Occult Amyloid Deposition in Older Patients Presenting With Bilateral Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or Multiple Trigger Digits.

PURPOSE: The diagnosis of amyloidosis is important for early intervention, disease monitoring, and prevention of complications and progression. Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and trigger digit (TD) are two common conditions associated with early disease. The purpose of this study was to define disease prevalence among patients with bilateral CTS and multiple TDs and assess for an increased rate of diagnosis in the presence of both. METHODS: Men older than 50 years and women older than 60 years of age diagnosed with bilateral CTS, multiple TDs, or a combination of the 2 were prospectively enrolled in our study. Tenosynovial biopsy samples taken at the time of surgery were tested for the presence of amyloid using Congo red staining. Demographic and medical covariates were also collected and analyzed for differences between amyloid-positive and -negative patients. RESULTS: Fifty-six patients were enrolled in the study, and nine patients tested positive for amyloid deposition. The demographics and medical comorbidities were similar between amyloid-positive and -negative patients. Thirty patients with bilateral CTS were enrolled, and four tested positive for amyloid. For patients with multiple TDs, a total of 17 patients were enrolled, and 4 tested positive for amyloid. Among patients with multiple TDs, only men tested positive for amyloid and were, on average, younger than those who tested negative (61 and 73 years, respectively). Patients presenting with a combination of CTS and TD did not exhibit increased amyloid discovery. CONCLUSIONS: Hand surgeons should consider tenosynovial biopsy in men older than 50 years and women older than 60 years presenting with either bilateral CTS or multiple TDs. TYPE OF STUDY/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prognostic IV.

Cost of Surgical Care at Public Sector District Hospitals in India: Implications for Universal Health Coverage and Publicly Financed Health Insurance Schemes.

BACKGROUND: In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), provisioning for surgical care is a public health priority. Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri-Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) is India's largest national insurance scheme providing free surgical and medical care. In this paper, we present the costs of surgical health benefit packages (HBPs) for secondary care in public district hospitals. METHODS: The costs were estimated using mixed (top-down and bottom-up) micro-costing methods. In phase II of the Costing of Health Services in India (CHSI) study, data were collected from a sample of 27 district hospitals from nine states of India. The district hospitals were selected using stratified random sampling based on the district's composite development score. We estimated unit costs for individual services-outpatient (OP) visit, per bed-day in inpatient (IP) and intensive care unit (ICU) stays, and surgical procedures. Together, this was used to estimate the cost of 250 AB PM-JAY HBPs. RESULTS: At the current level of utilization, the mean cost per OP consultation varied from US$4.10 to US$2.60 among different surgical specialities. The mean unit cost per IP bed-day ranged from US$13.40 to US$35.60. For the ICU, the mean unit cost per bed-day was US$74. Further, the unit cost of HBPs varied from US$564 for bone tumour excision to US$49 for lid tear repair. CONCLUSIONS: Data on the cost of delivering surgical care at the level of district hospitals is of critical value for evidence-based policymaking, price-setting for surgical care and planning to strengthen the availability of high quality and cost-effective surgical care in district hospitals.

Lipomatous Hypertrophy of the Interatrial Septum Manifesting as Third Degree Atrioventricular Block.

A 55-year-old patient was found to have complete heart block during preoperative assessment. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging revealed an interatrial mass suggestive of primary cardiac tumor. Extensive evaluation including intracardiac biopsy and finally open resection revealed lipomatous hypertrophy masquerading as tumor. (Level of Difficulty: Intermediate.).

Dynamic Changes in Aortic Vascular Stiffness in Patients Bridged to Transplant With Continuous-Flow Left Ventricular Assist Devices.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to measure aortic vascular stiffness from orthotopic heart transplant (OHT) patients exposed to varying types of flow as a result of the presence or absence of left ventricular assist device (LVAD) support pre-OHT. BACKGROUND: The effects of continuous-flow LVADs (CF-LVADs) on vascular properties are unknown, but may contribute to the pathophysiology of CF-LVAD complications such as stroke, hypertension, and bleeding. METHODS: Echocardiograms were reviewed from 172 OHT patients immediately before LVAD and at 3 time points post-OHT: baseline, 6 months, and 1 year. For each study, pulse pressure and aortic end-systolic and end-diastolic dimensions were used to calculate aortic strain, distensibility, and stiffness index. Patients were categorized into 3 groups based on the presence or absence of a LVAD and a pulse pre-OHT: No LVAD (n = 111), LVAD No Pulse (n = 30), and LVAD With Pulse (n = 31). RESULTS: The aortic stiffness index among LVAD No Pulse patients increased from 2.8 ± 1.1 pre-CF-LVAD to 10.9 ± 4.7 immediately post-OHT (p < 0.001). This aortic stiffness index was also significantly higher compared with No LVAD (3.4 ± 1.1; p < 0.001) and LVAD With Pulse (3.7 ± 1.4; p < 0.001) immediately post-OHT with attenuation of these differences by 1 year post-OHT. Similar findings were noted for the other indices of aortic stiffness. CONCLUSIONS: Aortic stiffness is markedly increased immediately post-OHT among patients bridged with CF-LVADs, with attenuation of this increased stiffness over the first year after transplant. These results suggest that aortic vascular properties are dynamic and may be influenced by alterations in flow pulsatility. As more patients are supported with CF-LVADs and as newer pump technology attempts to modulate pulsatility, further research examining the role of alterations in flow patterns on vascular function and the potential resultant systemic sequelae are needed.

