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Background: Thoracic trauma comprises 20-25% of all traumas worldwide and constitutes the third most common cause of death after abdominal injury and head trauma in polytrauma patients. Pulmonary contusion (PC) is a common injury seen after blunt trauma that is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The aim of this prospective study was to determine the value of PC extent measurements using lung ultrasound in predicting high risk patients for ARDS development. Methods: In one year, 50 polytrauma patients with blunt chest trauma were admitted to the ICU at Damanhur Institute. Lung contusion extent was evaluated using a lung US score (LUS) and was compared to the CT contusion score. The ability of the LUS to predict ARDS was tested. The diagnostic accuracy of LUS was compared with chest radiography for lung contusion and pneumothorax with thoracic CT scan as a reference. Patients were restratified by LUS into two groups: severe and nonsevere contusion group. The two groups' data were compared with respect to difference in mortality and injury characteristics. Results: Lung contusion assessed by LUS score was well correlated to thoracic CT scan measurements (r = 0.78). A LUS of 4 was defined as a cut-off value for predicting ARDS development within 72 hours of trauma with sensitivity and specificity (91.67% and 84.21%), respectively. Patients with severe lung contusions had a lower hypoxic index on admission, more ventilator days, a higher risk of ARDS development, more fractured ribs; higher rate of hemothorax and a higher ISS score than patients with nonsevere lung contusions. Conclusion: LUS on admission can quantify lung contusion extent and the high risk of developing ARDS after blunt thoracic trauma.
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Background: Piriformis syndrome (PS) is a painful musculoskeletal condition characterized by a deep gluteal pain that may radiate to the posterior thigh and leg. This study was designed to compare the effectiveness of ozone and BTX to lidocaine injection in treating piriformis syndrome that was resistant to medication and/or physical therapy. Study design: Between November 2018 and August 2019, we involved eighty-four subjects diagnosed with piriformis syndrome in a double-blinded, prospective, randomized comparative study to receive an ultrasound-guided injection of lidocaine (control group), botulinum toxin A, or local ozone (28 patients each group) in the belly of the piriformis muscle. Pain condition evaluated by the visual analog score (VAS) was used as a primary outcome, and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) as a secondary outcome, before, at one month, two months, three months, and six months following the injection. Results: The majority (58.3%) of patients were male, while (41.7%) were female. At one month, a highly significant decrease occurred in VAS and ODI in the lidocaine and ozone groups compared to the botulinum toxin group (p < 0.001). At six months, there was a highly significant decrease in VAS and ODI in the botulinum toxin group compared to the lidocaine and ozone groups (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Botulinum toxin may assist in the medium- and long-term management of piriformis syndrome, while lidocaine injection and ozone therapy may help short-term treatment in patients not responding to conservative treatment and physiotherapy.
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The recent advances in compressive sensing (CS) based solutions make it a promising technique for signal acquisition, image processing and other types of data compression needs. In CS, the most challenging problem is to design an accurate and efficient algorithm for reconstructing the original data. Greedy-based reconstruction algorithms proved themselves as a good solution to this problem because of their fast implementation and low complex computations. In this paper, we propose a new optimization algorithm called grey wolf reconstruction algorithm (GWRA). GWRA is inspired from the benefits of integrating both the reversible greedy algorithm and the grey wolf optimizer algorithm. The effectiveness of GWRA technique is demonstrated and validated through rigorous simulations. The simulation results show that GWRA significantly exceeds the greedy-based reconstruction algorithms such as sum product, orthogonal matching pursuit, compressive sampling matching pursuit and filtered back projection and swarm based techniques such as BA and PSO in terms of reducing the reconstruction error, the mean absolute percentage error and the average normalized mean squared error.
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BACKGROUND/AIMS: The T-helper 1 (TH1) immune reaction is essential for the eradication of hepatitis C virus (HCV) during pegylated interferon α (PEG-IFN-α)- and ribavirin (RBV)-based therapy in chronic HCV patients. Secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1) was shown to be a crucial cytokine for the initiation of a TH1 immune response. We aimed to investigate whether SPP1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may influence sustained virological response (SVR) rates. METHODS: Two SNPs in the promoter region of SPP1 at the -443 C>T and -1748 G>A loci were genotyped in 100 patients with chronic HCV genotype 4 infection using a TaqMan SNP genotyping assay. RESULTS: Sixty-seven patients achieved a SVR, and 33 patients showed no SVR. Patients carrying the T/T genotype at the -443 locus showed a significantly higher SVR rate than those carrying the C/T or C/C genotype (83.67% vs. 50.98%, p<0.001). At the -1748 locus, the SVR rate was significantly higher in patients with the G/G genotype than in those with the A/A genotype (88.89% vs. 52.63%, p=0.028) and in patients with the G/A genotype than in those with the A/A genotype (85.29% vs. 52.63%, p=0.001). CONCLUSIONS: SPP1 SNPs at -443 C>T and -1748 G>A loci may be useful markers for predicting the response to PEG-IFN-α-2b plus RBV therapy in Egyptian patients with chronic HCV genotype 4 infection.