Neurobehavioral correlates of impaired emotion recognition in pediatric PTSD.

Despite broad evidence suggesting that adversity-exposed youth experience an impaired ability to recognize emotion in others, the underlying biological mechanisms remains elusive. This study uses a multimethod approach to target the neurological substrates of this phenomenon in a well-phenotyped sample of youth meeting diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Twenty-one PTSD-afflicted youth and 23 typically developing (TD) controls completed clinical interview schedules, an emotion recognition task with eye-tracking, and an implicit emotion processing task during functional magnetic resonance imaging )fMRI). PTSD was associated with decreased accuracy in identification of angry, disgust, and neutral faces as compared to TD youth. Of note, these impairments occurred despite the normal deployment of visual attention in youth with PTSD relative to TD youth. Correlation with a related fMRI task revealed a group by accuracy interaction for amygdala-hippocampus functional connectivity (FC) for angry expressions, where TD youth showed a positive relationship between anger accuracy and amygdala-hippocampus FC; this relationship was reversed in youth with PTSD. These findings are a novel characterization of impaired threat recognition within a well-phenotyped population of severe pediatric PTSD. Further, the differential amygdala-hippocampus FC identified in youth with PTSD may imply aberrant efficiency of emotional contextualization circuits.

A Comparison of Bleeding Complications in Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Renal Cryoablation Using Cryoprobes with and without Heat-Based Track Ablation.

PURPOSE: To determine if the use of heat-based track ablation with new-generation cryoprobes is associated with decreased renal cryoablation bleeding complications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eighty-nine patients who underwent percutaneous cryoablation for treatment of a solitary renal mass with the use of cryoprobes with track ablation (CwTA) from October 29, 2015, to May 18, 2017, were compared with a propensity score-matched control group of 178 patients who underwent treatment with the use of cryoprobes without track ablation (Cw/oTA) from January 5, 2012, to October 28, 2015. Bleeding complications were assessed with the use of the Clavien-Dindo classification system and compared between the matched patient groups by means of conditional logistic regression, both univariately and in a multivariate model to adjust for imbalanced covariates. Change in patient hemoglobin was evaluated as a secondary measure of periprocedural bleeding. RESULTS: Seven of the 89 patients (7.9%) who underwent percutaneous renal cryoablation with the use of CwTA developed major (grade ≥3) bleeding complications, versus 13 of the 178 patients (7.3%) treated with the use of Cw/oTA. Conditional logistic regression analysis adjusted for potential confounders showed that major, minor, and overall bleeding complications were not associated with the type of cryoprobes used for treatment (P values .727, .370, and .733, respectively). There was also no significant difference in postprocedural change in hemoglobin for patients treated with the use of CwTA compared with Cw/oTA (P = .909). Furthermore, total duration of track ablation in patients with bleeding complications (mean 169 seconds, SD 68, range 60-240) was not significantly different than in patients without bleeding complications (mean 171 seconds, SD 86, range 30-360; P = .940). CONCLUSIONS: The use of cryoprobes with heat-based track ablation did not decrease the incidence of bleeding complications after renal cryoablation compared with procedures performed without track ablation.

Impact of a 3D printed model on patients' understanding of renal cryoablation: a prospective pilot study.

PURPOSE: To determine whether a 3D printed model improves patients' understanding of renal cryoablation and the involved anatomy. METHODS: This prospective study included 25 control patients, who received standard of care renal cryoablation education (verbal explanation accompanied by review of relevant 2D imaging) and 25 experimental patients, who received education using a 3D printed renal cryoablation model in addition to standard of care. Subsequent patient surveys included 5 anatomy and 5 procedural knowledge questions. The experimental cohort also subjectively graded the importance of the 3D model for understanding the renal cryoablation procedure and associated anatomy. RESULTS: Mean percent of anatomy questions answered correctly was significantly higher in the experimental cohort than that in the control group (87.2% vs. 72.8%; p = 0.007). After adjusting for the physician providing the education, however, the 3D model was no longer significantly associated with patient anatomy knowledge (p = 0.22). Mean percent of procedure-related questions answered correctly was higher in the experimental cohort (93.6%) than that in the control group (89.6%) (p = 0.16). The experimental cohort graded the importance of the 3D model for understanding their renal tumor anatomy and upcoming procedure to be very high (mean 9.4 and 9.5, respectively, on a 0-10 point scale). Twenty-three (92%) patients "definitely recommended" continued use of the 3D model as a patient educational tool. CONCLUSIONS: Although patients' objective anatomy and procedural knowledge was not significantly improved with the 3D renal cryoablation model in this small pilot study, patients' high perceived value of the model supports investigation in a larger study.