Structural connectivity changes in unilateral hearing loss.

Network connectivity, as mapped by the whole brain connectome, plays a crucial role in regulating auditory function. Auditory deprivation such as unilateral hearing loss might alter structural network connectivity; however, these potential alterations are poorly understood. Thirty-seven acoustic neuroma patients with unilateral hearing loss (19 left-sided and 18 right-sided) and 19 healthy controls underwent diffusion-weighted and T1-weighted imaging to assess edge strength, node strength, and global efficiency of the structural connectome. Edge strength was estimated by pair-wise normalized streamline density from tractography and connectomics. Node strength and global efficiency were calculated through graph theory analysis of the connectome. Pure-tone audiometry and word recognition scores were used to correlate the degree and duration of unilateral hearing loss with node strength and global efficiency. We demonstrate significantly stronger edge strength and node strength through the visual network, weaker edge strength and node strength in the somatomotor network, and stronger global efficiency in the unilateral hearing loss patients. No discernible correlations were observed between the degree and duration of unilateral hearing loss and the measures of node strength or global efficiency. These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of structural connectivity in hearing by facilitating visual network upregulation and somatomotor network downregulation after unilateral hearing loss.

Cleft Lip and Palate Surgery at a Rural African Hospital: A 13-Year Experience From Western Kenya.

INTRODUCTION: Most studies on the treatment of cleft lip and palate (CLP) in low-income and middle-income countries have reported on the experience of urban centers or surgical mission trips to rural locations. There is a paucity of literature on the experience of local teams providing orofacial cleft surgery in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. This study reports the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of cleft surgery performed by an all-local team in rural Kenya. METHODS: A retrospective chart review was performed on all patients who received CLP repair at Kapsowar Hospital between 2011 and 2023. Information regarding patient age, sex, cleft etiology, surgical management, and home location was retrieved. For the most recent year of study (2023), the authors performed a financial audit of all costs related to the performance of unilateral cleft lip surgery. Descriptive statistics were performed. RESULTS: The authors identified 381 CLP surgeries performed on 311 patients (197 male, 63.3%). The most common etiology of the cleft was left unilateral (28.3%). The average age of primary lip repair decreased from 46.3 months in 2008 to 2009 to 20.2 months in 2022 to 2023 ( P <0.001). The average age of primary cleft palate repair decreased from 38.0 months in 2008 to 2009 to 25.3 months in 2022 to 2023 ( P <0.001). Patients traveled from 23 districts to receive treatment. Age of treatment was not different when distinguished by sex, county poverty level, or travel time from the hospital. The total costs associated with cleft lip repair was $201.6. CONCLUSIONS: Adequately staffed hospitals in rural locations can meaningfully address a regional CLP backlog more cost-effectively than surgical mission trips.

The Pattern and Profile of Orofacial Clefts in Somaliland: A Review of 40 Consecutive Cleft Lip and Palate Surgical Camps.

INTRODUCTION: Somaliland is an autonomously run country that is not internationally recognized. As such, it has been largely excluded by global health development programs despite being the world's fourth poorest country. The purpose of this study was to provide the first known description of the pattern and clinical profile of patients with cleft lip and palate from this nation. METHODS: The authors performed a retrospective chart review on all patients who received cleft lip and palate repair by a single surgeon in 40 separate surgical camps at Edna Adan University Hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland, between 2011 and 2024. Information regarding patient age, sex, cleft etiology, surgical management, and home location was retrieved. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed. RESULTS: A total of 767 patients (495 male, 64.5%) received 787 surgical procedures. The average age of primary surgery was 73.7 months. The most common chief complaint was left cleft lip with cleft palate (316, 41.2%). Males received primary surgery 19.2 months later than did females (73.7 and 54.6 mo, respectively, P <0.001). Patients residing in Hargeisa received their initial procedure an average of 17.8 months younger than those who lived elsewhere in Somaliland (62.9 and 80.7 mo, respectively, P =0.004). CONCLUSIONS: In this severely economically depressed region, patients received treatment at ages that lagged far beyond recommended guidelines. Our finding of earlier treatment for females than males is rare in the literature and likely relates to cultural sex expectations. Patients from rural locations were especially vulnerable to receiving delayed treatment. Further efforts to decrease the burden of craniofacial deformities in Somaliland should be pursued in earnest.

