Prediction of Patient's Adherence to the Post-Intubation Tracheal Stenosis Follow-up Plan in Iran: Application of two Data Mining Techniques.

BACKGROUND: Timely diagnosis of post-intubation tracheal stenosis (PITS), which is one of the most serious complications of endotracheal intubation, may change its natural history. To prevent PITS, patients who are discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU) with more than 24 hours of intubation should be actively followed-up for three months after extubation. This study aimed to evaluate the abilities of artificial neural network (ANN) and decision tree (DT) methods in predicting the patients' adherence to the follow-up plan and revealing the knowledge behind PITS screening system development requirements. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this cohort study, conducted in 14 ICUs during 12 months in ten cities of Iran, the data of 203 intubated ICU-discharged patients were collected. Ten influential factors were defined for adherences to the PITS follow-up (P<0.05). A feed-forward multilayer perceptron algorithm was applied using a training set (two-thirds of the entire data) to develop a model for predicting the patients' adherence to the follow-up plan three months after extubation. The same data were used to develop a C5.0 DT in MATLAB 2010a. The remaining one-third of data was used for model testing, based on the holdout method. RESULTS: The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the developed ANN classifier were 83.30%, 72.70%, and 89.50%, respectively. The accuracy of the DT model with five nodes, 13 branches, and nine leaves (producing nine rules for active follow-up) was 75.36%. CONCLUSION: The developed classifier might aid care providers to identify possible cases of non-adherence to the follow-up and care plans. Overall, active follow-up of these patients may prevent the adverse consequences of PITS after ICU discharge.

An Overview of Tracheal Stenosis Research Trends and Hot Topics.

BACKGROUND: Tracheal stenosis remains a challenge in the thoracic surgery field. Recognizing the hot topics and major concepts in this area would help the health policy makers to determine their own priorities and design the effective research plans. The present study analyzed and mapped the topics and trends of tracheal stenosis studies over time as well as authors' and countries' contributions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Search results were obtained employing Bibexcel. To determine cold and hot topics, co-occurrence analysis was applied using three international databases 'Web of Science', 'PubMed' and 'Scopus'. Appropriately, different categories in the articles such as keywords, authors, and countries were explored via VOSviewer and NetDraw. Afterward, the trends of research topics were depicted in four time-intervals from 1945 to 2015 by ten co-occurrence terms. RESULTS: The majority of articles were limited to case series and retrospective studies. The studies had been conducted less frequently on prevention, risk factors and incidence determination but extensively on treatment and procedures. Based on the articles indexed in WOS, 45 countries and 8,260 authors have contributed to scientific progress in this field. The highest degree of cooperation occurred between the USA and England with 15 common papers. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the published literature in tracheal stenosis research field was about surgical and non-surgical treatments. Conducting the screening and prevention studies would diminish the burden of this disease on the health system as well as the patients and their families' well-being.

Colopharyngoplasty in Patients with Severe Pharyngoesophageal Corrosive Injury: A Complicated but Worthwhile Procedure to Restore GI Tract Continuity, A Case Series.

BACKGROUND: Pharyngoesophageal strictures (PES) after corrosive injury impose a problematic condition for both physicians and patients in terms of their management and patients' quality of life. Colopharyngoplasty is a complex procedure, which is used to restore swallowing in these severely disabled patients. We describe our experience in treating nine patients with severe PES after corrosive injuries in a referral center. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective analysis of our database from 2009 to 2014 showed nine patients (seven men; age range: 18 to 47 years) with severe PES who underwent colopharyngoplasty ∼6 months (range: 4-10) after caustic material ingestion. All patients had a feeding jejunostomy tube before reconstruction. Esophagectomy with or without gastrectomy was performed in all patients, except for one; thereafter, an isoperistaltic segment of the left colon was pulled up, and a pharyngocolic anastomosis was performed. Eight patients had a tracheostomy created either before reconstruction due to respiratory symptoms or at the time of definitive surgery to prevent aspiration in the early post-operative period. RESULTS: Almost all survivors had a satisfactory swallowing at the end of the follow-up (range: 4-60 months). The jejunostomy tube could be removed in all of the patients after a median of 5 months. One patient died of sepsis due to graft necrosis in the immediate post-operative period. Another patient died 5 months after the first surgery following a revision surgery for intractable dysphagia. At the end of the follow-up, only one patient tolerated tracheostomy tube decannulation. Two patients required laryngotracheal dissociation because of massive aspiration and recurrent episodes of pneumonia. Five patients still had a tracheostomy because of an severely destroyed larynx (two patients) and aspiration (three patients). CONCLUSION: Colopharyngoplasty is considered a complicated but trustworthy procedure to restore gastrointestinal tract continuity after severe corrosive injury. Undeniably, laryngeal involvement adversely affects the functional outcome. The post-operative course is frequently protracted, accompanied with several problems. Aspiration is nearly the most problematic event in the early post-operative period, which mandates a multidisciplinary approach to manage it.

An Investigation of Topics and Trends of Tracheal Replacement Studies Using Co-Occurrence Analysis.

This study evaluated tracheal regeneration studies using scientometric and co-occurrence analysis to identify the most important topics and assess their trends over time. To provide the adequate search options, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS) were used to cover various categories such as keywords, countries, organizations, and authors. Search results were obtained by employing Bibexcel. Co-occurrence analysis was applied to evaluate the publications. Finally, scientific maps, author's network, and country contributions were depicted using VOSviewer and NetDraw. Furthermore, the first 25 countries and 130 of the most productive authors were determined. Regarding the trend analysis, 10 co-occurrence terms out of highly frequent words were examined at 5-year intervals. Our findings indicated that the field of trachea regeneration has tested different approaches over the time. In total, 65 countries have contributed to scientific progress both in experimental and clinical fields. Special keywords such as tissue engineering and different types of stem cells have been increasingly used since 1995. Studies have addressed topics such as angiogenesis, decellularization methods, extracellular matrix, and mechanical properties since 2011. These findings will offer evidence-based information about the current status and trends of tracheal replacement research topics over time, as well as countries' contributions.