Sensitivity and negative predictive value of sentinel lymph node biopsy for cutaneous melanoma for diagnosing nodal metastasis: meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy.

Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy provides information about disease staging and the need for adjuvant therapy. The consequences of a false-negative result are potentially severe. The risk of a false-negative result should be quantified.

Access and Utilization of HIV/STI Testing Services among Men Who have Sex with Men During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review.

Background: Men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to bear the disproportionate burden of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the public's fear of the virus may have exacerbated this burden by hindering access to and utilization of HIV/STI testing services.

Methods: We completed a systematic literature review to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on MSM's access and utilization of HIV/STI testing services.

Tarsal coalition resection in children: Is it effective?

Tarsal coalitions in children are a group of disorders that typically present as a rigid flatfoot deformity. Operative treatment generally consists of resecting the coalition alone or resection plus flatfoot reconstructive procedures. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the rate and risk factors for complications, including infection, recurrence, and reoperation, following the surgical management of tarsal coalitions in children.

The "Flapbot": A Global Perspective on the Validity and Usability of a Flap Monitoring Chatbot.

Background:  The Flapbot chatbot assists in free-flap monitoring, emphasizing accessibility, user-friendliness, and global reliability. This study assesses Flapbot's worldwide validity and usability and uses qualitative analysis to identify areas for future enhancement.

Methods:  Flapbot, built on Google's DialogFlow, was evaluated by international plastic surgeons.

A regionally tailored epidemiological forecast and monitoring program to guide a healthcare system in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, analytics and predictive models built on regional data provided timely, accurate monitoring of epidemiological behavior, informing critical planning and decision-making for health system leaders. At Atrium Health, a large, integrated healthcare system in the southeastern United States, a team of statisticians and physicians created a comprehensive forecast and monitoring program that leveraged an array of statistical methods.

Methods: The program utilized the following methodological approaches: (i) exploratory graphics, including time plots of epidemiological metrics with smoothers; (ii) infection prevalence forecasting using a Bayesian epidemiological model with time-varying infection rate; (iii) doubling and halving times computed using changepoints in local linear trend; (iv) death monitoring using combination forecasting with an ensemble of models; (v) effective reproduction number estimation with a Bayesian approach; (vi) COVID-19 patients hospital census monitored via time series models; and (vii) quantified forecast performance.

FACE-Q for Measuring Patient-reported Outcomes after Facial Skin Cancer Surgery: Cross-cultural Validation.

Background: Facial skin cancer and its surgical treatment can affect health-related quality of life. The FACE-Q Skin Cancer Module is a patient-reported outcome measure that measures different aspects of health-related quality of life and has recently been translated into Dutch. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of the translated version in a Dutch cohort using modern psychometric measurement theory (Rasch).

Improving Burns and Plastic Surgery Induction Programmes: A Departmental Quality Improvement Project.

Background: Changes to the undergraduate medical curriculum now offer a greater focus on community-based teaching, communication skills and medical humanities. Unfortunately, this has been at the expense of surgical teaching. The senior house officer is usually the first port of call when a patient is being referred to a plastic surgery department.

Service implications of the revised 2022 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) follow-up guidelines for stage IA-IIC melanoma.

Background: The 2022 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence melanoma guideline update made significant changes to follow-up. The aim of this study was to assess the impact these changes will have on a national melanoma cohort over a 5-year follow-up interval.

Methods: Anonymized, individual-level, population-scale, linkable primary and secondary care National Health Service data for an 18-year interval (2000-2018) in Wales, UK were analysed.

Natural language processing to automate a web-based model of care and modernize skin cancer multidisciplinary team meetings.

Background: Cancer multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings are under intense pressure to reform given the rapidly rising incidence of cancer and national mandates for protocolized streaming of cases. The aim of this study was to validate a natural language processing (NLP)-based web platform to automate evidence-based MDT decisions for skin cancer with basal cell carcinoma as a use case.

Methods: A novel and validated NLP information extraction model was used to extract perioperative tumour and surgical factors from histopathology reports.

Prevalence and odds of anxiety and depression in cutaneous malignant melanoma: a proportional meta-analysis and regression.

Background: The psychological burden of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CM) is all-encompassing, affecting treatment adherence, recurrence and mortality. However, the prevalence and risk factors of anxiety and depression in CM remain unclear.

Objectives: To establish a benchmark pooled prevalence of anxiety and depression in CM, to provide magnitudes of association for clinical, therapeutic and demographic correlates, and to elucidate temporal trends in anxiety and depression from the time of diagnosis.

Can Large Language Models Generate Outpatient Clinic Letters at First Consultation That Incorporate Complication Profiles From UK and USA Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Associations?

