Collaboration of community hospital endosonographers improves diagnostic yield of endoscopic ultrasonography guided tissue acquisition of solid pancreatic lesions

Background and study aims Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided tissue acquisition (TA) is the method of choice for establishing a pathological diagnosis of solid pancreatic lesions. Data on quality and yield of EUS-guided TA performed in community hospitals are lacking. A study was performed to determine and improve the diagnostic yield of EUS-guided TA in a group of community hospitals. Methods Following analysis of the last 20 EUS-guided TA procedures of solid pancreatic lesions performed in each of four community hospitals, a collaborative EUS interest group was formed

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Dutch Version of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Fourth Edition (WMS-IV-NL)

The latent factor structure of the Dutch version of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Fourth Edition (WMS-IV-NL) was examined with a series of confirmatory factor analyses. As part of the Dutch standardization, 1,188 healthy participants completed the WMS-IV-NL. Four models were tested for the Adult Battery (16-69 years; N = 699), and two models were tested for the Older Adult Battery (65-90 years; N = 489). Results corroborated the presence of three WMS-IV-NL factors in the Adult Battery consisting of Auditory Memory, Visual Memory, and Visual Working Memory. A two-factor model (consisting of Auditory Memory and Visual Memory) provided the best fit for the data of the Older Adult Battery. These findings provide evidence for the structural validity of the WMS-IV-NL, and further support the psychometric integrity of the WMS-IV

Universal Scale of Intelligence -Estimated (USIE): Representing intelligence estimated from level of education

In clinical neuropsychology, it is often necessary to estimate a patient’s premorbid level of cognitive functioning in order to evaluate whether his scores on cognitive tests should be considered abnormal. In practice, test results from before the onset of brain pathology are rarely available, and the patient’s level of education is used instead as an estimate of his premorbid level. Unfortunately, level of education may be expressed on many different scales of education, which are difficult to use interchangeably. Here, we introduce a new scale that has the capacity to replace existing scales and can be used interchangeably with any of them: the Universal Scale of Intelligence Estimates (USIE). To achieve this, we propose to map all levels of existing educational scales to standard IQ scores. This USIE point estimate is supplemented with an estimation interval. We assert that USIE offers some important benefits for clinical practice and research