Pilot study evaluating frailty-focused care for hospitalised patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Background: Frailty is associated with morbidity and mortality among people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), yet there are no established care pathways to manage frail patients with COPD. To address this gap, we developed, implemented and assessed the feasibility of a new frailty-focused care model for patients hospitalised with exacerbations of COPD.

Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study among hospitalised patients with acute exacerbations of COPD in an academic hospital in Canada over 18 months.

A roadmap to implementing machine learning in healthcare: from concept to practice.

Background: The adoption of machine learning (ML) has been slow within the healthcare setting. We launched Pediatric Real-world Evaluative Data sciences for Clinical Transformation (PREDICT) at a pediatric hospital. Its goal was to develop, deploy, evaluate and maintain clinical ML models to improve pediatric patient outcomes using electronic health records data.

Development and validation of the SickKids Enterprise-wide Data in Azure Repository (SEDAR).

Objectives: To describe the processes developed by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) to enable utilization of electronic health record (EHR) data by creating sequentially transformed schemas for use across multiple user types.

Methods: We used Microsoft Azure as the cloud service provider and named this effort the SickKids Enterprise-wide Data in Azure Repository (SEDAR). Epic Clarity data from on-premises was copied to a virtual network in Microsoft Azure.

Comparing the Hospital Frailty Risk Score and the Clinical Frailty Scale Among Older Adults With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation.

Importance: Frailty is associated with severe morbidity and mortality among people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Interventions such as pulmonary rehabilitation can treat and reverse frailty, yet frailty is not routinely measured in pulmonary clinical practice. It is unclear how population-based administrative data tools to screen for frailty compare with standard bedside assessments in this population.

Algorithms for left atrial wall segmentation and thickness - Evaluation on an open-source CT and MRI image database.

Structural changes to the wall of the left atrium are known to occur with conditions that predispose to Atrial fibrillation. Imaging studies have demonstrated that these changes may be detected non-invasively. An important indicator of this structural change is the wall's thickness.

Shape complexes: the intersection of label orderings and star convexity constraints in continuous max-flow medical image segmentation.

Optimization-based segmentation approaches deriving from discrete graph-cuts and continuous max-flow have become increasingly nuanced, allowing for topological and geometric constraints on the resulting segmentation while retaining global optimality. However, these two considerations, topological and geometric, have yet to be combined in a unified manner. The concept of "shape complexes," which combine geodesic star convexity with extendable continuous max-flow solvers, is presented.

Effect of Left Atrial Wall Thickness on Radiofrequency Ablation Success.

Introduction: Radiofrequency (RF) ablation in thicker regions of the left atrium (LA) may require increased ablation energy in order to achieve effective transmural lesions. Consequently, many cases of recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) postablation may be due to thicker-than-normal atrial tissue. The aim of this study was to test the hypotheses that patients with recurrent AF have thicker tissue overall and that electrical reconnection is more likely in regions of thicker tissue.

Automated planning of computer assisted mosaic arthroplasty.

We describe and evaluate a computer algorithm that automatically develops a surgical plan for computer assisted mosaic arthroplasty, a technically demanding procedure in which a set of osteochondral plugs are transplanted from a non-load-bearing area of the joint to the site of a cartilage defect. We found that the algorithm produced plans that were at least as good as a human expert, had less variability, and took less time.

Prediction of the repair surface over cartilage defects: a comparison of three methods in a sheep model.

Defects in articular cartilage can be repaired through osteochondral transplantation (mosaic arthroplasty), where osteochondral plugs from non-weight-bearing areas of the joint are transferred to the defect site. Incongruity between the plug surface and the adjacent cartilage results in increased contact pressures and poorer outcomes. We compare three methods to predict the desired repair surface for use in computer-assisted mosaic arthroplasty: manual estimation, a cubic spline surface, and a statistical shape atlas of the knee.

[Adverse reaction after use of latanoprost in Japanese glaucoma patients].

Purpose: Although latanoprost has proven to have a strong hypotensive effect, some patients show adverse reactions such as eyelid pigmentation, iridial pigmentation, or hypertrichosis. We prospectively investigated these adverse reactions.

Subjects And Methods: One hundred and one Japanese glaucoma or ocular hypertension patients were included.

Fast assessment of acetabular coverage using stereoscopic volume rendering.

Previous CT-based methods of measuring acetabular coverage of the femoral head have either been labor-intensive or have required extensive preprocessing of the data prior to visualization. We propose a method of measuring acetabular coverage using stereoscopic digitally reconstructed radiographs that required very little labor or image preprocessing time. Taking a craniocaudal view of the pelvis, we measured both preoperative and postoperative CTs of 10 patients treated with transtrochanteric periacetabular osteotomy.

Corneal endothelial cell morphology in patients undergoing cataract surgery.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of age, gender, axial length, and presence of type II diabetes on corneal endothelial cell morphology in patients undergoing cataract surgery.

Methods: The corneal endothelial cell morphology was investigated in 1,819 eyes of 1,394 patients before cataract surgery. The parameters examined include cell density, coefficient of variation of cell area, and percentage of hexagonal cells.