The importance of written communication between clinicians and patients, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court case of Montgomery vs Lanarkshire, has led to a shift toward patient-centric care in the United Kingdom. This study investigates the use of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google Bard in enhancing clinic letters with gold-standard complication profiles, aiming to improve patients' understanding and save clinicians' time in aesthetic plastic surgery. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of LLMs in integrating complication profiles from authoritative sources into clinic letters, thus enhancing patient comprehension and clinician efficiency in aesthetic plastic surgery.

Revisiting basal cell carcinoma clinical margins: Leveraging natural language processing and multivariate analysis with updated Royal College of Pathologists histological reporting standards.

Introduction: Data supporting the current British Association of Dermatologists guidelines for the management of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) are based on historic studies and do not consider the updated Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) histological reporting standards. The aim of this study was to use natural language processing (NLP)-derived data and undertake a multivariate analysis with updated RCPath standards, providing a contemporary update on the excision margins required to achieve histological clearance in BCC.

Methods: A validated NLP information extraction model was used to perform a rapid multi-centre, pan-specialty, consecutive retrospective analysis of BCCs, managed with surgical excision using a pre-determined clinical margin, over a 17-year period (2004-2021) at Swansea Bay University Health Board.

Comparative study of ChatGPT and human evaluators on the assessment of medical literature according to recognised reporting standards.

Introduction: Amid clinicians' challenges in staying updated with medical research, artificial intelligence (AI) tools like the large language model (LLM) ChatGPT could automate appraisal of research quality, saving time and reducing bias. This study compares the proficiency of ChatGPT3 against human evaluation in scoring abstracts to determine its potential as a tool for evidence synthesis.

Methods: We compared ChatGPT's scoring of implant dentistry abstracts with human evaluators using the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials for Abstracts reporting standards checklist, yielding an overall compliance score (OCS).

Spike in Congenital Syphilis, Mississippi, USA, 2016-2022.

In Mississippi, USA, infant hospitalization with congenital syphilis (CS) spiked by 1,000%, from 10 in 2016 to 110 in 2022. To determine the causes of this alarming development, we analyzed Mississippi hospital discharge data to evaluate trends, demographics, outcomes, and risk factors for infants diagnosed with CS hospitalized during 2016–2022. Of the 367 infants hospitalized with a CS diagnosis, 97.

Remote Symptom Monitoring With Ecological Momentary Computerized Adaptive Testing: Pilot Cohort Study of a Platform for Frequent, Low-Burden, and Personalized Patient-Reported Outcome Measures.

Background: Remote patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) data capture can provide useful insights into research and clinical practice and deeper insights can be gained by administering assessments more frequently, for example, in ecological momentary assessment. However, frequent data collection can be limited by the burden of multiple, lengthy questionnaires. This burden can be reduced with computerized adaptive testing (CAT) algorithms that select only the most relevant items from a PROM for an individual respondent.

The incidence of non-melanoma skin cancer in the UK and the Republic of Ireland: a systematic review.

Background: Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) remain the most prevalent malignancies, contributing a higher workload to cancer registries than all cancers combined. The nature of skin cancers in addition to current coding methods employed by registries give a skewed representation of the workload.

Objectives: A comprehensive search examining the incidence of BCC and/or cSCC at a regional or national level in the UK and Ireland was devised.

Evaluating remote skin cancer multidisciplinary team meetings in the United Kingdom post-COVID-19.

Introduction: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was concern that virtual or remote multidisciplinary teams (MDT) meetings represented a niche concept that was unlikely to replace traditional face-to-face meetings in the management of cancer. However, the sudden shift to virtual meetings during COVID-19 has been one of the most dramatic changes since the inception of the MDT. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of virtual skin MDTs since the move to virtual meetings.

Foot Melanoma Localized to Subungual Toe Location Portends Poorer Prognosis.

Our group previously reported that melanoma of the foot is associated with advanced disease on diagnosis and decreased survival. Lesions localized to the toe appeared to have the worst outcomes. In this study, we both expanded our study to include a 10-year population of patient with invasive melanoma of the foot and ankle and investigated additional factors associated with prognosis.

Improving the effectiveness of multidisciplinary team meetings on skin cancer: Analysis of the National Cancer Research UK survey responses.

Introduction: Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the UK, comprising at least 25% of all new cancer diagnoses. Many patients require referral to the local or specialist skin cancer multidisciplinary team (MDT) for ongoing management. However, national data have shown that Specialist Skin Cancer MDTs are costly and do not currently meet NICE standards for composition and quoracy.

The psychosocial impact of microtia and ear reconstruction: A national data-linkage study.

Introduction: Children with visible facial differences are believed to be at increased risk of negative psychosocial behaviours which may manifest as affective disorders. The aim of this study was to determine whether a diagnosis of microtia, and the associated surgical intervention, is associated with psychosocial implications including impaired educational attainment and a diagnosis of an affective disorder.

Methods: A retrospective case-control study was conducted using data linkage to identify patients in Wales with a diagnosis of microtia.