Displaying publications 41 - 60 of 340 in total

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  1. Selvam K, Khalid MF, Mustaffa KMF, Harun A, Aziah I
    Microorganisms, 2021 Mar 30;9(4).
    PMID: 33808203 DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms9040711
    Melioidosis is a severe disease caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei (B. pseudomallei), a Gram-negative environmental bacterium. It is endemic in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, but it is underreported in many other countries. The principal routes of entry for B. pseudomallei are skin penetration, inhalation, and ingestion. It mainly affects immunocompromised populations, especially patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The laboratory diagnosis of melioidosis is challenging due to its non-specific clinical manifestations, which mimic other severe infections. The culture method is considered an imperfect gold standard for the diagnosis of melioidosis due to its low sensitivity. Antibody detection has low sensitivity and specificity due to the high seropositivity among healthy people in endemic regions. Antigen detection using various proteins has been tested for the rapid determination of B. pseudomallei; however, it presents certain limitations in terms of its sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, this review aims to frame the present knowledge of a potential target known as the Burkholderia invasion protein D (BipD), including future directions for its detection using an aptamer-based sensor (aptasensor).
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  2. Manurung S, Setyowati S
    Malays Fam Physician, 2021 Mar 25;16(1):64-74.
    PMID: 33948144 DOI: 10.51866/oa1037
    Background: Postpartum blues in Indonesia has a high prevalence at 37% to 67%. Postpartum blues syndrome has been described as varying changes in the affective domain, such as feelings, behavior, or thoughts, that can be influenced by the roles and tasks of women, along with their social, cultural, and economic support. Instruments that measure maternal blues through bonding attachment behavior have never before been developed in Indonesia.

    Objective: This study aimed to develop a maternal blues scale through bonding attachments to predict postpartum blues.

    Method: The research design consisted of three stages: 1) phenomenology design and focus group discussion; 2) development and construction of the maternal blues scale, and 3) a cross-sectional study to measure validation of the scales. Respondents were postpartum mothers in the first week after birth. The sample comprised 501 participants. Sampling was done by consecutive sampling at the Public Health Center (PUSKESMAS) in the South Jakarta area. Data analysis used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), correlation, and a diagnostic testing .

    Results: Item analysis produced 32 items consisting of 24 items regarding the mother's role and duties as internal factors and eight factors involving social, cultural, and economic support as external factors. Both factors were valid and reliable in predicting postpartum blues with indicators (t loading factors ≥ 1.96, standardized loading factor (SLF) ≥.50, internal factors: construct reliability (CR) ≥ .70 and extraction variants (VE) ≥ .50 and external factors: CR ≥ .74 to .83 VE ≥ .50 to .63). The relationship with Kennerley's maternity blues as a gold standard was significant. Internal factors had a score of 53, with a sensitivity of 60.2%. The external factors score was 19, with a sensitivity of 77.3%.

