What Lies Beneath: Why Some Pressure Injuries May Be Unpreventable for Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate intersections between pressure injury (PrI) history, muscle composition, and tissue health responses under physiologically relevant loading conditions for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). DESIGN: Repeated measures study design with annual follow-up for up to 3 years. SETTING: Tertiary care center. PARTICIPANTS: Persons with SCI (N=38). Exclusion criteria included having an open pelvic region PrI at the time of recruitment, presence of systemic disease, and/or known sensitivity to contrast. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Gluteal muscle composition, ischial interface pressures, tissue oxygenation. RESULTS: Ischial region mean interface pressures are the same for individuals with or without a PrI history. Tissue oxygenation is lower during sitting for persons with a PrI history. Individuals with >15% gluteal intramuscular fat were statistically highly significantly (P<.001) more likely to have a history of severe or recurrent PrI. Intramuscular adipose tissue (IMAT) levels within the gluteal muscle may remain low over time or muscle tissue in the gluteal muscle region may be almost entirely replaced by IMAT. In the current study cohort, it was found that muscle composition also continues to change over time even for individuals with long-standing SCI. CONCLUSIONS: Soft-tissue compositional changes, specifically IMAT, provides a reliable indicator of PrI history and may provide a key to personalized PrI risk status for persons with SCI. The current findings confirm that interface pressure mapping alone is a limited indicator for PrI development.

Preparing Trainees to Deliver Patient-Centered Care in an Ambulatory Cancer Clinic.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how an interprofessional cancer care clinic at the Cleveland Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) is training health care professionals in patient-centered care. Teaching strategies included patient huddle discussions pre- and post-clinic, role-play, noon "lunch and learn" conferences, and, most importantly, patient interactions, which were evaluated with the patient perception of patient centeredness (PPPC) instrument. This instrument is designed to capture patient and provider perceptions of the provider's patient centeredness. Early findings demonstrated that patient responses were overwhelmingly positive and lacked variability. In response to the lack of variability, the educator in the clinic participated in the evaluation and patient, provider, and trainer responses were compared. Discussion of the weekly evaluations provided helpful formative feedback on patient centeredness to the trainees rotating through this specialty care clinic.

CT-guided percutaneous administration of Spot sterile carbon stain to a single F-18 FDG positive mesenteric lymph node to allow identification during subsequent laparoscopic resection.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of CT-guided percutaneous administration and off-label use of Spot sterile carbon stain (GI Supply, Camp Hill, PA) to a single PET-positive mesenteric lymph node to allow identification during subsequent laparoscopic resection. METHODS: An asymptomatic 61-year-old male veteran with past medical history only for benign prostatic hyperplasia presented with a mildly elevated PSA. A screening CT demonstrated a 2.3 × 0.8 cm mesenteric mass and findings resembling mesenteric panniculitis; however, following PET revealed F-18 FDG avidity, and a neoplastic process could not be entirely excluded. An initial attempt at percutaneous biopsy was non-diagnostic. Therefore, a second percutaneous intervention with localization and off-label administration of Spot dye was performed to aid in subsequent laparoscopic resection. RESULTS: The Spot dye was identified during laparoscopy and the PET-positive mesenteric mass was successfully resected. Histology diagnosed the non-malignant etiology of organizing hematoma. A follow-up PET/CT confirmed interval resection of the previous PET-avid mass. CONCLUSIONS: This case report is the first to describe the off-label administration and use of Spot dye by a CT-guided percutaneous technique, allowing improved visualization during subsequent laparoscopic resection. Spot is composed of sterile, carbon-based particles which leave a permanent tattoo and is FDA-approved for the inking of the Gastrointestinal tract. Interventional radiologists should consider the off-label use of Spot dye in marking regions of interest as it safely provides a permanent tattoo which may aid in future identification.

Biomarkers for recurrent pressure injury risk in persons with spinal cord injury.

Objective: To investigate potential linkages between pressure injury (PrI) recurrence following spinal cord injury (SCI) and muscle-based and circulatory biomarkers, specifically fatty metabolites and inflammatory cytokines. Design: Observational study. Setting: Tertiary Care Center. Participants: 30 individuals with complete or incomplete SCI. Study participants either had never developed a PrI (Group I) or had a history of recurrent PrI (Group II). Interventions: Not applicable. Outcome Measures: Gluteal muscle histology, immunohistochemistry, muscle-based and circulatory fatty metabolites and inflammatory cytokines. Results: Gluteal intramuscular adipose tissue (IMAT) was greater than 15% in most Group II (83%) individuals. Muscle tissue histology confirmed intramuscular structural differences. Fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4) and fatty acid binding protein 3 (FABP3) were reliably detected in muscle and blood and significantly correlated with IMAT (P < 0.001). FABP4 was significantly higher in Group II muscle and blood (P < 0.05). FABP3 was significantly higher in Group I muscle (P < 0.05). Circulatory FABP3 levels were lower for Group I. Inflammatory biomarkers were more reliably detected in blood. Colony-Stimulating Factor-1 was slightly higher in Group II muscle. Circulatory interleukin-13 was significantly higher (P < 0.01) in Group I. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF-A) was significantly increased (P < 0.05) in Group I muscle and blood. Conclusion: Identifying individuals with SCI at highest risk for recurrent PrI may impact patient management. IMAT content evaluation illustrates that muscle quality is a key biomarker. Low circulatory inflammatory biomarker expression potentially limits clinical significance for between group differences. Circulatory levels of FABP4 hold great potential as a recurrent PrI risk biomarker.

Long-Term Clinical Outcomes Following Radiofrequency and Microwave Ablation of Renal Cell Carcinoma at a Single VA Medical Center.

PURPOSE: Microwave ablation (MWA) is a relatively newer treatment modality for treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and only a few small studies have examined the short- and long-term outcomes for MWA applied to renal tumors. The purpose of this retrospective review is to assess the initial experience including technical short- and long-term success rates of using radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and MWA for RCC at a single Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Tumor characteristics were recorded using the R.E.N.A.L. nephrometry score. Group comparisons were performed by using univariate logistic regression analysis to determine factors affecting primary treatment success, failure, and effectiveness. Kaplan-Meier local tumor progression-free survival following ablation was calculated. RESULTS: MWA and RFA groups were not significantly different in primary treatment success (P = 0.82). MWA primary treatment success (90.2%) was not associated with R.E.N.A.L criteria, whereas primary success in the RFA group (88.2%) was predicted by smaller tumor size (P = 0.002). Primary treatment effectiveness rates were not significantly different in MWA (88.2%) and RFA (80.3%) groups (P = 0.29). Although overall primary technique effectiveness was associated with size (P = 0.02), univariate analysis showed a significant association between tumor size and primary effectiveness for RFA (P = 0.002) but not MWA. There was no significant association between R.E.N.A.L score or criteria and primary treatment effectiveness in the RFA or MWA groups. CONCLUSION: RFA and MWA both represent effective treatment modalities for RCC; larger tumor size may be associated with decreased efficacy of thermal ablation techniques.