The Brain Tumor Segmentation (BraTS) Challenge 2023: Focus on Pediatrics (CBTN-CONNECT-DIPGR-ASNR-MICCAI BraTS-PEDs)

Pediatric tumors of the central nervous system are the most common cause of cancer-related death in children. The five-year survival rate for high-grade gliomas in children is less than 20\%. Due to their rarity, the diagnosis of these entities is often delayed, their treatment is mainly based on historic treatment concepts, and clinical trials require multi-institutional collaborations. The MICCAI Brain Tumor Segmentation (BraTS) Challenge is a landmark community benchmark event with a successful history of 12 years of resource creation for the segmentation and analysis of adult glioma. Here we present the CBTN-CONNECT-DIPGR-ASNR-MICCAI BraTS-PEDs 2023 challenge, which represents the first BraTS challenge focused on pediatric brain tumors with data acquired across multiple international consortia dedicated to pediatric neuro-oncology and clinical trials. The BraTS-PEDs 2023 challenge focuses on benchmarking the development of volumentric segmentation algorithms for pediatric brain glioma through standardized quantitative performance evaluation metrics utilized across the BraTS 2023 cluster of challenges. Models gaining knowledge from the BraTS-PEDs multi-parametric structural MRI (mpMRI) training data will be evaluated on separate validation and unseen test mpMRI dataof high-grade pediatric glioma. The CBTN-CONNECT-DIPGR-ASNR-MICCAI BraTS-PEDs 2023 challenge brings together clinicians and AI/imaging scientists to lead to faster development of automated segmentation techniques that could benefit clinical trials, and ultimately the care of children with brain tumors

Analysis of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on house-staff in the USA: addressing the ripple effects

Background: The novel corona virus has changed the way individuals interact with each other and society. In the medical sector, this has affected the residents and fellows who spend the majority of their time on the front lines. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives and training of house-staff across the USA. Respondents in our survey reported feeling significantly overwhelmed by the ongoing pandemic. Results: The majority of house-staff were significantly concerned about the lack of protective equipment, inability to safeguard themselves from infection and inability to look after their families. Concerns regarding contracting the infection and transmitting it to their loved ones were reported as a cause of mental distress among resident physicians. Increasing patient load, lack of protective equipment, and disruption of educational and academic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic have all reportedly affected the training and overall well-being of resident physicians. Conslusion: Our study adds further support for measures to safeguard house-staff with proper protective equipment and ensure adequate support for both mental and physical well-being during these challenging times

Drug Eluting Stents Versus Bare Metal Stents For the Treatment of Extracranial Vertebral Artery Disease: a Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: While a growing number of reports offer evidence for the potential of drug eluting stents (DES) in treating atherosclerotic stenosis of the extracranial vertebral artery, their efficacy when compared with bare metal stents (BMS) is uncertain due to the lack of a large prospective randomized trial. METHODS: A search strategy using the terms \u27stents\u27, \u27drug-eluting stents\u27, \u27atherosclerosis\u27, \u27vertebral artery\u27, and \u27vertebrobasilar insufficiency\u27 was employed through Medline. Five studies met the criteria for a comparative meta-analysis. The technical/clinical success, periprocedural complications, target vessel revascularization (TVR), rates of restenosis, recurrent symptoms, and overall survival were compared. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the technical success (OR=1.528, p=0.622), clinical success (OR=1.917, p=0.274), and periprocedural complications (OR=0.741, p=0.614) between the two groups. An OR of 0.388 for no restenosis in the BMS to DES arms (p=0.001) indicated a significantly higher restenosis rate in the BMS group relative to the DES group (33.57% vs 15.49%). When compared with the DES group, the BMS group had a significantly higher rate of recurrent symptoms (2.76% vs 11.26%; OR=3.319, p=0.011) and TVR (4.83% vs 19.21%; OR=4.099, p=0.001). CONCLUSIONS: A significantly lower rate of restenosis, recurrent symptoms, and TVR was noted in the DES group compared with the BMS group