METHODS: We established a nurse- and community-navigator-led navigation program in breast clinics of four public hospitals located in Peninsular and East Malaysia and evaluated the impact of navigation on timeliness of diagnosis and treatment.
RESULTS: Patients with breast cancer treated at public hospitals reported facing barriers to accessing care, including having a poor recognition of breast cancer symptoms and low awareness of screening methods, and facing financial and logistics challenges. Compared with patients diagnosed in the previous year, patients receiving navigation experienced timely ultrasound (84.0% v 65.0%; P < .001), biopsy (84.0% v 78.0%; P = .012), communication of news (63.0% v 40.0%; P < .001), surgery (46% v 36%; P = .008), and neoadjuvant therapy (59% v 42%, P = .030). Treatment adherence improved significantly (98.0% v 87.0%, P < .001), and this was consistent across the network of four breast clinics.
CONCLUSION: Patient navigation improves access to timely diagnosis and treatment for women presenting at secondary and tertiary hospitals in Malaysia.
Methods: Patients with chronic constipation (Rome III) were evaluated for DD with HRPT and WM during bearing-down "on-bed" without inflated rectal balloon and "on-commode (toilet)" with 60-mL inflated rectal balloon. Eleven healthy volunteers were also evaluated.
Results: Ninety-three of 117 screened participants (F/M = 77/16) were included. Balloon expulsion time was abnormal (＞ 60 seconds) in 56% (mean 214.4 seconds). A modest correlation between HRPT and WM was observed for sphincter length (R = 0.4) and likewise agreement between dyssynergic subtypes (κ = 0.4). During bearing down, 2 or more anal pressure-segments (distal and proximal) could be appreciated and their expansion measured with HRPT but not WM. In constipated vs healthy participants, the proximal segment was more expanded (2.0 cm vs 1.0 cm, P = 0.003) and of greater pressure (94.8 mmHg vs 54.0 mmHg, P = 0.010) during bearing down on-commode but not on-bed.
Conclusions: Because of its better resolution, HRPT may identify more structural and functional abnormalities including puborectal dysfunction (proximal expansion) than WM. Bearing down on-commode with an inflated rectal balloon may provide additional dimension in characterizing DD.
OBJECTIVES: Our study intended to (i) resolve the taxonomic uncertainties between B. dorsalis and B. carambolae, (ii) reveal the population structure and global invasion routes of B. dorsalis across Asia, Africa, and Oceania, and (iii) identify genomic regions that are responsible for the thermal adaptation of B. dorsalis.
METHODS: Based on a high-quality chromosome-level reference genome assembly, we explored the population relationship using a genome-scale single nucleotide polymorphism dataset generated from the resequencing data of 487 B. dorsalis genomes and 25 B. carambolae genomes. Genome-wide association studies and silencing using RNA interference were used to identify and verify the candidate genes associated with extreme thermal stress.
RESULTS: We showed that B. dorsalis originates from the Southern India region with three independent invasion and spread routes worldwide: (i) from Northern India to Northern Southeast Asia, then to Southern Southeast Asia; (ii) from Northern India to Northern Southeast Asian, then to China and Hawaii; and (iii) from Southern India toward the African mainland, then to Madagascar, which is mainly facilitated by human activities including trade and immigration. Twenty-seven genes were identified by a genome-wide association study to be associated with 11 temperature bioclimatic variables. The Cyp6a9 gene may enhance the thermal adaptation of B. dorsalis and thus boost its invasion, which tended to be upregulated at a hardening temperature of 38 °C. Functional verification using RNA interference silencing against Cyp6a9, led to the specific decrease in Cyp6a9 expression, reducing the survival rate of dsRNA-feeding larvae exposed to extreme thermal stress of 45 °C after heat hardening treatments in B. dorsalis.
CONCLUSION: This study provides insights into the evolutionary history and genetic basis of temperature adaptation in B. dorsalis.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: For this bibliometric analysis, an extensive search was carried out on September 25, 2023 using the Scopus database. Pertinent articles in the field were scrutinized after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data were evaluated using Vosviewer and Microsoft Excel.
RESULTS: A literature search revealed the initiation of scientific publication in 2008. Significant contributions made by Saudi Arabia, India, and China concerning the number of publications were seen. Similarly, Jazan University from SA was recognized as the leading institute. The Journal of Endodontics was the leading journal, while authors JNR Martins and G Gambarini produced the highest number of papers.
CONCLUSIONS: This bibliometric analysis demonstrated that scientific publications have increased tremendously since 2008. Significant contributions have been made by developing and developed nations. The Journal of Endodontics and Jazan University have been identified as the leading journal and institute.
INTRODUCTION: Magnetic resonance imaging is a useful technique to visualize soft tissues within the knee joint. Cartilage delineation in magnetic resonance (MR) images helps in understanding the disease progressions. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown promising results in computer vision tasks, and various encoder-decoder-based segmentation neural networks are introduced in the last few years. However, the performances of such networks are unknown in the context of cartilage delineation.
METHODS: This study trained and compared 10 encoder-decoder-based CNNs in performing cartilage delineation from knee MR images. The knee MR images are obtained from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI). The benchmarking process is to compare various CNNs based on physical specifications and segmentation performances.
RESULTS: LadderNet has the least trainable parameters with the model size of 5 MB. UNetVanilla crowned the best performances by having 0.8369, 0.9108, and 0.9097 on JSC, DSC, and MCC.
CONCLUSION: UNetVanilla can be served as a benchmark for cartilage delineation in knee MR images, while LadderNet served as an alternative if there are hardware limitations during production.
OBJECTIVES: To assess the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of US compared to UGIS for malrotation and midgut volvulus.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed on 68 pediatric patients who underwent US and/or UGIS before surgery for suspected midgut volvulus or malrotation in Kuala Lumpur (PPUKM and HTA), referencing surgical outcomes as the gold standard.
RESULTS: US demonstrated a higher specificity (100%) than UGIS (83%) for diagnosing malrotation, with a slightly lower sensitivity (97% vs. 100%). For midgut volvulus, US surpassed UGIS in sensitivity (92.9% vs. 66.7%) while maintaining comparable specificity. The SMA/SMV criteria showed better sensitivity (91.1%) than the D3 assessment (78.9%) on US, though both had high specificity.
CONCLUSION: US is equivalent to UGIS for identifying malrotation and is more sensitive for detecting midgut volvulus, supporting its use as a primary diagnostic tool. The study advocates for combined US and UGIS when either yields inconclusive results, optimizing diagnostic precision for these conditions.