Machine learning in action: Revolutionizing intracranial hematoma detection and patient transport decision-making.

Objectives: Traumatic intracranial hematomas represent a critical clinical situation where early detection and management are of utmost importance. Machine learning has been recently used in the detection of neuroradiological findings. Hence, it can be used in the detection of intracranial hematomas and furtherly initiate a management cascade of patient transfer, diagnostics, admission, and emergency intervention. We aim, here, to develop a diagnostic tool based on artificial intelligence to detect hematomas instantaneously, and automatically start a cascade of actions that support the management protocol depending on the early diagnosis. Materials and Methods: A plot was designed as a staged model: The first stage of initiating and training the machine with the provisional evaluation of its accuracy and the second stage of supervised use in a tertiary care hospital and a third stage of its generalization in primary and secondary care hospitals. Two datasets were used: CQ500, a public dataset, and our dataset collected retrospectively from our tertiary hospital. Results: A mean dice score of 0.83 was achieved on the validation set of CQ500. Moreover, the detection of intracranial hemorrhage was successful in 94% of cases for the CQ500 test set and 93% for our local institute cases. Poor detection was present in only 6-7% of the total test set. Moderate false-positive results were encountered in 18% and major false positives reached 5% for the total test set. Conclusion: The proposed approach for the early detection of acute intracranial hematomas provides a reliable outset for generating an automatically initiated management cascade in high-flow hospitals.

Risk factors of congenital hydrocephalus: a case-control study in a lower-middle-income country (Egypt).

OBJECTIVE: Hydrocephalus is the most common brain disorder in children and is more common in low- and middle-income countries. Research output on hydrocephalus remains sparse and of lower quality in low- and middle-income countries compared with high-income countries. Most studies addressing hydrocephalus epidemiology are retrospective registry studies entailing their inherent limitations and biases. This study aimed to investigate child-related, parental, and socioeconomic risk factors of congenital hydrocephalus (CH) in a lower-middle-income country. METHODS: An investigator-administered questionnaire was used to query parents of patients with CH and controls who visited the authors' institution from 2017 until 2021. Patients with secondary hydrocephalus and children older than 2 years of age at diagnosis were excluded. Uni- and multivariable logistic regression was performed to identify the factors affecting CH development. RESULTS: Seven hundred forty-one respondents (312 cases and 429 controls) were included in this study. The authors showed that maternal diseases during pregnancy (OR 3.12, 95% CI 1.96-5.03), a lack of periconceptional folic acid intake (OR 1.92, 95% CI 1.32-2.81), being a housewife (OR 2.66, 95% CI 1.51-4.87), paternal illiteracy (OR 1.65, 95% CI 1.02-2.69), parental consanguinity (OR 3.67, 95% CI 2.40-5.69), a history of other CNS conditions in the family (OR 2.93, 95% CI 1.24-7.34), conceiving a child via assisted fertilization techniques (OR 3.93, 95% CI 1.57-10.52), and the presence of other congenital anomalies (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.38-4.87) were associated with an independent higher odds of a child having CH. Conversely, maternal hypertension (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.09-0.48), older maternal age at delivery (OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.89-0.97), and having more abortions (OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.67-0.95) were negatively correlated with CH. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple parental, socioeconomic, and child-related factors were associated with higher odds for developing CH. These results can be utilized to guide parental counseling and management, and direct social education and prevention programs.

Neurosurgical Wrong Surgical Site in Lower-Middle- or Low-Income Countries (LMICs): A Survey Study.

BACKGROUND: One of the most preventable errors of a surgeon's career is operating on the incorrect surgical site (ICSS). No study in any specialty has ever investigated the incidence of ICSS events in lower-income countries. This study focuses on identifying the occurrence of these events along with an analysis of potential causes leading to these unfortunate events. METHODS: The authors distributed a survey to neurosurgical colleagues from around the world. These surgeons were first asked to identify details about their practice and incidence and personal experience with ICSS in their own careers. At the end of the survey, they responded to questions about their knowledge of safety checklists. RESULTS: In this study there was a 63.4% response rate. When combined with those who participated through various social media platforms, there were 178 responses. The incidence rate for every 10,000 cases performed was found to be 22.8 in the cranial group, 88.6 in the cervical group, and 158.8 in the lumbar procedural group. This study identified that 40% of participants had never learned or experienced the ABCD time-out strategy and that 60% of surgeons did not use intraoperative navigation or imaging in their practices. The error has never been disclosed to the patient in 48% of the ICSS cases. CONCLUSIONS: Due to a lack of application of safety checklist protocol, there is an increased occurrence of ICSS events in lower-income countries. The results of this study demonstrate the necessity of investing time and resources dedicated to avoiding preventable errors.

Ammonium tetraphenylborate-naphthalene adsorbent for the preconcentration and trace determination of iron in alloys and biological samples using 2-(5-bromo-2-pyridylazo)-5-diethylaminophenol by third derivative spectrophotometry.

A solid ion-pair material produced from ammonium tetraphenylborate on naphthalene (ATPB-naphthalene) provides a simple, rapid, economical and selective technique for preconcentrating iron from approximately 500 ml of aqueous solution of standard alloys and biological samples. Iron reacts with 2-(5-bromo-2-pryidlazo)-5-diethylaminophenol (5-Br-PADAP) to form a water-soluble cationic complex. When the aqueous solution of this cationic species in the pH range 3.2-8.5 is passed over the adsorbent ATPB-naphthalene at a flow rate of 1 ml min(-1), it is quantitatively retained on naphthalene as an uncharged ion-associated complex. The solid mass from the column was dissolved out with 5 ml of dimethylformamide (DMF) and iron is determined by third derivative spectrophotometry by measuring the signal d(3)A/ dlambda(3) between lambda(2)(773 nm) and lambda(3)(737 nm). The calibration curve is linear over the concentration range 0.10-25.0 mug of iron in 5 ml of DMF solution. Eight replicate determinations of 5 mug of iron gave a mean intensity (peak-to-peak signal between lambda(2) and lambda(3)) of 1.534 with a relative standard deviation of 0.90%. The sensitivity of the method is 0.307 (d(3)A/dnm(3) )/mug found from the slope of the calibration curve. The interference of a large number of anions and cations has been studied and the optimized conditions developed were utilized for the trace determination of iron in various standard alloys and biological samples.