A Visual Aid Tool for Detection of Pancreatic Tumour-Vessel Contact on Staging CT: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Purpose: In pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the difficult distinction between normal and affected pancreas on CT studies may lead to discordance between the pre-surgical assessment of vessel involvement and intraoperative findings. We hypothesize that a visual aid tool could improve the performance of radiology residents when detecting vascular invasion in pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients. Methods: This study consisted of 94 pancreatic adenocarcinoma patient CTs. The visual aid compared the estimated body fat density of each patient with the densities surrounding the superior mesenteric artery and mapped them onto the CT scan. Four radiology residents annotated the locations of perceived vascular invasion on each scan with the visual aid overlaid on alternating scans. Using 3 expert radiologists as the reference standard, we quantified the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve to determine the performance of the tool. We then used sensitivity, specificity, balanced accuracy ((sensitivity + specificity)/2), and spatial metrics to determine the performance of the residents with and without the tool. Results: The mean area under the curve was 0.80. Radiology residents' sensitivity/specificity/balanced accuracy for predicting vascular invasion were 50%/85%/68% without the tool and 81%/79%/80% with it compared to expert radiologists, and 58%/85%/72% without the tool and 78%/77%/77% with it compared to the surgical pathology. The tool was not found to impact the spatial metrics calculated on the resident annotations of vascular invasion. Conclusion: The improvements provided by the visual aid were predominantly reflected by increased sensitivity and accuracy, indicating the potential of this tool as a learning aid for trainees.

Risk Factors for Adverse Outcomes in Adult and Pediatric Patients With Hyperglycemia Presenting to the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review.

Hyperglycemia is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, often resulting in adverse outcomes. This review aimed to identify predictors of adverse outcomes, such as repeated hospital visits, hospitalization or death, in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with hyperglycemia. Electronic searches of Medline and EMBASE were conducted for studies in English of patients presenting to the ED with hyperglycemia. Both adult and pediatric populations were included, with and without diabetes. Two reviewers independently screened all titles and abstracts for relevance. If consensus was not reached, full-length manuscripts were reviewed. For discrepancies, a third reviewer was consulted. Study quality was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale. Study- and patient-specific data were extracted and presented descriptively. Eight observational studies were reviewed; they included a total of 96,970 patients. Predictors of adverse outcomes included age, lowest income quintile, urban dwellers, presence of comorbidities, coexisting hyperlactatemia, having a family physician, elevated serum creatinine level, diabetes managed with insulin, sentinel visit for hyperglycemia in the past month, and high blood glucose level measured in the ED. Conflicting evidence was found for whether known history of diabetes was associated with risk. Factors associated with favourable outcomes included systolic blood pressure of 90 to 150 mmHg and tachycardia. This systematic review found 12 factors associated with adverse outcomes, and 2 factors associated with more favourable outcomes in patients presenting to the ED with hyperglycemia. These factors should be considered for easier identification of patients at higher risk for adverse outcomes to guide management and follow up.