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0, standard deviation = 7.3). Predictors of preparedness included having a pediatrician on the hospital disaster planning committee, conducting a disaster exercise that simulated an unaccompanied minor scenario, and implementing the 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics Reunification Planning Tool. Findings from this study indicate that many US hospitals are not prepared to reunify unaccompanied minors or other separated family members during a disaster. The planning tool is a free resource that hospitals can use to improve their hospital reunification plans. Hospitals should prioritize development of reunification plans to ensure rapid response during a future event. Use of the planning tool can aid in development and improvement of these plans.Scrub typhus is one of the most common causes of meningo-encephalitis in endemic areas of the Indian subcontinent. Numerous studies have established the reliability of cerebrospinal fluid lactate for differentiation of bacterial meningitis from aseptic meningitis. However, there are no reported data on the predictive value of cerebrospinal fluid lactate in scrub typhus meningitis. We thus conducted a cross-sectional study to examine the diagnostic accuracy of cerebrospinal fluid lactate in the differentiation of different causes of acute meningitis. Over two years, we studied 119 patients, with almost equal gender distribution, whose mean age was 43.58 (±18) years and their overall mean duration of fever was 11.7 (±21.0) days. Commonest clinical features overall were neck stiffness; values of cerebrospinal fluid lactate were lowest in aseptic meningitis, followed by scrub typhus, TB and bacterial meningitis. We conclude that cerebrospinal fluid lactate levels may be a useful adjunct to clinical features and laboratory investigations to differentiate between bacterial, viral, tubercular and scrub meningitis.Introduction Pectus excavatum is a common congenital anomaly in the pediatric population. During the postoperative period, pain control is one of the top priorities. As a result, multiple techniques for pain control have been developed, including thoracic epidural analgesia, multimodal analgesia (MM), and elastomeric pain pump (EPP) placement. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of pain control using EPP as an adjunct to MM after the minimally invasive repair of pectus excavatum (MIRPE). Methods We identified all pediatric patients undergoing MIRPE from June 2017 to July 2018. MM was employed in all patients; some patients additionally received subpleural EPP as adjuncts to postoperative analgesia. We reviewed pain scores, length of stay, opioid use, and complications. Results During the study period, a total of 62 patients were included. The study cohort was divided into 15 patients undergoing MM alone versus 47 patients undergoing subpleural EPP placement plus MM (EPP + MM). Median pain scores were lower in the EPP + MM group (2.9 versus 4.2, P less then .05). There was a significant reduction of total inpatient opioid use in the EPP + MM group (357.6 mg versus 466.9 mg, P = .03). There was no difference in median length of stay or complications. We found no significant difference between subpleural versus subcutaneous placement of the infusion catheters. Conclusion The use of subpleural EPP as an adjunct to MM is an effective way to reduce pain and opioid use after MIRPE without increased risk of complications. Type of Study Retrospective study with comparison group.
To study the clinical features, treatment and outcomes of primary Sjögren's Syndrome (pSS) in a Singapore cohort from an outpatient rheumatology clinic.
Computerised Physician Order entry records of patients who fulfilled the 2016 ACR-EULAR classification criteria for pSS between 1993 and 2013 were retrospectively analysed.
There were 102 patients, of which 96 (94.1%) were females, and 91 (89.2%) Chinese. Mean age at diagnosis was 49.3 ± 11.8 years, mean disease duration was 9.0 ± 4.6 years. The most common manifestations were keratoconjunctivitis sicca (99.0%), xerostomia (96.1%), arthralgia/arthritis (56.9%). Exocrine glandular enlargement comprised parotidomegaly (28, 27.5%), with concurrent submandibular and lacrimal gland enlargement in one. The nervous system (15.7%) was the most commonly affected internal organ, with peripheral nervous system (peripheral neuropathy, mononeuritis multiplex) involvement more common than central. Hydroxychloroquine was most frequently used (88.2%), followed by methop to one-third of the cohort developing glandular enlargement.Papillary muscles serve as attachment points for chordae tendineae which anchor and position mitral valve leaflets for proper coaptation. As the ventricle contracts, the papillary muscles translate and rotate, impacting chordae and leaflet kinematics; this motion can be significantly affected in a diseased heart. In ex vivo heart simulation, an explanted valve is subjected to physiologic conditions and can be adapted to mimic a disease state, thus providing a valuable tool to quantitatively analyse biomechanics and optimize surgical valve repair. However, without the inclusion of papillary muscle motion, current simulators are limited in their ability to accurately replicate cardiac biomechanics. We developed and implemented image-guided papillary muscle (IPM) robots to mimic the precise motion of papillary muscles. The IPM robotic system was designed with six degrees of freedom to fully capture the native motion. Mathematical analysis was used to avoid singularity conditions, and a supercomputing cluster enabled the calculation of the system's reachable workspace. The IPM robots were implemented in our heart simulator with motion prescribed by high-resolution human computed tomography images, revealing that papillary muscle motion significantly impacts the chordae force profile. Our IPM robotic system represents a significant advancement for ex vivo simulation, enabling more reliable cardiac simulations and repair optimizations.We introduce a new method (Doppler Velocity Reconstruction or DoVeR), for reconstructing two-component velocity fields from colour Doppler scans. DoVeR employs the streamfunction-vorticity equation, which satisfies mass conservation while accurately approximating the flow rate of rotation. learn more We validated DoVeR using artificial colour Doppler images generated from computational fluid dynamics models of left ventricle (LV) flow. We compare DoVeR against the conventional intraventricular vector flow mapping (iVFM1D) and reformulated iVFM (iVFM2D). LV model error analysis showed that DoVeR is more robust to noise and probe placement, with noise RMS errors (nRMSE) between 3.81% and 6.67%, while the iVFM methods delivered 4.16-24.17% for iVFM1D and 4.06-400.21% for iVFM2D. We test the DoVeR and iVFM methods using in vivo mouse LV ultrasound scans. DoVeR yielded more haemodynamically accurate reconstructions, suggesting that it can provide a more reliable approach for robust quantification of cardiac flow.