Evaluation of gastrointestinal injury in blunt abdominal trauma "FAST is not reliable": the role of repeated ultrasonography

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To determine the diagnostic Accuracy of Focused Assessment Sonography for Trauma (FAST) and repeated FAST in the patients with blunt abdominal trauma.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this retrospective study we collected the data of all patients from September 2007 to July 2011 with gastrointestinal injury. The intraoperative outcome was compared with FAST technique and the repeated or delayed sonography.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total number of 1550 patients with blunt abdominal trauma underwent FAST in a period of 4 years in our hospital. Eighty-eight (5.67%) patients were found to have gastrointestinal injury after exploratory laparotomy. Fifty-five (62.5%) patients had isolated gastrointestinal injury and 33 (37.5%) patients had concomitant injury to the other solid organs. In those with isolated gastrointestinal injury, the sensitivity of FAST was 38.5%. Repeated ultrsonography was performed in 34 patients with false negative initial FAST after 12-24 hours. The sensitivity of repeated ultrasonography in negative initial FAST patients in detection of gastrointestinal injury was 85.2% (95% CI, 68.1%, and 94.4%).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Repeated sonography after 12 to 24 hours in patients with negative initial FAST but sustain abdominal symptom can facilitated a diagnosis of GI tract injury and can be as effective method instead of Computed tomography in developing country.</p

Evaluation of retrobulbar blood flow in patients with age-related cataract; color Doppler ultrasonographic findings

Afshin Mohammadi1, Nilofar Khorasani2, Farzad Moloudi2, Mohammad Ghasemi-rad31Department of Radiology, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran; 2Student Research Committee, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran; 3Genius and Talented Student Organization, Student Research Committee, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, IranObjectives: Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness worldwide, with cataract surgery being the most common ophthalmic procedure. To our best knowledge, this is the first case-control study with a large number of participants to evaluate ocular blood flow in patients with cataracts.Materials and methods: Color Doppler and duplex sonography of the orbital vessels was performed in 224 eyes of 112 patients with known bilateral age-related cataracts and in 76 eyes of 38 healthy age- and sex-matched volunteers.Results: The mean &amp;plusmn; (standard deviation [SD]) of peak systolic velocity (PSV) of the ophthalmic artery in patients with cataracts (34.59 &amp;plusmn; 22.49 cm/second) was significantly different to that in controls (52.11 &amp;plusmn; 14.01 cm/second) (P &amp;lt; 0.001). The mean &amp;plusmn; SD PSV of the central retinal artery in patients with cataracts (15.31 &amp;plusmn; 4.93 cm/second) was significantly different to that in controls (9.61 &amp;plusmn; 5.64 cm/second) (P &amp;lt; 0.001).Conclusion: The mean PSV and resistive index (RI) of the ophthalmic and central retinal arteries were lower in cataract patients when compared with normal subjects. This suggests that ocular hypoperfusion and changes in ocular hemodynamic may have a role in the formation of age-related cataracts.Keywords: retrobulbar blood flow, age-related, cataract, color Doppler ultrasonographi

Federated Learning in Medical Imaging:Part I: Toward Multicentral Health Care Ecosystems

With recent developments in medical imaging facilities, extensive medical imaging data are produced every day. This increasing amount of data provides an opportunity for researchers to develop data-driven methods and deliver better health care. However, data-driven models require a large amount of data to be adequately trained. Furthermore, there is always a limited amount of data available in each data center. Hence, deep learning models trained on local data centers might not reach their total performance capacity. One solution could be to accumulate all data from different centers into one center. However, data privacy regulations do not allow medical institutions to easily combine their data, and this becomes increasingly difficult when institutions from multiple countries are involved. Another solution is to use privacy-preserving algorithms, which can make use of all the data available in multiple centers while keeping the sensitive data private. Federated learning (FL) is such a mechanism that enables deploying large-scale machine learning models trained on different data centers without sharing sensitive data. In FL, instead of transferring data, a general model is trained on local data sets and transferred between data centers. FL has been identified as a promising field of research, with extensive possible uses in medical research and practice. This article introduces FL, with a comprehensive look into its concepts and recent research trends in medical imaging

Federated Learning in Medical Imaging:Part II: Methods, Challenges, and Considerations

Federated learning is a machine learning method that allows decentralized training of deep neural networks among multiple clients while preserving the privacy of each client's data. Federated learning is instrumental in medical imaging due to the privacy considerations of medical data. Setting up federated networks in hospitals comes with unique challenges, primarily because medical imaging data and federated learning algorithms each have their own set of distinct characteristics. This article introduces federated learning algorithms in medical imaging and discusses technical challenges and considerations of real-world implementation of them

Academic Engagement Concept and its Affecting Factors in Medical Education: A Review Study

Background & Objective: One of factors influencing students' academic achievement is academic engagement. The aim of this study was to perform a comprehensive investigation on conceptual dimensions of academic engagement and the factors affecting it. Methods: A comprehensive search of literature published during 2001-2014 was performed using Persian and English databases including Magiran, SID, Scopus, and PubMed. As a result 190 texts were obtained. After a close study, 22 papers with the keywords of "student engagement, and academic engagement time" were selected. Selection criteria were the existence of any dimension of the concept of academic engagement and factors affecting it in the paper. Results: After assessing 22 articles, the dimensions of academic engagement concept and its influencing factors were made clear. Academic engagement consists of the educational, behavioral, cognitive, and psychological dimensions. Factors which affect academic engagement are the education institution’s characteristics, teaching methods, service-based learning, technology and various levels of academic engagement. Conclusion: Through the recognition of dimensions of academic engagement and by applying factors that influence students' academic engagement the wasting of their time and energy can be prevented, and a valuable work force can be developed. Since university engagement has been less studied in medical sciences in our country, it is recommended that qualitative and quantitative research be performed in this field. Key Words: Academic engagement, University engagement, Medical education, Studen

Perceived barriers to the production of scientific articles among faculty members of some of Iranian dental schools

Objectives To evaluate barriers for production of scientific dental articles by Iranian dental faculty members.Methods An anonymous self-administered questionnaire distributed among faculty members of all dental schools in Iran during June-December 2010. The respondents rated their level of agreement with eleven sentences regarding what they perceive as barriers on scientific dental article production based on a 5-point Likert scale. The data were analyzed using Chi-square test.Results Totally, 330 faculty members completed the questionnaires; &gt;50% were men, and &gt;40 year-olds. About three-fourth of the respondents were assistant professor. More than 80% of the respondents reported to have at least one published Persian article and &gt;50% at least one published English article; older faculty members more than younger, and associate professors more than other academic ranks (p&lt;0.01). “No access to an English editing center”, “insufficient skill for scientific writing in English”, “inappropriate condition for writing in dental school”, and “time limit due to high load of clinical work in dental school” were top four rated perceived barriers.Conclusion The concerns of faculty members for the production of scientific dental documents must be considered. Provision of proper time and condition for writing in the dental school, enhancement of their capacity for scientific writing and establishment of an English editing center in each university may facilitate scientific article production