    Conclusion: The new scale for postpartum blues prediction developed displayed internal consistency and validity of each indicator (internal and external factors) that was good (CR ≥ .70; VE ≥ .50). This scale provides a feasible tool to predict postpartum blues.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  3. Lopez-Beltran A, López-Rios F, Montironi R, Wildsmith S, Eckstein M
    Cancers (Basel), 2021 Mar 20;13(6).
    PMID: 33804698 DOI: 10.3390/cancers13061424
    Immuno-oncology (IO) agents (anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and anti-programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1)) are approved as first- and second-line treatments for metastatic UC. PD-L1 expression levels in UC tumors help clinicians determine which patients are more likely to respond to IO therapies. Assays for approved IO agents use different antibodies, immunohistochemical protocols, cutoffs (defining "high" vs. "low" PD-L1 expression), and scoring algorithms. The robust control of pre-analytical and analytical standards is needed to obtain high-quality PD-L1 results. To better understand the status and perspectives of biomarker-guided patient selection for anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 agents in UC, three workshops were held from December 2018 to December 2019 in Italy, Malaysia, and Spain. The primary goal was to develop recommendations for best practice approaches to PD-L1 testing in UC. Recommendations pertaining to the interpretation and reporting of the results of PD-L1 assays from experienced pathologists and oncologists from around the globe are included. A test request form for pathology laboratories was developed as a critical first step for oncologists/urologists to encourage communication between clinicians and pathologists, ensuring fast and high-quality test results. In this era of personalized medicine, we briefly discuss novel biomarkers being evaluated for IO agents in UC.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  4. Liu Y, Gan Y, Song Y, Liu J
    Sensors (Basel), 2021 Mar 13;21(6).
    PMID: 33805702 DOI: 10.3390/s21062037
    Contemporarily, almost all the global IT giants have aimed at the smart home industry and made an active strategic business layout. As the early-stage and entry-level product of the voice-enabled smart home industry, the smart speakers have been going through rapid development and rising fierce market competition globally in recent years. China, one of the most populous and largest markets in the world, has tremendous business potential in the smart home industry. The market sales of smart speakers in China have gone through rapid growth in the past three years. However, the market penetration rate of related smart home devices and equipment still stays extremely low and far from mass adoption. Moreover, the market sales of smart speakers have also entered a significant slowdown and adjustment period since 2020. Chinese consumers have moved from early impulsive consumption to a rational consumption phase about this early-stage smart home product. Trust in the marketing field is considered an indispensable component of all business transactions, which plays a crucial role in adopting new technologies. This study explores the influencing factors of Chinese users' perceived trust in the voice-enabled smart home systems, uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the interaction mechanism between different variables, and establishes a perceived trust model through 475 valid samples. The model includes six variables: system quality, familiarity, subjective norm, technology optimism, perceived enjoyment, and perceived trust. The result shows that system quality is the essential influence factor that impacts all other variables and could significantly affect the perceived trust. Perceived enjoyment is the most direct influence variable affected by system quality, subjective norm, and technology optimism, and it positively affects the perceived trust in the end. The subjective norm is one of the most distinguishing variables for Chinese users, since China has a collectivist consumption culture. People always expect their behavior to meet social expectations and standards to avoid criticism and acquire social integration. Therefore, policy guidance, authoritative opinions, and people with important reference roles will significantly affect consumers' perceived trust and purchase intention. Familiarity and technology optimism are important influential factors that will have an indirect impact on the perceived trust. The related results of this study can help designers, practitioners, and researchers of the smart home industry produce products and services with higher perceived trust to improve consumers' adoption and acceptance so that the market penetration rate of related products and enterprises could be increased, and the maturity and development of the voice-enabled smart home industry could be promoted.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  5. Gupta R, Kewalramani R
    J Oral Biol Craniofac Res, 2021 03 10;11(2):330-333.
    PMID: 33786296 DOI: 10.1016/j.jobcr.2021.03.001
    Aim: To evaluate the microleakage of newer bioceramic root-end filling materials.

    Material and method: Sixty freshly extracted human single-rooted mandibular premolar teeth were selected for the study. Teeth with fractured root, cracks, anddilacerations were rejected. All teeth were cleaned with ultrasonic scalers. Standard access opening was done and root canal treatment was performed with rotary files followed by obturation. After storing in saline for a week apical 3 ​mm of the root was resected at 900 angles to the long axis of the root. Retro cavity preparation was done with ultrasonic tips. The teeth were divided into four groups of 15 specimens each. Group I - Biodentin, GroupII-Bioaggregate, Group III - MTA Plus, and Group IV - MTA. After the restoration of retro cavities of all the teeth as per manufacture instructions, two coats of nail varnish were applied to leave apical 3 ​mm. All teeth were stored in 2% methylene blue for 72 ​h followed by emersion in 65% nitric acid for the next 72 ​h for Dye extraction. The obtained supernatant solution was then centrifuged and optical density or absorbance was measured with a UV spectrophotometer.

    Result: Microleakage was found to be increasing in this order: Biodentin ​ ​0.01).

    Conclusion: All materials exhibit some amount of microleakage. Biodentin shows the least microleakage among all the bioceramic material groups. Hence, Biodentin and bioaggregate are better material of choice for the retrograde filling to prevent microleakage.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  6. Gnatiuc L, Tapia-Conyer R, Wade R, Ramirez-Reyes R, Aguilar-Ramirez D, Herrington W, et al.
    Eur J Prev Cardiol, 2021 Mar 09.
    PMID: 33693634 DOI: 10.1093/eurjpc/zwab038
    AIMS: Results of previous studies of abdominal adiposity and risk of vascular-metabolic mortality in Hispanic populations have been conflicting. We report results from a large prospective study of Mexican adults with high levels of abdominal adiposity.

    METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 159 755 adults aged ≥35 years from Mexico City were enrolled in a prospective study and followed for 16 years. Cox regression, adjusted for confounders, yielded mortality rate ratios (RRs) associated with three markers of abdominal adiposity (waist circumference, waist-hip ratio, and waist-height ratio) and one marker of gluteo-femoral adiposity (hip circumference) for cause-specific mortality before age 75 years. To reduce reverse causality, deaths in the first 5 years of follow-up and participants with diabetes or other prior chronic disease were excluded. Among 113 163 participants without prior disease and aged 35-74 years at recruitment, all adiposity markers were positively associated with vascular-metabolic mortality. Comparing the top versus bottom tenth of the sex-specific distributions, the vascular-metabolic mortality RRs at ages 40-74 years were 2.32 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.84-2.94] for waist circumference, 2.22 (1.71-2.88) for the waist-hip ratio, 2.63 (2.06-3.36) for the waist-height ratio, and 1.58 (1.29-1.93) for hip circumference. The RRs corresponding to each standard deviation (SD) higher usual levels of these adiposity markers were 1.34 (95% CI 1.27-1.41), 1.31 (1.23-1.39), 1.38 (1.31-1.45), and 1.18 (1.13-1.24), respectively. For the markers of abdominal adiposity, the RRs did not change much after further adjustment for other adiposity markers, but for hip circumference the association was reversed; given body mass index and waist circumference, the RR for vascular-metabolic mortality for each one SD higher usual hip circumference was 0.80 (0.75-0.86).

    CONCLUSIONS: In this study of Mexican adults, abdominal adiposity (and in particular the waist-height ratio) was strongly and positively associated with vascular-metabolic mortality. For a given amount of general and abdominal adiposity, however, higher hip circumference was associated with lower vascular-metabolic mortality.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  7. Jahanfar S, Ho JJ, Jaafar SH, Abraha I, Noura M, Ross CR, et al.
    Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 2021 03 09;3:CD012553.
    PMID: 33686672 DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD012553.pub2
    BACKGROUND: There is a need to standardize monitoring in obstetric research of twin pregnancies. Identification of birth weight discordance (BWD), defined as a difference in the birth weights of twins, is a well-documented phenomenon in twin pregnancies. Ultrasound for the diagnosis of BWD informs complex decision making including whether to intervene medically (via laser photo coagulation) or deliver the twins to avoid fetal morbidities or even death. The question is, how accurate is this measurement?

    OBJECTIVES: To determine the diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) of ultrasound estimated fetal weight discordance (EFWD) of 20% and 25% using different estimated biometric ultrasound measurements compared with the actual BWD as the reference standard in twin pregnancies.

    SEARCH METHODS: The search for this review was performed on 15 March 2019. We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), seven other databases, conference proceedings, reference lists and contacted experts. There were no language or date restrictions applied to the electronic searches, and no methodological filters to maximize sensitivity.

    SELECTION CRITERIA: We selected cohort-type studies with delayed verification that evaluated the accuracy of biometric measurements at ultrasound scanning of twin pregnancies that had been proposed for the diagnosis of estimated BWD, compared to BWD measurements after birth as a reference standard. In addition, we only selected studies that considered twin pregnancies and applied a reference standard for EFWD for the target condition of BWD.

    DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: We screened all titles generated by electronic database searches. Two review authors independently assessed the abstracts of all potentially relevant studies. We assessed the identified full papers for eligibility, and extracted data to create 2 × 2 tables. Two review authors independently performed quality assessment using the QUADAS-2 tool. We excluded studies that did not report data in sufficient detail to construct 2 × 2 tables, and where this information was not available from the primary investigators. We assessed the certainty of the evidence using the GRADE approach.

    MAIN RESULTS: We included 39 eligible studies with a median study sample size of 140. In terms of risk of bias, there were many unclear statements regarding patient selection, index test and use of proper reference standard. Twenty-one studies (53%) were of methodological concern due to flow and timing. In terms of applicability, most studies were of low concern. Ultrasound for diagnosis of BWD in twin pregnancies at 20% cut-off Twenty-two studies provided data for a BWD of 20% and the summary estimate of sensitivity was 0.51 (95% CI 0.42 to 0.60), and the summary estimate of specificity was 0.91 (95% CI 0.89 to 0.93) (8005 twin pregnancies; very low-certainty evidence). Ultrasound for diagnosis of BWD in twin pregnancies at 25% cut-off Eighteen studies provided data using a BWD discordance of 25%. The summary estimate of sensitivity was 0.46 (95% CI 0.26 to 0.66), and the summary estimate of specificity was 0.93 (95% CI 0.89 to 0.96) (6471 twin pregnancies; very low-certainty evidence). Subgroup analyses were possible for both BWD of 20% and 25%. The diagnostic accuracy did not differ substantially between estimation by abdominal circumference and femur length but femur length had a trend towards higher sensitivity and specificity. Subgroup analyses were not possible by sex of twins, chorionicity or gestational age due to insufficient data.

    AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Very low-certainty evidence suggests that EFWD identified by ultrasound has low sensitivity but good specificity in detecting BWD in twin pregnancies. There is uncertain diagnostic value of EFWD; this review suggests there is insufficient evidence to support this index as the sole measure for clinical decision making to evaluate the prognosis of twins with growth discordance. The diagnostic accuracy of other measures including amniotic fluid index and umbilical artery Doppler resistive indices in combination with ultrasound for clinical intervention requires evaluation. Future well-designed studies could also evaluate the impact of chorionicity, sex and gestational age in the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound for EFWD.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  8. Azmi N, Kamarudin LM, Zakaria A, Ndzi DL, Rahiman MHF, Zakaria SMMS, et al.
    Sensors (Basel), 2021 Mar 08;21(5).
    PMID: 33800174 DOI: 10.3390/s21051875
    Seasonal crops require reliable storage conditions to protect the yield once harvested. For long term storage, controlling the moisture content level in grains is challenging because existing moisture measuring techniques are time-consuming and laborious as measurements are carried out manually. The measurements are carried out using a sample and moisture may be unevenly distributed inside the silo/bin. Numerous studies have been conducted to measure the moisture content in grains utilising dielectric properties. To the best of authors' knowledge, the utilisation of low-cost wireless technology operating in the 2.4 GHz and 915 MHz ISM bands such as Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) have not been widely investigated. This study focuses on the characterisation of 2.4 GHz Radio Frequency (RF) transceivers using ZigBee Standard and 868 to 915 MHz UHF RFID transceiver for moisture content classification and prediction using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models. The Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) from the wireless transceivers is used for moisture content prediction in rice. Four samples (2 kg of rice each) were conditioned to 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25% moisture contents. The RSSI from both systems were obtained and processed. The processed data is used as input to different ANNs models such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), Random Forest, and Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP). The results show that the Random Forest method with one input feature (RSSI_WSN) provides the highest accuracy of 87% compared to the other four models. All models show more than 98% accuracy when two input features (RSSI_WSN and RSSI_TAG2) are used. Hence, Random Forest is a reliable model that can be used to predict the moisture content level in rice as it gives a high accuracy even when only one input feature is used.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  9. Gupta M, Hawari HF, Kumar P, Burhanudin ZA, Tansu N
    Nanomaterials (Basel), 2021 Mar 03;11(3).
    PMID: 33802318 DOI: 10.3390/nano11030623
    The demand for carbon dioxide (CO2) gas detection is increasing nowadays. However, its fast detection at room temperature (RT) is a major challenge. Graphene is found to be the most promising sensing material for RT detection, owing to its high surface area and electrical conductivity. In this work, we report a highly edge functionalized chemically synthesized reduced graphene oxide (rGO) thin films to achieve fast sensing response for CO2 gas at room temperature. The high amount of edge functional groups is prominent for the sorption of CO2 molecules. Initially, rGO is synthesized by reduction of GO using ascorbic acid (AA) as a reducing agent. Three different concentrations of rGO are prepared using three AA concentrations (25, 50, and 100 mg) to optimize the material properties such as functional groups and conductivity. Thin films of three different AA reduced rGO suspensions (AArGO25, AArGO50, AArGO100) are developed and later analyzed using standard FTIR, XRD, Raman, XPS, TEM, SEM, and four-point probe measurement techniques. We find that the highest edge functionality is achieved by the AArGO25 sample with a conductivity of ~1389 S/cm. The functionalized AArGO25 gas sensor shows recordable high sensing properties (response and recovery time) with good repeatability for CO2 at room temperature at 500 ppm and 50 ppm. Short response and recovery time of ~26 s and ~10 s, respectively, are achieved for 500 ppm CO2 gas with the sensitivity of ~50 Hz/µg. We believe that a highly functionalized AArGO CO2 gas sensor could be applicable for enhanced oil recovery, industrial and domestic safety applications.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  10. Shyam S, Greenwood D, Mai CW, Tan SS, Mohd Yusof BN, Moy FM, et al.