Myocardial strain and strain rate from speckle-tracking echocardiography are unable to differentiate asymptomatic biopsy-proven cellular rejection in the first year after cardiac transplantation.

BACKGROUND: Cellular rejection after cardiac transplantation is treatable with timely diagnosis. Because noninvasive methods for diagnosis are limited, surveillance endomyocardial biopsies are routinely performed in the first year after transplantation. The aim of this study was to test whether myocardial strain and strain rate as assessed by speckle-tracking echocardiography would be a sensitive noninvasive method for the detection of asymptomatic rejection. METHODS: Surveillance biopsies and echocardiograms obtained in the first year after transplantation were retrospectively reviewed, and patients with asymptomatic biopsy-proven cellular rejection were identified, as well as control transplantation patients without rejection or cardiac complications. Circumferential and longitudinal strain and strain rate were measured using Velocity Vector Imaging software from echocardiograms performed at three time points for patients with rejection-baseline (no rejection), rejection, and resolution (of rejection)-and three time points for control patients-baseline (within the first month after transplantation), 6 months, and 12 months after transplantation. RESULTS: Speckle-tracking strain and strain rate measurements were obtained from 30 patients with asymptomatic biopsy-proven rejection and 14 control transplantation patients. There were no significant differences in circumferential and longitudinal strain or strain rate between the baseline, rejection, and resolution studies. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in strain and strain rate in control transplantation patients during the first year after transplantation or compared with patients with rejection. CONCLUSIONS: Speckle-tracking analysis was unable to detect changes on serial studies from patients with asymptomatic rejection and thus cannot replace biopsy. Other noninvasive methods for the diagnosis of cellular-mediated rejection are needed.

Synthesis and evaluation of novel 4-substituted styryl quinazolines as potential antimicrobial agents.

In an attempt to afford possible antibacterial and anti-human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) agents, a series of 22 novel styryl quinazoline-based heterocyclic entities were designed and synthesized. Various substituted aryl urea and thiourea cores were incorporated at position 4 of quinazoline, followed by styrylation of position 2, aiming at an augmented biological potential. The synthesized compounds were well characterized through IR, (1) H NMR, (13) C NMR and elemental analyses. All compounds were screened for their in vitro anti-HIV activity against the HIV-1 (IIIB) and HIV-2 (ROD) strains. The antibacterial activity was also evaluated against various pathogenic Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains.

Design, synthesis & biological evaluation of some novel quinazolinone scaffolds.

In an effort to discover new candidates with improved antimicrobial activities, we synthesized and studied invitro antimicrobial activities of various series of 3-((thiophen-2-yl)-ethyl)-2-(styryl)-quinazolin-4(3H)-one (3a-3g) and N1-(substituted aryl)-N3-[3-((3,4-dimethoxy phenyl-2-yl)-ethyl)-4(3H)-quinazolone-2-yl]-acetonyl semicarbazides (7a-7j) with an intent to overcome multiple drug resistance to the pathogenic strains and to retain psychological action to develop novel class of antibacterial agents. The structure of newly synthesized scaffolds has been affirmed on the basis of FTIR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, mass and elemental analysis. All the final scaffolds have been subjected to in vitro antimicrobial screening against two Gram (+Ve) bacteria (S. aureus, B. subtilis), two Gram (-Ve) bacteria (E. coli, S.typhi) and two fungal strains (C. albicans, A. niger) using the broth micro-dilution method.

Indexes for three-class classification performance assessment--an empirical comparison.

Assessment of classifier performance is critical for fair comparison of methods, including considering alternative models or parameters during system design. The assessment must not only provide meaningful data on the classifier efficacy, but it must do so in a concise and clear manner. For two-class classification problems, receiver operating characteristic analysis provides a clear and concise assessment methodology for reporting performance and comparing competing systems. However, many other important biomedical questions cannot be posed as "two-class" classification tasks and more than two classes are often necessary. While several methods have been proposed for assessing the performance of classifiers for such multiclass problems, none has been widely accepted. The purpose of this paper is to critically review methods that have been proposed for assessing multiclass classifiers. A number of these methods provide a classifier performance index called the volume under surface (VUS). Empirical comparisons are carried out using 4 three-class case studies, in which three popular classification techniques are evaluated with these methods. Since the same classifier was assessed using multiple performance indexes, it is possible to gain insight into the relative strengths and weakness of the measures. We conclude that: 1) the method proposed by Scurfield provides the most detailed description of classifier performance and insight about the sources of error in a given classification task and 2) the methods proposed by He and Nakas also have great practical utility as they provide both the VUS and an estimate of the variance of the VUS. These estimates can be used to statistically compare two classification algorithms.