Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer (GBC) is a cancer originating in the gallbladder. It is the most common malignancy of the biliary tract, accounting for 80-95% of biliary tract cancers (Zhu et al., 2010; Hundal & Shaffer 2014). However, it is still relatively rare condition in the UK, with approximately 1130 new cases diagnosed each year (Cancer Research UK, 2023) equating to less than 1% of all cancers. Nevertheless, the incidence of GBC has risen by 67% since the early 1990s

Renal and ureteric stones: a clinical review

This clinical review will focus on renal and ureteric stones and will discuss how stones form, the incidence, risks, and complications associated with calculi. Additionally, it will reflect on the management and treatment options available, and highlight the importance of nurses and those working in advanced clinical practice roles in utilising their knowledge and rational clinical decision making, to ensure timely recognition, prompt investigation, management and ongoing health promotion

Acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding: a clinical review

Acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (AUGIB) is one of the most common medical emergencies, with around 85 000 cases per year in the UK, and carries a 10% hospital mortality rate. Despite significant improvements in treatments, this mortality rate has not improved significantly in the past 50 years. Deaths are rarely directly associated with exsanguination but are related to poorly tolerated blood loss and resultant shock, aspiration and complications of therapeutic procedures. As such, mortality from AUGIB is strongly associated with advanced age and presence of severe comorbidity. This clinical review will define what AUGIB is and discuss its treatment and management. In addition, it will consider and critique the available scoring systems used for risk stratification of this condition, as well as offer insight into the research underpinning the relevant guidelines and service provision across the NHS

The management and diagnosis of rhabdomyolysis induced acute kidney injury: a case study

Rhabdomyolysis is characterised by a rapid dissolution of damaged or injured skeletal muscle which can be caused by a multitude of different mechanisms. It can range in severity from mild to severe leading to multi organ failure and death. Rhabdomyolysis causes muscular cellular breakdown which can cause fatal electrolyte imbalances and metabolic acidosis, as myoglobin, creatine phosphokinase, lactate dehydrogenase and other electrolytes move into the circulation. This article will reflect a real case, who was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney injury, after a fall at home. By understanding the underpinning mechanism of rhabdomyolysis and the associated severity of symptoms may improve early diagnosis and initiation of treatment

Take It to the eTeam: Improving ERA Troubleshooting Management and Communications with LibAnswers

This presentation was given during the Springshare SpringyCamp Virtual Conference

Bridging the Gap: Providing a Marketing and Support Framework for Institutional Repository Services

Institutional Repositories require continuous promotion and support to attract and retain campus collections. However, balancing promotion with a clear representation of repository offerings, policies, and procedures is challenging, especially for institutions that rely on public services personnel for front-line promotion. This poster presents Georgia Southern University\u27s recently-developed IR Services LibGuide as a model for providing such a framework (http://georgiasouthern.libguides.com/irservices/). This portal provides 1) a front-line promotional tool; 2) a client-management tool for support consultations; and 3) a storehouse for repository-related forms and licenses. It further integrates with the library\u27s other scholarly communications-related guides, providing seamless representation of these services to patrons

Research Notes : Greenhouse determination of soybean tolerance to phytophthora rot

One method of determing field tolerance of soybeans to Phytophthora mega-sperma f. sp. glycinea (Hildeb.) Kaun & Erwin (Pmg) is to determine the percent of plant loss from emergence to maturity for cultivars grown in an infested field under conditions favorable for the disease (Buzzell and Anderson, 1982). Drawing upon the field results and the results of two unpublished greenhouse experiments (given below), a greenhouse technique similar to the field test was developed. 1962 Experiment : Cores of soil were obtained from a field known to be in-fested with Pmg race 1, the field having been used in a previous study (Ful-ton et al., 1961)

Geochemical constraints on the origin of enigmatic cemented chalks, Norfolk, UK

Very hard cemented chalk stacks and crusts found locally in the upper part of the Cretaceous Chalk of north Norfolk, UK, are related to solution features. The solution features, mainly pipes and caves, formed after deposition of the overlying Middle Pleistocene Wroxham Crag, probably by routing of sub-glacial, or glacial, melt-waters derived from late Pleistocene glaciers. New geochemical (particularly stable isotope) data shows that cementation of the chalks, although related spatially to the solution features, was not caused by glacier-derived waters. The carbon isotope composition of the chalk cements is typically around -9.5‰, indicative of biologically active soils. Moreover, the oxygen isotope compositions of the cements, around -5‰, are incompatible with water d18O values much below -9 to -10‰ (which probably precludes isotopically negative glacier-derived water), as resulting palaeo-temperatures are below zero. Taken together, the isotope data suggest chalk cementation occurred under interglacial conditions similar to the present. Dissolved calcium carbonate for cementation came from dissolution of reworked chalk in overlying MIS 12 glacial tills

Towards the production of radiotherapy treatment shells on 3D printers using data derived from DICOM CT and MRI: preclinical feasibility studies

Background: Immobilisation for patients undergoing brain or head and neck radiotherapy is achieved using perspex or thermoplastic devices that require direct moulding to patient anatomy. The mould room visit can be distressing for patients and the shells do not always fit perfectly. In addition the mould room process can be time consuming. With recent developments in three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies comes the potential to generate a treatment shell directly from a computer model of a patient. Typically, a patient requiring radiotherapy treatment will have had a computed tomography (CT) scan and if a computer model of a shell could be obtained directly from the CT data it would reduce patient distress, reduce visits, obtain a close fitting shell and possibly enable the patient to start their radiotherapy treatment more quickly. Purpose: This paper focuses on the first stage of generating the front part of the shell and investigates the dosimetric properties of the materials to show the feasibility of 3D printer materials for the production of a radiotherapy treatment shell. Materials and methods: Computer algorithms are used to segment the surface of the patient’s head from CT and MRI datasets. After segmentation approaches are used to construct a 3D model suitable for printing on a 3D printer. To ensure that 3D printing is feasible the properties of a set of 3D printing materials are tested. Conclusions: The majority of the possible candidate 3D printing materials tested result in very similar attenuation of a therapeutic radiotherapy beam as the Orfit soft-drape masks currently in use in many UK radiotherapy centres. The costs involved in 3D printing are reducing and the applications to medicine are becoming more widely adopted. In this paper we show that 3D printing of bespoke radiotherapy masks is feasible and warrants further investigation