Effect of a collaborative transdisciplinary team approach on oral health status in acute stroke patients.

BACKGROUND: Oral function deteriorates easily during the acute phase of cerebral stroke. Therefore, oral health care involving a transdisciplinary approach consisting of dental and medical professionals might be important, but has not been studied in detail. OBJECTIVE: This study assessed the oral health status of patients with cerebral stroke in the acute phase, with the aim of elucidating the efficacy of collaborative, transdisciplinary oral health care involving dentists, dental hygienists, nurses and speech therapists. METHODS: The participants were 115 consecutive acute cerebral stroke patients, who received oral health care while hospitalised at the university hospital. Their oral health status was assessed using the oral health assessment tool (OHAT) on admission and discharge. RESULTS: Patients with acute cerebral stroke had high OHAT scores on admission, meaning poor oral health status. The collaborative oral health care resulted in significant decrease of OHAT scores at discharge, indicative of the improvement of oral health status. Multivariate analysis identified OHAT score for tongue, dentures and oral cleanliness on admission as the significant variables associated with poor oral health status at discharge. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, the oral health of cerebral stroke patients in the acute phase can be improved by implementing transdisciplinary collaboration of medical and dental professionals. Particularly, patients with problems pertaining to the tongue, dentures and oral cleanliness as revealed through OHAT on admission may require more intensive intervention.

[A Case of Pseudoaneurysm of the Lingual Artery that was Difficult to be Distinguished from Epistaxis].

We describe the case of a 75-year-old man with pharyngeal hemorrhage caused by a pseudoaneurysm of the lingual artery after accidentally swallowing his dentures. He developed sudden oral and nasal hemorrhage and was transported to a hospital near his residence. The doctors at the hospital diagnosed the case as epistaxis and treated the symptom with nasal packing. However, the bleeding did not stop and his blood pressure decreased. He was then transported to our hospital. We assumed that the bleeding was caused by epistaxis from branches of the internal maxillary artery, and tried to stop bleeding with the endovascular treatment using coils or liquid embolus materials. Angiography showed a pseudoaneurysm of the lingual artery. Coil embolization against the artery was effective in controlling bleeding. Correct diagnosis and appropriate treatments based on the correct diagnosis are essential in this case of swallowed dentures and bleeding of pseudoaneurysm of the lingual artery.

A Prehospital Triage System to Detect Traumatic Intracranial Hemorrhage Using Machine Learning Algorithms.

Importance: An adequate system for triaging patients with head trauma in prehospital settings and choosing optimal medical institutions is essential for improving the prognosis of these patients. To our knowledge, there has been no established way to stratify these patients based on their head trauma severity that can be used by ambulance crews at an injury site. Objectives: To develop a prehospital triage system to stratify patients with head trauma according to trauma severity by using several machine learning techniques and to evaluate the predictive accuracy of these techniques. Design, Setting, and Participants: This single-center retrospective cohort study was conducted by reviewing the electronic medical records of consecutive patients who were transported to Tokyo Medical and Dental University Hospital in Japan from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2021. Patients younger than 16 years with cardiopulmonary arrest on arrival or with a significant amount of missing data were excluded. Main Outcomes and Measures: Machine learning-based prediction models to detect the presence of traumatic intracranial hemorrhage were constructed. The predictive accuracy of the models was evaluated with the area under the receiver operating curve (ROC-AUC), area under the precision recall curve (PR-AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and other representative statistics. Results: A total of 2123 patients (1527 male patients [71.9%]; mean [SD] age, 57.6 [19.8] years) with head trauma were enrolled in this study. Traumatic intracranial hemorrhage was detected in 258 patients (12.2%). Among several machine learning algorithms, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) achieved the mean (SD) highest ROC-AUC (0.78 [0.02]) and PR-AUC (0.46 [0.01]) in cross-validation studies. In the testing set, the ROC-AUC was 0.80, the sensitivity was 74.0% (95% CI, 59.7%-85.4%), and the specificity was 74.9% (95% CI, 70.2%-79.3%). The prediction model using the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, which was calculated after consultation with physicians, had a sensitivity of 72.0% (95% CI, 57.5%-83.8%) and a specificity of 73.3% (95% CI, 68.7%-77.7%). The McNemar test revealed no statistically significant differences between the XGBoost algorithm and the NICE guidelines for sensitivity or specificity (P = .80 and P = .55, respectively). Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, the prediction model achieved a comparatively accurate performance in detecting traumatic intracranial hemorrhage using only the simple pretransportation information from the patient. Further validation with a prospective multicenter data set is needed.

Association between Improvement of Oral Health, Swallowing Function, and Nutritional Intake Method in Acute Stroke Patients.

