Remote analysis of sputum smears for mycobacterium tuberculosis quantification using digital crowdsourcing.

Worldwide, TB is one of the top 10 causes of death and the leading cause from a single infectious agent. Although the development and roll out of Xpert MTB/RIF has recently become a major breakthrough in the field of TB diagnosis, smear microscopy remains the most widely used method for TB diagnosis, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This research tests the feasibility of a crowdsourced approach to tuberculosis image analysis. In particular, we investigated whether anonymous volunteers with no prior experience would be able to count acid-fast bacilli in digitized images of sputum smears by playing an online game. Following this approach 1790 people identified the acid-fast bacilli present in 60 digitized images, the best overall performance was obtained with a specific number of combined analysis from different players and the performance was evaluated with the F1 score, sensitivity and positive predictive value, reaching values of 0.933, 0.968 and 0.91, respectively.

Percutaneous edge-to-edge mitral valve repair: 2-year follow-up in the first human case.

We report the first-in-human mitral valve repair using percutaneous technology that creates a "surgical-like" edge-to-edge repair. A catheter-delivered clip was introduced transseptally from the femoral vein, advanced through the mitral orifice, retracted to grasp the leaflets, and detached to create a functional double-orifice valve. The patient had an uncomplicated post-procedural course. Echocardiography at 1- and 2-years post procedure showed mild mitral regurgitation and positive ventricular remodeling. The success of this case suggests that percutaneous mitral valve repair may be a feasible therapy for certain patients suffering from mitral regurgitation.