    Cancers (Basel), 2021 Mar 02;13(5).
    PMID: 33801191 DOI: 10.3390/cancers13051036
    (1) Background: We studied the association of both conventional (BMI, waist and hip circumference and waist-hip ratio) and novel (UK clothing sizes) obesity indices with pancreatic cancer risk in the UK women's cohort study (UKWCS). (2) Methods: The UKWCS recruited 35,792 women from England, Wales and Scotland from 1995 to 1998. Cancer diagnosis and death information were obtained from the National Health Service (NHS) Central Register. Cox's proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the association between baseline obesity indicators and pancreatic cancer risk. (3) Results: This analysis included 35,364 participants with a median follow-up of 19.3 years. During the 654,566 person-years follow up, there were 136 incident pancreatic cancer cases. After adjustments for age, smoking, education and physical activity, each centimetre increase in hip circumference (HR: 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01-1.05, p = 0.009) and each size increase in skirt size (HR: 1.12, 95% CI: 1.02-1.23, p = 0.041) at baseline increased pancreatic cancer risk. Baseline BMI became a significant predictor of pancreatic cancer risk (HR: 1.04, 95% CI: 1.00-1.08, p = 0.050) when latent pancreatic cancer cases were removed. Only baseline hip circumference was associated with pancreatic cancer risk (HR: 1.03, 95% CI: 1.00-1.05, p = 0.017) when participants with diabetes at baseline were excluded to control for reverse causality. (4) Conclusion: Hip circumference and skirt size were significant predictors of pancreatic cancer risk in the primary analysis. Thus, hip circumference is useful to assess body shape relationships. Additionally, standard skirt sizes offer an economical and objective alternative to conventional obesity indices for evaluating pancreatic cancer risk in women.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  11. Babatunde O, Hameed S, Salar U, Chigurupati S, Wadood A, Rehman AU, et al.
    Mol Divers, 2021 Mar 01.
    PMID: 33650031 DOI: 10.1007/s11030-021-10196-5
    A variety of dihydroquinazolin-4(1H)-one derivatives (1-37) were synthesized via "one-pot" three-component reaction scheme by treating aniline and different aromatic aldehydes with isatoic anhydride in the presence of acetic acid. Chemical structures of compounds were deduced by different spectroscopic techniques including EI-MS, HREI-MS, 1H-, and 13C-NMR. Compounds were subjected to α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities. A number of derivatives exhibited significant to moderate inhibition potential against α-amylase (IC50 = 23.33 ± 0.02-88.65 ± 0.23 μM) and α-glucosidase (IC50 = 25.01 ± 0.12-89.99 ± 0.09 μM) enzymes, respectively. Results were compared with the standard acarbose (IC50 = 17.08 ± 0.07 μM for α-amylase and IC50 = 17.67 ± 0.09 μM for α-glucosidase). Structure-activity relationship (SAR) was rationalized by analyzing the substituents effects on inhibitory potential. Kinetic studies were implemented to find the mode of inhibition by compounds which revealed competitive inhibition for α-amylase and non-competitive inhibition for α-glucosidase. However, in silico study identified several important binding interactions of ligands (synthetic analogues) with the active site of both enzymes.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  12. Hamzah SNA, Mohd Desa MN, Jasni AS, Mohd Taib N, Masri SN, Hamat RA
    Med J Malaysia, 2021 03;76(2):164-170.
    PMID: 33742623
    BACKGROUND: Streptococcus pyogenes has a variety of virulence factors and the predominant invasive strains differ according to specific emm types and geographical orientation. Although emm typing is commonly used as the gold standard method for the molecular characterisation, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) has become an important tool for comparing the genetic profiles globally. This study aimed to screen selected virulence genes from invasive and non-invasive clinical samples and to characterise the molecular epidemiology by emm typing and MLST methods.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 42 S. pyogenes isolates from invasive and non-invasive samples collected from two different tertiary hospitals were investigated for the distribution of virulence factors and their molecular epidemiology by emm and multilocus sequence typing methods. Detection of five virulence genes (speA, speB, speJ, ssa and sdaB) was performed using multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the standard primers and established protocol. Phylogenetic tree branches were constructed from sequence analysis utilised by neighbour joining method generated from seven housekeeping genes using MEGA X software.