Using a Machine Learning Approach to Predict the Need for Elective Revision and Unplanned Surgery after Implant-based Breast Reconstruction.

Two-stage implant-based reconstruction after mastectomy may require secondary revision procedures to treat complications, correct defects, and improve aesthetic outcomes. Patients should be counseled on the possibility of additional procedures during the initial visit, but the likelihood of requiring another procedure is dependent on many patient- and surgeon-specific factors. This study aims to identify patient-specific factors and surgical techniques associated with higher rates of secondary procedures and offer a machine learning model to compute individualized assessments for preoperative counseling. A training set of 209 patients (406 breasts) who underwent two-stage alloplastic reconstruction was created, with 45.57% of breasts (185 of 406) requiring revisional or unplanned surgery. On multivariate analysis, hypertension, no tobacco use, and textured expander use corresponded to lower odds of additional surgery. In contrast, higher initial tissue expander volume, vertical radial incision, and larger nipple-inframammary fold distance conferred higher odds of additional surgery. The neural network model trained on clinically significant variables achieved the highest collective performance metrics, with ROC AUC of 0.74, sensitivity of 84.2, specificity of 63.6, and accuracy of 62.1. The proposed machine learning model trained on a single surgeon's data offers a precise and reliable tool to assess an individual patient's risk of secondary procedures. Machine learning models enable physicians to tailor surgical planning and empower patients to make informed decisions aligned with their lifestyle and preferences. The utilization of this technology is especially applicable to plastic surgery, where outcomes are subject to a variety of patient-specific factors and surgeon practices, including threshold to perform secondary procedures.

Hippocampus diffusivity abnormalities in classical trigeminal neuralgia.

Introduction: Patients with chronic pain frequently report cognitive symptoms that affect memory and attention, which are functions attributed to the hippocampus. Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a chronic neuropathic pain disorder characterized by paroxysmal attacks of unilateral orofacial pain. Given the stereotypical nature of TN pain and lack of negative symptoms including sensory loss, TN provides a unique model to investigate the hippocampal implications of chronic pain. Recent evidence demonstrated that TN is associated with macrostructural hippocampal abnormalities indicated by reduced subfield volumes; however, there is a paucity in our understanding of hippocampal microstructural abnormalities associated with TN. Objectives: To explore diffusivity metrics within the hippocampus, along with its functional and structural subfields, in patients with TN. Methods: To examine hippocampal microstructure, we utilized diffusion tensor imaging in 31 patients with TN and 21 controls. T1-weighted magnetic resonance images were segmented into hippocampal subfields and registered into diffusion-weighted imaging space. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity were extracted for hippocampal subfields and longitudinal axis segmentations. Results: Patients with TN demonstrated reduced FA in bilateral whole hippocampi and hippocampal body and contralateral subregions CA2/3 and CA4, indicating microstructural hippocampal abnormalities. Notably, patients with TN showed significant correlation between age and hippocampal FA, while controls did not exhibit this correlation. These effects were driven chiefly by female patients with TN. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that TN is associated with microstructural hippocampal abnormalities, which may precede and potentially be temporally linked to volumetric hippocampal alterations demonstrated previously. These findings provide further evidence for the role of the hippocampus in chronic pain and suggest the potential for targeted interventions to mitigate cognitive symptoms in patients with chronic pain.