Stroke and poor oral health are common in older people, and the brain injuries associated with stroke are often accompanied by a decline in oral function. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of stroke patients who could not recover oral ingestion until discharge and the association between improved oral health, swallowing function, and nutritional intake methods in acute care. The subjects were 216 consecutive stroke patients who were admitted to Tokyo Medical and Dental University hospital and received oral health management. Nutritional intake, dysphagia, and oral health were evaluated using the Functional Oral Intake Scale (FOIS), Dysphagia Severity Scale (DSS), and Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT), respectively. Patients in the tube feeding group (FOIS level 1-2, N = 68) tended to have a worse general condition, fewer functional teeth, and a worse DSS level than those in the oral nutrition group (FOIS level 3-7, N = 148). Multiple analysis with improvement in FOIS score as the dependent variable showed that number of functional teeth (odds ratio [OR]: 1.08, p = 0.04) and improved DSS (OR: 7.44, p < 0.001) and OHAT values (OR: 1.23, p = 0.048) were associated with improvement in nutritional intake methods in acute care. Therefore, recovery of swallowing function and oral health might be important for stroke patients to recover oral ingestion in acute care.

Independent predictors of shunt-dependent normal pressure hydrocephalus after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

BACKGROUND: Normal pressure hydrocephalus frequently develops after subarachnoid hemorrhage. It can often be difficult, however, to predict shunt dependency. The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of shunt-dependent normal pressure hydrocephalus (SDNPH) after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). METHODS: The incidence of SDNPH in 139 consecutive patients who underwent surgery for aSAH in the Department of Neurosurgery Tokyo Medical and Dental University between January 2008 and December 2011 was evaluated. The patientage, Glasgow Coma Score, World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies grade, Hunt and Hess grade, modified Fisher group, modified Rankin Scale, duration of external drainage of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), gender, aneurysm location, presence of intraventricular hemorrhage, surgical method (clip or coil), and presence of acute hydrocephalus were analyzed. RESULTS: Forty-seven of 139 patients (33.8%) underwent shunt operation. Fifteen of these 47 patients were assessed to have high-pressure hydrocephalus and excluded. Thirty-two SDNPH patients (23.0%) were compared with 84 patients without hydrocephalus (60.4%). An age of 65 years or over (OR 5.51;95%CI 1.97-15.40), a GCS of 13 or less (OR 3.82;95%CI 1.38-10.60), and CSF drainage for a duration of 12 days or more (OR 3.63;95%CI 1.30-10.14) were independently associated with SDNPH. CONCLUSIONS: SDNPH after aSAH in our study showed no correlations with three of the parameters previously identified as risk factors for shunt-dependent hydrocephalus, namely, the amount of SAH, the presence of IVH, or acute hydrocephalus. Instead, a longer duration of CSF drainage correlated with SDNPH as an independent factor. These data suggest that a longer duration of CSF drainage may be one of the risk factors for SDNPH after aSAH.

Extended orbital exenteration for sinonasal malignancy with orbital apex extension: surgical technique and clinical analysis.

OBJECT: The majority of sinonasal malignancies present with advanced disease, and cure rates are generally poor. Surgical extirpation remains the mainstay of treatment. In cases of sinonasal malignancy with orbital apex extension, gross-total tumor resection requires orbital exenteration and bony skull base resection around the orbital apex to provide sufficient margins. In this retrospective study, the authors describe their surgical strategy in and technique for orbital exenteration with orbital apex resection in patients at Tokyo Medical and Dental University who had sinonasal malignancy with orbital apex extension. They also analyzed the clinical features of and the results in these patients. METHODS: Between February 2001 and August 2012 at the authors' institution, sinonasal malignancy with orbital apex extension was treated using craniofacial tumor resection with orbital exenteration including skull base bone around the orbital apex. The authors describe this technique and analyze the surgical indications, extent of resection, primary tumor location, outcome, pathological findings, and neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapies of the patients who underwent the technique. RESULTS: The patients consisted of 12 men and 3 women with a mean age of 47.7 years (range 14-79 years). The longest postoperative follow-up was 9.5 years, and the shortest was 0.67 year (mean 3.0 years). Tumor originated at the ethmoid sinus in 6 patients (40%), maxillary sinus in 5 (33%), nasal cavity in 2 (13%), and orbital cavity and maxillary bone in 1 patient each (7%). Histological analysis of tumor specimens revealed squamous cell carcinoma in 9 patients (60%), rhabdomyosarcoma in 2 (13%), and small cell carcinoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma, and Ewing sarcoma in 1 patient each (7%). Two patients experienced recurrences at 1 and 5 months after treatment; these patients died at 5 and 10 months after surgery, respectively. Estimated 5-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) was 86.7%, and estimated 5-year overall survival (OS) was 86.2%; there was no perioperative mortality. None of the patients had new neurological deficits as a result of the surgery, but 5 patients suffered infectious complications from the graft transplanted into the cavity after resection. There were no other perioperative complications. CONCLUSIONS: These authors are the first to describe a technique for extended orbital exenteration with orbital apex skull base resection. The technique provided sufficient margins for gross-total resection of the sinonasal malignancy with orbital apex extension. The estimated 5-year OS and RFS rates were high, and the perioperative complication rate was acceptably low, demonstrating the safety and efficacy of this technique.