    RESULTS: Multiplex PCR analysis revealed that sdaB/speF (78.6%) and speB (61.9%) were the predominant virulence genes. Regardless of the type of invasiveness, diverse distribution of emm types/subtypes was noted which comprised of 27 different emm types/subtypes. The predominant emm types/subtypes were emm63 and emm18 with each gene accounted for 11.8% whereas 12% for each gene was noted for emm28, emm97.4 and emm91. The MLST revealed that the main sequence type (ST) in invasive samples was ST402 (17.7%) while ST473 and ST318 (12% for each ST) were the major types in non-invasive samples. Out of 18 virulotypes, Virulotype A (five genes, 55.6%) and Virulotype B (two genes, 27.8%) were the major virulotypes found in this study. Phylogenetic analysis indicated the presence of seven different clusters of S. pyogenes. Interestingly, Cluster VI showed that selected emm/ST types such as emm71/ST318 (n=2), emm70.1/ST318 (n=1), emm44/ST31 (n=1) and emm18/ST442 (n=1) have clustered within a common group (Virulotype A) for both hospitals studied.

    CONCLUSION: The present study showed that group A streptococcci (GAS) are genetically diverse and possess virulence genes regardless of their invasiveness. Majority of the GAS exhibited no restricted pattern of virulotypes except for a few distinct clusters. Therefore, it can be concluded that virulotyping is partially useful for characterising a heterogeneous population of GAS in hospitals.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  13. Mohamed-Haflah NH, Abdullah S, Abdul-Rani R
    Malays Orthop J, 2021 Mar;15(1):16-20.
    PMID: 33880143 DOI: 10.5704/MOJ.2103.003
    The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and institution of the Movement Control Order (MCO) had resulted in the cancellation of a major orthopaedic exam in April 2020. The exam is known as the Malaysian Orthopaedic Specialist Committee (OSC) Part I Examinations. It is similar to the British Royal Colleges of Surgeons Membership (MRCS) exams and held twice annually in April and October. There are up to 200 candidates involved. With implementation of new guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOP), the OSC Part I exam was successfully held by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) from 5th-9th October 2020. Here we highlight the challenges we faced whilst coordinating a major exam at a national level during the COVID-19 pandemic with recommendations for future exams.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  14. Saad-Ilyas M, Zehra U, Khan UU, Mohammad I, Muhammad R, Aziz A
    Malays Orthop J, 2021 Mar;15(1):72-78.
    PMID: 33880151 DOI: 10.5704/MOJ.2103.011
    Introduction: The study aimed to target the current practices of the orthopaedic community in outpatient (OPD), emergency (ER) and surgical services (OT) during COVID-19.

    Material and method: This study surveyed 303 orthopaedic surgeons from all over Pakistan. The survey had 30 questions targeting the setup of outpatient, emergency and operation services in orthopaedic departments of different hospitals in Pakistan.

    Result: A total of 302 surgeons were included from 53 cities all over Pakistan. Between 35-48% of the respondents reported lack of availability of standard operating procedures in OPD, ER and in OT. Majority of the respondents noted that their OPD and surgical practice had been affected to some degree and 69% of the surgeons were only doing trauma surgery. This trend was higher in younger consultants of less than 45 years of age (p<0.001). Almost two-third of the surgeons, mostly senior (p=0.03) were using surgical masks as the only protective measure during various practices of OPD, ER and OT, while most of the setups were not assessing patients even for signs and symptoms of COVID. Almost 89% of the orthopaedic community is facing definite to mild stress during this pandemic and this has significantly affected the senior surgeons (p=0.01).

    Conclusion: Our study highlighted that COVID-19 has resulted in marked changes to the practices of the majority of Pakistani orthopaedic surgeons. Despite a sharp upsurge in the number of cases and mortality due to COVID-19, guidelines were still lacking at most of the settings and a substantial percentage of the orthopaedic community were not following adequate safety measures while attending to patients.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  15. Omar MK, Abdul-Karim S
    Malays Orthop J, 2021 Mar;15(1):32-42.
    PMID: 33880146 DOI: 10.5704/MOJ.2103.006
    Introduction: This study was designed to produce a validated and reliable Malay version of the Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI-M) questionnaire.

    Materials and method: The cross-cultural adaptation was conducted based on standard guidelines to produce the Malay version of the Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI-M) questionnaire. The reliability and validity testing were then performed among one hundred and twenty-three physically active University of Malaya students. Among them, twenty-two students also participated in the second return of the questionnaire over a two-week interval, which was then evaluated for test-retest reliability testing.

