and CRS without nasal polyps. Among patients with CRS, olfactory dysfunction for >3 months was significantly more frequent in the DM group than in the non-DM group.

Conclusion

We demonstrated significant associations between DM and CRS with nasal polyps and olfactory dysfunction among patients with CRS in a large national clinical cohort study. The direct mechanism of the association between DM and CRS with nasal polyps should be further investigated to clarify the pathogenesis of CRS with nasal polyps.

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Anterior cruciate ligament innervation in primary knee osteoarthritis

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Histol Histopathol. 2021 Nov 2:18389. doi: 10.14670/HH-18-389. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To relate the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) innervation and histologic degeneration status to the knee osteoarthritis radiologic and functional status.

DESIGN: Prospective observational study including 30 consecutive patients affected by primary knee osteoarthritis undergoing Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA). All patients suffering secondary knee osteoarthritis, an antecedent of an infectious process, malignant process, autoimmune disorder, or previous knee surgery were excluded. We recorded biodemographic, clinical, and radiologic variables of all participants previous to the TKA procedure. ACL tissue was harvested during TKA standard procedure and the obtained sample was fixed in 4% formalin and paraffin-embedded. ACL cross-sections were stained by haematoxylin-eosin and Gallego staining for elastic and collagen fibers, and Sevier-Munger silver staining for nervous tissue.

RESULTS: ACL samples histologic degeneration classification reported 15.4% normal, 23.1% slight, 26.9% mild, 11.5% moderate and 23.1% marked. We noted 46.2% large nervous fascicles, 15.4% medium fascicles, 3.8% small fascicles, and no nerve fibers were found in 34.6% ACL samples. No significant correlation was found between the histologic degeneration and the nervous fiber quantification (p>0.05, in all cases). We noted a significant histologic degeneration inverse correlation with the VAS scale (p=0.016), and nervous fiber quantification correlation with Lequesne maximum distance walked punctuation (p=0.043). We also noted greater nervous fiber quantification with minor radiological knee osteoarthritis (Kellgren-Lawrence grade II).

CONCLUSIONS: ACL degeneration and innervation deficit may play a role in primary knee osteoarthritis onset, but the lack of a defining relationship among the different parameters assessed justifies further research in greater populations.

PMID:34725806 | DOI:10.14670/HH-18-389

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Cutoff Age Between Pediatric and Adult Thyroid Differentiated Cancer: Is 18 Years Old Appropriate?

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Thyroid, Ahead of Print.
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