Embolic Protection in Complex Femoropopliteal Interventions: Safety, Efficacy and Predictors of Filter Macroembolization

Objectives. To evaluate the safety and efficacy of a filter embolic protection device (FEPD) in endovascular interventions of the femoropopliteal arteries. Methods. Patients who underwent endovascular interventions of the femoropopliteal arteries between 2008 and 2016 and in whom the SpiderFXTM FEPD was applied were included in this retrospective study. Clinical and angiographic characteristics, filter macroembolization (FME), device-related complications, distal embolization, as well as the early clinical and hemodynamic outcome, were assessed. Potential risk factors for FME were evaluated by multivariate analysis. Results. A total of 244 cases were identified (203 patients, claudication 60.4%, critical limb ischaemia 39.6%, mean lesion length 13.2 ± 12.9 cm, complete occlusions in 72.7%). Balloon angioplasty ± stenting (BAP), directional atherectomy ± balloon angioplasty ± stenting (DA) and rotational thrombectomy ± balloon angioplasty±stenting (RT) were performed in 141, 61 and 42 cases, respectively. FEPD placement and retrieval were successful in all but one case each. Permanent filter-related vessel damage was not observed. The rate of FME was 37.3% (BAP 36.2%, DA 32.8%, RT 47.7%). Risk factors for FME in the BAP- and DA-group were total occlusion, lesion length > 19 cm, visible thrombus and diabetes mellitus. The distal embolization rate despite filter protection was 4.1 % (BAP 4.9%, DA 1.6%, RT 4.8%) and was higher in cases with FME compared with those without FME (8.7% vs. 1.5%, p = 0.02). Conclusion. The Spider FXTM device is safe and effective in capturing embolic debris during femoropopliteal interventions. A residual risk of peripheral embolization remains

Diacritic restoration of Turkish tweets with word2vec

Social media platforms such as Twitter have grown at a tremendous pace in recent years and have become an important source of data providing information countless field. This situation was of interest to researchers and many studies on machine learning and natural language processing was conducted on social media data. However, the language is used in social media contains a very high amount of noisy data than the formal writing language. In this article, we present a study on diacritic restoration which is one of the important difficulties of social media text normalization in order to reduce the noise problem. Diacritic is a set of marks used to change the sound values of letters and is used on many languages besides Turkish. We suggest a 3-step model for this study to overcome the top of the diacritic restoration problem. In the first step, a candidate word generator produces possible word forms, in the second step the language validator chooses the correct word forms and at the final Word2vec is used to create vector representations of the words and make the most appropriate word choice by using cosine similarities. The proposed method was tested on both the 2 ad-hoc created datasets and the real dataset. Studies on small ad-hoc created dataset and real dataset provided a relative error reduction of 37.8% with an average performance of 94.5%. In addition, tests on more than 6 M words on large ad-hoc created dataset yielded a serious performance with an error rate of 3.9%. Furthermore, the proposed method was tested on the binary classification problem consisting of highway traffic data in order to evaluate the effects on classification performance, and a 3.1% increase in classification performance was achieved. Keywords: Text mining, Diacritics restoration, Twitter, Tweet normalizatio

Our clinical experiences in lower eyelid reconstruction

Objective: Different treatment principles have been applied in the reconstruction of partial or full layer defects of the lower eyelid. The use of the most similar tissue for eyelid reconstruction is important for both functional and esthetic results. This study aims to investigate the reconstruction methods performed in lower eyelid defects and to evaluate their esthetic and functional results. Patients and Methods: In this study, patients who underwent reconstructive surgery from 2012 to 2016 in our clinic were investigated. Cases of primary repairs after skin tumors located in the lower eyelids were excluded from the study. The sociodemographic characteristics of patients, the type and location of the tumor, defect size after surgery, anterior and posterior lamellar defects, and reconstruction methods used were retrospectively reviewed. Results: Thirty-seven patients were included in the study. Fifteen were male and 22 were female. There was only anterior lamellar defect in 29 patients and full-thickness lower eyelid defect in 8 patients. Anterior flaps used in lamellar defects were identified as glabellar flap, Limberg flap, advancement, transposition flap, nasolabial flap, forehead flap, and cheek flap. Chondromucosal graft, palatal mucosal graft, and buccal mucosal graft were used for repairing posterior lamellar defects. Conclusion: Separate reconstruction of the posterior and anterior lamellae is important to provide good functional and esthetic results in lower eyelid reconstruction. Depending on the size of the defect, using a single local flap or a combined flap with posterior lamella repair provides highly acceptable results

Epidemiological and localization characteristics of non-melanoma skin cancers: Retrospective analysis of 400 cases

Aim: In this study, it was aimed to investigate the epidemiological and localization characteristics of the patients diagnosed with nonmelanocytic skin cancer (NMSC). Materials and Methods: Histopathologic results of patients diagnosed with NMSC in the Pathology Department of Necmettin Erbakan University, Meram School of Medicine, between 2007 and 2017 were retrospectively reviewed. The age, sex, tumor type, and localization of the patients were investigated. Results: A totals of 400 patients diagnosed with NMSC were identified. 220 of the patients were male (55%) and 180 were female (45%). The male to female ratio was 220/180 (1.22). The age range was 10–105-year-old and the mean age was 67.8. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) was found in 263 patients (65%), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in 114 patients (28%) and baso SCC (BSCC) in 12 patients (3%). BCC and SCC were observed together in 9 patients. BCC was most commonly detected in the nasal region with (31%) 82 patients (50%). SHC was most commonly detected in the lower lip region with 26 patients (22%). The localization of the BSCC was most common in the nasal region with 6 patients (%50). The rate of BCC/SCC in the nasal region was 82/11. The BCC/SCC ratio in the extremity region was 4/14. Conclusion: In our region, the most frequent histopathologic diagnosis was found BCC in patients prediagnosed with NMSC, and most cases were seen in male patients. In cases of BCC a BSCC, the most common tumor localization was nose area while it was lower lip area in SCC cases. In addition, BCC and BSCC were not detected in the lower lip

Biochemical Analysis of Pentraxin 3 and Fibrinogen Levels in Experimental Periodontitis Model

Objective. Pentraxin 3 (PTX3), newly discovered inflammation marker, is a member of acute-phase proteins. The hypothesis, synthesis of gingival tissue and serum PTX-3 increases in the experimental periodontitis model (with 10-day and 40-day periods), was tested by detecting gingival tissue and serum PTX-3 levels in rats with experimental periodontitis. Methods. Thirty rats were randomly divided into three groups of ten animals each: ligature-induced experimental periodontitis groups (with 10-day (Group1) and 40-day periods (Group2)) and healthy group (Group3). At the end of experimental period, rats were sacrificed, and radiological and histomorphometric analyses were performed on the mandibles. PTX3 levels were measured in gingival tissue and serum samples using ELISA. Plasma fibrinogen levels were measured according to the nephelometric method. Results. Significant alveolar bone resorption and periodontal inflammation were evident in periodontitis groups. Levels of PTX3 in gingival tissue were statistically higher in Group 1 than those in groups 2 and 3 (P0.05). Plasma fibrinogen levels were significantly increased in the experimental periodontitis groups (P<0.001). Conclusion. PTX3 seems to be associated with tissue destruction in earlier periods of inflammatory periodontal disease, contrary to the fibrinogen findings