    Results: The content validity for item-level (I-CVI) and Kappa values for all items were more than 0.7, respectively and the all scales-level (S-CVI) values were 0.983 (consistency), 0.967 (representativeness), 1.00 (relevance) and 0.983 (clarity). The questionnaire also demonstrated excellent reliability with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC2.1) above 0.850 for all items. It was observed that outer loading of most items were more than the minimum acceptable value (0.7). Fornell-Larcker criterion demonstrate all values for each reflective construct was larger than the correlations with other constructs, indicating discriminant. The cross-loading values of each item has shown a weak correlation with all other constructs, except for the one to which it was theoretically associated.

    Conclusions: The Malay version of the IdFAI (IdFAI-M) is a reliable and valid instrument that can be readily utilised to subjectively assess ankle instability.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  16. Murugan K, Faisham WI, Zulmi W
    Malays Orthop J, 2021 Mar;15(1):93-99.
    PMID: 33880154 DOI: 10.5704/MOJ.2103.014
    Introduction: Mega endoprosthesis replacement for resection of primary malignant bone tumour requires immediate and long-term stability, particularly in the young and active patient. Extracortical bone bridge interface (EBBI) is a technique whereby autograft is wrapped around the interface junction of bone and porous-coated implant to induce and enhance bone formation for biological incorporation. This procedure increases the mean torsional stiffness and the mean maximum torque, which eventually improves the implant's long-term survival.

    Material and methods: The extracortical bone bridge interface's radiological parameter was evaluated at the prosthesis bone junction two years after surgery utilising a picture archiving and communication system (PACS). The radiograph's anteroposterior and lateral view was analysed for both thickness and length in all four cortices. The analysis was done in SPSS Version 24 using One-Way ANOVA and independent T-Test. Results were presented as mean and standard deviation and considered significant when the p-value was < 0.05.

    Results: The mean average thickness was 2.2293mm (SD 1.829), and the mean average length was 31.95% (SD 24.55). We observed that the thickness and length of EBBI were superior in the young patient or patients with giant cell tumour that did not receive chemotherapy, compared to patients treated for osteosarcoma. The distal femur also had better EBBI compared to the proximal tibia. However, the final multivariable statistical analysis showed no significant difference in all variables. EBBI thickness was significantly and positively correlated with EBBI Length (p<0.001). We conclude that, for each 1mm increase in EBBI thickness, the length will increase by 0.06% on average. About 17.2% of patients out of the 29 showed no radiological evidence of EBBI.

    Conclusion: From our study, there were no factors that significantly contributed to the formation and incorporation of EBBI.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  17. Sam CX, Anwar AZ, Ahmad AR, Solayar GN
    Malays Orthop J, 2021 Mar;15(1):119-123.
    PMID: 33880158 DOI: 10.5704/MOJ.2103.018
    Introduction: Reverse total shoulder arthroplasty provides a surgical alternative to standard total shoulder arthroplasty for the treatment of cuff tear arthropathy, arthritis and fracture sequelae. This study aimed to assess the short-term outcomes following reverse total shoulder arthroplasty for patients in a large public hospital in Malaysia.

    Materials and Methods: We identified and performed five primary reverse total shoulder arthroplasties between 1 May 2019 and 1 June 2020. All patients were contactable and available for analysis. Assessment of functional outcomes was performed using the Constant-Murley score, the patient satisfaction score (PSS), and imaging studies. The mean follow-up from operation to the time of reporting was 9.6 months (range, 3 to 14 months).

    Results: The median age for our patients was 58 years (±11.91). The most common indication for surgery was post-traumatic arthritis, followed by rotator cuff arthropathy and osteoarthritis. The mean Constant score improved from 9.0 pre-operatively to 52.3 post-operatively at a mean of 9.6 months. The majority of the patients were satisfied with the surgery as the post-operative range of motion, especially anterior elevation and abduction, improved in four of our patients and there were no short-term complications, for example, of infection or revisions, reported at the last follow-up.

    Conclusion: This study has shown that reverse total shoulder arthroplasty can yield good short-term outcomes for the treatment of complex shoulder problems in addition to cuff tear arthropathy. It should be considered a treatment for rotator cuff tears, severe arthritis and ≥ 3 parts proximal humeral fractures.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  18. Yap ST, Lee N, Ang ML, Chui RW, Lim K, Arjandas M, et al.
    Malays Orthop J, 2021 Mar;15(1):105-112.
    PMID: 33880156 DOI: 10.5704/MOJ.2103.016
    Introduction: Hip spica casting is a standard treatment for children with femur fractures. This study compares the outcomes of spica cast application, in terms of quality of fracture reduction and hospital charges when performed in operating theatre versus outpatient clinics at a local institution.

