A Case of Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Hallucination.

This essay reports on fictitious source materials created by AI chatbots, encourages human oversight to identify fabricated information, and suggests a creative use for these tools.

Association of baseline frailty and age with postoperative outcomes in metastatic brain tumor patients.

BACKGROUND: The impact of baseline frailty status versus that of chronological age on surgical outcomes of metastatic brain tumor patients remains largely unknown. The present study aimed to evaluate this relationship for preoperative risk stratification using a large national database. METHODS: The National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database was queried to extract data of metastatic brain tumor patients who underwent surgery between 2015 and 2019 (n=5,943). Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the effect of age and modified frailty index-5 (mFI-5) on mortality, major complications, unplanned readmission and reoperation, extended length of stay (eLOS), and non-home discharge. RESULTS: Both univariate and multivariate analyses demonstrated that frailty status was significantly predictive of 30-day mortality, major complications, eLOS, and non-home discharge. Although increasing age was also a significant predictor of eLOS and discharge to non-home destination, effect sizes were smaller compared with frailty. CONCLUSIONS: The present study, based on analysis of data from a large national registry, shows that frailty, when compared with age, is a superior predictor of postoperative outcomes in metastatic brain tumor patients. A future prospective study, namely a randomized controlled trial, would be beneficial in helping to corroborate the findings of this retrospective study.

Frailty Is Superior to Age for Predicting Readmission, Prolonged Length of Stay, and Wound Infection in Elective Otology Procedures.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the predictive ability of the 5-point modified frailty index relative to age in elective otology patients. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective database analysis. SETTING: Multicenter, national database of surgical patients. PATIENTS: We selected all elective surgical patients who received tympanoplasty, tympanomastoidectomy, mastoidectomy, revision mastoidectomy, and cochlear implant procedures from 2016 to 2019 from the National Surgical Quality Improvement database. INTERVENTIONS: Therapeutic. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Readmission rates, discharge disposition, reoperation rates, and extended length of hospital stay. RESULTS: Utilizing receiver operating characteristics with area under the curve (AUC) analysis, nonrobust status was determined to be a superior predictor relative to age of readmission (AUC = 0.628 [p < 0.001] versus AUC = 0.567 [p = 0.047], respectively) and open wound infection relative to age (AUC = 0.636 [p = 0.024] versus AUC = 0.619 [p = 0.048], respectively). Nonrobust otology patients were more likely to have dyspnea at rest and an American Society of Anesthesiology score higher than 2 before surgery (odds ratios, 13.304 [95% confidence interval, 2.947-60.056; p < 0.001] and 7.841 [95% confidence interval, 7.064-8.704; p < 0.001], respectively). CONCLUSION: Nonrobust status was found to be a useful predictor of readmission and prolonged length of stay in patients undergoing elective otology procedures, which generally have low complication rate. Given the aging population and corresponding increase in otology disease, it is important to use age-independent risk stratification measures. Frailty may provide a useful risk stratification tool to select surgical candidates within the aging population.