Feasibility of veno-arterial extracorporeal life support in awake patients with cardiogenic shock.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to demonstrate outcomes of veno-arterial extracorporeal life support (VA-ECLS) in non-intubated ("awake") patients with cardiogenic shock, as very few studies have investigated safety and feasibility in this population. METHODS: This was a retrospective review of 394 consecutive VA-ECLS patients at our institution from 2017 to 2021. We excluded patients cannulated for indications definitively associated with intubation. Patients were stratified by intubation status at time of cannulation and baseline differences were balanced by inverse probability of treatment weighting. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality while secondary outcomes included adverse events during ECLS and destination at discharge. RESULTS: Out of 135 patients in the final cohort, 79 were intubated and 56 were awake at time of cannulation. All awake patients underwent percutaneous femoral cannulation with technical success of 100% without intubation. Indications for VA-ECLS in awake patients included acute decompensated heart failure (64.3%), pulmonary hypertension or massive pulmonary embolism (12.5%), myocarditis (8.9%), and acute myocardial infarction (5.4%). After adjustment, awake and intubated patients had similar ECLS duration (7 vs 6 days, p = 0.19), in-hospital mortality (39.6% vs 51.7%, p = 0.28), and rates of various adverse events. Intubation status was not a significant risk factor for 90-day mortality (HR [95% CI]: 1.26 [0.64, 2.45], p = 0.51) in multivariable analysis. Heart transplantation (15.1% vs 4.9%) and ventricular assist device (17.4% vs 2.2%) were more common destinations at discharge in awake patients than intubated patients (p = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Awake VA-ECLS is safe and feasible with comparable outcomes as intubated counterparts in select cardiogenic shock patients.

Safety of postdischarge extended venous thromboembolism prophylaxis after hepatopancreatobiliary surgery.

BACKGROUND: The risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) after hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) surgery is high. Extended postdischarge prophylaxis in this patient population has been controversial. This study aimed to examine the safety of postdischarge extended VTE prophylaxis in patients at high risk of VTE events after HPB surgery. METHODS: Adult patients risk stratified as very high risk of VTE who underwent HPB operations between 2014 and 2020 at a quaternary care center were included. Patients were matched 1:2 extended VTE prophylaxis to the control group (patients who did not receive extended prophylaxis). Analyses compared the proportions of adverse bleeding events between groups. RESULTS: A total of 307 patients were included: 103 in the extended prophylaxis group and 204 in the matched control group. Demographics were similar between groups. More patients in the extended VTE prophylaxis group had a history of VTE (9% vs 3%; P = .045). There was no difference in bleeding events between the extended VTE prophylaxis and the control group (6% vs 2%; P = .091). Of the 6 patients with bleeding events in the VTE prophylaxis group, 5 had gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, and 1 had hemarthrosis. Of the 4 patients with bleeding events in the control group, 1 had intra-abdominal bleeding, 2 had GI bleeding, and 1 had intra-abdominal and GI bleeding. CONCLUSION: Patients discharged with extended VTE prophylaxis after HPB surgery did not experience more adverse bleeding events compared with a matched control group. Routine postdischarge extended VTE prophylaxis is safe in patients at high risk of postoperative VTE after HPB surgery.

Renal recovery in cardiac surgery patients requiring postoperative renal-replacement therapy.

OBJECTIVE: Renal failure after cardiac surgery is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. There is a lack of data examining the rate of renal recovery after patients have started dialysis following cardiac surgery. We aimed to determine the frequency of and time to renal recovery of patients requiring dialysis after cardiac surgery. METHODS: All patients who developed new-onset renal failure requiring dialysis following cardiac surgery at our institution from 2011 to 2022 were included. Renal recovery, time to renal recovery, and mortality at 1 year were merged with patients' Society of Thoracic Surgeons Adult Cardiac Surgery Database files. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to predict time to renal recovery; we censored patients who died or were lost to follow up. Cox regression was used for risk-adjustment. RESULTS: A total of 312 patients were included in the final analysis. Mortality during index hospital admission was 33% (n = 105), and mortality at 1 year was 45% (n = 141). Of those surviving at 1 year, 69% (n = 118) remained renally recovered. Median renal recovery time was 56 (37-74) days. Accounting for mortality as a competing risk, 51% of patients were predicted to achieve renal recovery. Increasing age (hazard ratio, 0.98; 0.514-0.94, P < .026) and increasing total packed red blood cells (hazard ratio, 0.0958; 0.937-0.987, P < .001) received were found to be significant negative predictors of renal recovery in the Fine-Gray model for subhazard distribution. CONCLUSIONS: More than two-thirds of patients with renal failure who survived the perioperative period had renal recovery within 1 year after surgery. Recovery was driven primarily by postoperative complications rather than comorbidities and intraoperative factors, suggesting renal failure in the postoperative cardiac surgery patient surviving to discharge is unlikely to be permanent.