    Materials and Methods: A total of 93 paediatric patients, aged between 2 months to 8 years, who underwent spica casting for an isolated femur fracture between January 2008 and March 2019, were identified retrospectively. They were separated into inpatient or outpatient cohort based on the location of spica cast application. Five patients with metaphyseal fractures and four with un-displaced fractures were excluded. There were 13 and 71 patients in the outpatient and inpatient cohort respectively who underwent spica casting for their diaphyseal and displaced femur fractures. Variables between cohorts were compared.

    Results: There were no significant differences in gender, fracture pattern, and mechanism of injury between cohorts. Spica casting as inpatients delayed the time from assessment to casting (23.55 ± 29.67h vs. 6.75 ± 4.27h, p<0.05), increased average hospital stay (41.2 ± 31.1h vs. 19.2 ± 15.0h, p<0.05) and average hospital charges (US$1857.14 vs US$775.49, p<0.05). Excluding the un-displaced fractures, there were no significant differences in the period of cast immobilisation and median follow-up length. Both cohorts had a similar proportion of unacceptable reduction and revision casting rate.

    Conclusion: Both cohorts presented similar spica casting outcomes of fracture reduction and follow-up period. With spica cast application in operating theatre reporting higher hospital charges and prolonged hospital stay, the outpatient clinic should always be considered for hip spica application.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  19. Noor NHM, Joibe KF, Hasan MN
    Oman Med J, 2021 Mar;36(2):e249.
    PMID: 33898061 DOI: 10.5001/omj.2021.55
    Objectives: A near miss in transfusion practice is defined as a deviation from standard procedures discovered before transfusion and can lead to a transfusion error. Information on near-miss events provides pivotal data on areas of improvement to prevent actual errors in the future. Our study sought to determine the prevalence and rate of near-miss events and their associated factors amongst house officers (HO) in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia.

    Methods: The initial part of this study is a descriptive cross-sectional study involving data collection from all requests sent for group, screen, and hold (GSH) and group and cross match (GXM) tests from 2011 to 2017. The association between sociodemographic, workplace, and experience factors with near-miss events amongst HO was analyzed with a case-control study using logistic regression.

    Results: We reported 83 near-miss events with a prevalence of 0.034% (95% confidence interval 0.027-0.042). The rate of near-miss events was one in every 2916 requests. The mean reporting rate was 11.9 events per year. Clinical near miss predominated at 89.2% compared to 10.8% laboratory near miss. Mislabeled events (33.7%) were more than miscollected events (10.8%). HO were implicated with most events (83.1%). Most events were predominantly in the medical and obstetrics and gynecology wards amounting to 31.3% each. We found a significant association between the ages of HO with near-miss events.

    Conclusions: The prevalence of near-miss events in our hospital was relatively low. Our study has shown areas for improvement include improving sampling practices in clinical areas, adequate training of laboratory technicians, and providing proper transfusion education. Interventions such as encouraging compliance to guidelines and training in clinical and laboratory areas to minimize the risk of mistransfusion should be considered.

    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
  20. Nagendrababu V, Duncan HF, Pulikkotil SJ, Dummer PMH
    Int Endod J, 2021 Mar;54(3):354-365.
    PMID: 33089501 DOI: 10.1111/iej.13434
    Randomized clinical trials are positioned at the highest level of primary clinical evidence, as they are designed to be unbiased with a reduced risk of systematic error. The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement was first developed in 1996 to improve the reporting quality of randomized clinical trials with updates being published subsequently. Recently, the Preferred Reporting Items for RAndomized Trials in Endodontics (PRIRATE) 2020 guidelines were developed exclusively for the field of Endodontics to address the suboptimal quality of randomized clinical trials submitted to Endodontic journals, which result in many being rejected. A principal flaw in submissions is the fact that many authors are unclear on the keys terms that should be used when developing manuscripts for publication. Clearly, authors should be aware of the most common terms used when conducting and reporting randomized clinical trials. Hence, the aim of the current paper is to present a comprehensive glossary of the terminology used in randomized clinical trials in order to assist authors when designing, executing and writing-up randomized clinical trials.
    Matched MeSH terms: Reference Standards
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