Neurosurgeons and the fight with COVID-19: a position statement from the EANS Individual Membership Committee

Scientific Assessment and Innovation in Neurosurgical Treatment Strategie

AMiner Citation-Data Preprocessing for Recommender Systems on Scientific Publications

Recommender Systems (RS) are used to find user's interested items among a huge amount of digital information, recently called Big Data, with the purpose of making valuable personalized recommendations. These systems use data from digital, online libraries to train, test and evaluate system's efficiency. Along this line, data preprocessing is an essential and valuable step to achieve information-preserving data reduction and, in addition, to create input files with the appropriate format needed by a RS. This paper describes our approach for data preprocessing using a scientific publications' dataset (Computer Science) found in AMiner (https://www.aminer.org/). The proposed approach consists of two phases: creation of a collection of articles based on user preferences and preprocessing this collection. The experimental results demonstrate the value of our approach with at least 79.8% information-preserving data reduction. © 2021 ACM

Clipping Versus Coiling in Anterior Circulation Ruptured Intracranial Aneurysms: A Meta-Analysis

Objective To evaluate open surgical versus endovascular repair of anterior circulation ruptured intracranial aneurysms based on operative mortality, permanent neurologic deficit, late mortality, and need for reintervention. Methods This meta-analysis included articles published since December 6, 2016, that compared outcomes of the 2 methods. Extracted data were organized in a standard table format, including first author, country, covered study period, publication year, number of patients and patients at follow-up, operative mortality rate (with 30 days from treatment), permanent neurologic deficit (appearing after surgery), late mortality (after 1 month), and reintervention (surgery or coiling) for both groups of patients. Follow-up was at least 1 year. Results There were 8 articles that matched our study criteria. The study population was 628 patients; 374 were treated with surgical clipping, and 254 were treated with endovascular coiling. Pooled results showed no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups in terms of operative mortality, permanent neurologic deficit, late mortality, and need for reintervention. Conclusions Selection of the appropriate procedure must be made on the basis of the special characteristics of each case. © 2017 Elsevier Inc

Could IGF-I levels play a neuroprotective role in patients with large vestibular schwannomas?

Aim: To evaluate the possible superiority of outcome in patients with elevated IGF-I levels after vestibular schwannoma (VS) resection. Patients & methods: This retrospective study included 65 patients (34 male, 52.3%) with VS operated in between January 2009 and April 2014 (follow-up 3.2 ± 0.7 years). Preoperative or postoperative IGF-I levels were identified for each patient. Results: Patients were divided into two groups: Group A (small size tumor), 56 patients; and Group B (large size tumor), 9 cases. IGF-I levels in Group A (195.8 ± 32.9 ng/ml) were compared with those of Group B (242.2 ± 22.2 ng/ml) and were found to have statistically significant difference (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Increased IGF-I levels could hold a key role in nerve recovery in patients undergoing surgical resection of large VS. Lay abstract The aim of this study was to examine the possible correlation between IGF-I levels in serum in large vestibular schwannomas (VS) and its potential neuroprotective effect on the vestibulocochlear nerve. This retrospective study included 65 patients that underwent surgery, 9 of whom were diagnosed with large VS. Results suggested that elevated IGF-I in serum levels could help identify patients with large VS with better neuroprotective activity. © 2018 2017 George Fotakopoulos

Gender differences in work-life balance of European neurosurgeons

Abstract Introduction: Neurosurgery is one of the most demanding medical specialties. For neurosurgeons, balancing professional activity with personal life can be challenging. Research question: To evaluate gender differences in contribution of neurosurgeons in the household and child-rearing, as well as their impact on personal life and career. Material and methods: An anonymous, electronic, 59-item web-based survey was administered to National Neurosurgical Societies of Europe, and European Member Societies of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (June–October 2021). Results: A total of 205 European neurosurgeons (87 females and 118 males, mean age 40.7) are included in our survey. In neurosurgery, females are significantly more likely to be alone (37.9%), while males are significantly more likely to have children (66.9%). In terms of household efforts, females spend more time than males on the same tasks. Most participants (71.2%) view gender issues as a disadvantage in career pursuing. Women feel less accepted (54.3%) and having fewer opportunities (58.6%), while men believe that pregnancy/child-rearing (65.8%) and having many roles (51.3%) are the main obstacles. Both genders (77.6%) favor more convenient working conditions for young parents. Discussion and Conclusion: In our study we found that, women neurosurgeons take more responsibilities at home, especially in the child-rearing years. Female neurosurgeons are more likely to live alone or stay childless more often compared to their male colleagues. Supportive facilities, flexible programs, universal life policies and presumably curbing of the social stereotypes are of importance to overcome gender inequities that women are still facing in neurosurgery