Distal medium vessel occlusions (DMVOs) are thought to cause as many as 25% to 40% of all acute ischemic strokes and may result in substantial disability amongst survivors. Although intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) is more effective for distal than proximal vessel occlusions, the overall efficacy of IVT remains limited in DMVO with less than 50% of patients achieving reperfusion and about 1/3 to 1/4 of the patients failing to achieve functional independence. Data regarding mechanical thrombectomy (MT) among these patients remains limited. The smaller, thinner, and more tortuous vessels involved in DMVO are presumably associated with higher procedural risks whereas a lower benefit might be expected given the smaller amount of tissue territory at risk. Recent advances in technology have shown promising results in endovascular treatment of DMVOs with room for future improvement. In this review, we discuss some of the key technical and clinical considerations in DMVO treatment including the anatomical and clinical terminology, diagnostic modalities, the role of IVT and MT, existing technology, and technical challenges as well as the contemporary evidence and future treatment directions.

Management of cavernous sinus dural arteriovenous fistula (CSDAVF) continues to present significant challenges, particularly when the inferior petrosal sinus is thrombosed, collapsed, or angiographically invisible. In this study, we introduce facilitated retrograde access via the facial vein, which is employed in the transvenous embolization of CSDAVF with isolated superior ophthalmic venous drainage. We also present illustrative cases and technical points.

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a common cause of gynecological disease in elderly women. The prevalence of POP has increased with an aging society. Abdominal sacrocolpopexy (ASC) is safer and more effective than the vaginal approach in patients with apical compartment POP because it has a higher anatomical cure rate, a lower recurrence rate, less dyspareunia, and improved sexual function. Laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy (LSC) has replaced ASC. Robotic sacrocolpopexy (RSC) also helps overcome the challenges of LSC by facilitating deep pelvic dissection and multiple intracorporeal suturing. The RSC is technically easy to apply, has a steep learning curve, and offers many advantages over the LSC. However, insufficient data led us to conclude that the LSC is superior overall, especially in terms of costeffectiveness. The present review provides insights into different aspects of RSC, highlighting the most common benefits and concerns of this procedure. We searched for eligible articles discussing this issue from January 2019 to March 2022 to reveal the outcomes of RSC.

This pilot study aimed to investigate the effects of regional and seasonal variations on the prevalence of Theileria orientalis and the hematological profile of non-grazed dairy cows in Korea. A total of 365 clinically healthy lactating Holstein Friesian cows from 26 dairy farms in 7 provinces that were categorized into northern, central, and southern regions were sampled during the warm period from July to August and the cold period from October to December. The detection of T. orientalis major piroplasm surface protein gene and the hematology non-grazed dairy cows were analyzed using peripheral blood samples. The T. orientalis prevalence was 20.0% (73/365). The prevalence in the southern region was 35.9%, which was significantly higher than that in the central (21.6%) and northern (12.9%) regions (P < 0.05). The prevalence during warm period was higher (43.0%) than that during the cold season (13.5%). The infected cows showed significantly lower erythrocyte counts in the southern region (5.8 ± 0.6 M/µl) and during the warm period (5.8 ± 0.7 M/µl) compared with those in the central and northern regions and during the cold season, which affected the extended RBC parameters, including hematocrit and hemoglobin concentrations. Our findings revealed the prevalence of T. orientalis in Korea, highlighting its high occurrence during warm periods and in certain geographical regions. Climatic factors could contribute to the health and productivity of cattle, as evidenced by the prevalence of T. orientalis and its negative impact on animals.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has led to imposed movement restrictions and lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19 cases in the community. These lockdowns had greatly changed people’s daily lives, including physical activity and sedentary behaviour. The aim of this scoping review was to establish available evidence linked to physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) among adults in the Asia region during the COVID-19 outbreak. This scoping review was conducted using Arksey & O’Malley’s protocol with 132 studies included after full-text screening. Changes in PA were reported in 122 studies and SB in 50 studies. Most studies reported a reduction in the total level of PA and a hike in sedentary and screen time. This decrement in PA and increment in SB was related to poor mental health, body weight increase and complications in COVID-19 patients, while participants who maintained or improved their PA reported better health outcomes.

Clinical case studies and reporting are important to the discovery of new disorders and the advancement of medical sciences. Both clinicians and basic scientists play equally important roles leading to treatment discoveries for both cures and symptoms. In the field of movement disorders, exceptional observation of patients from clinicians is imperative, not just for phenomenology but also for the variable occurrences of these disorders, along with other signs and symptoms, throughout the day and the disease course. The Movement Disorders in Asia Task Force (TF) was formed to help enhance and promote collaboration and research on movement disorders within the region. As a start, the TF has reviewed the original studies of the movement disorders that were preliminarily described in the region. These include nine disorders that were first described in Asia: Segawa disease, PARK-Parkin, X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism, dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, Woodhouse-Sakati syndrome, benign adult familial myoclonic epilepsy, Kufor-Rakeb disease, tremulous dystonia associated with mutation of the calmodulin-binding transcription activator 2 gene, and paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia. We hope that the information provided will honor the original researchers and help us learn and understand how earlier neurologists and basic scientists together discovered new disorders and made advances in the field, which impact us all to this day.

Objectives: Responding to the reality of neonate patients with delayed childhood development due to late diagnosis of and intervention on hearing impairment, this study aims to determine the features based on time-frequency domain of auditory brainstem response (ABR) signals and to test the protocol on ABR signals from PhysioNet. Methods: This is done by pre-processing, performing time-frequency analysis, and characterizing hearing impairment using the dominant features of the ABR. In this study, normal (N) and hearing impaired (HI) ABR adult human signals were acquired from Physionet.org, a publicly available database. Considering its high signal-to-noise ratio, numerous filters and transformations were applied to extract the ABR. Consequently, the features acquired — dominant frequency and bigrams, were used as data classifiers. Results: Initial results using only N classifiers, that is features from the Normal dataset, and bandpass Chebyshev filter with a lower cut-off frequency of 60 Hz show that the tests yielded low to middle sensitivity. Further tests were done to improve the sensitivity that incorporated the HI classifiers, used data filtered with a low cut-off frequency of 300 Hz, and data divided per stimulus intensity level. Conclusion Conclusions made are 1) data with both N and HI classifiers have higher sensitivity than those using only N classifiers, 2) data with a Chebyshev cut-off frequency of 300 Hz have a higher sensitivity than those with 60 Hz, and 3) data divided per intensity level have a higher sensitivity than data analyzed as a whole, and that features with stimulus intensity in middle ranges have a better distinction between HI and N patients.
Evoked Potentials ; Brain Stem ; Delayed Diagnosis

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a significant public health concern in women and a common cause of gynecological surgery in elderly women. The prevalence of POP has increased with an increase in the aging population. POP is usually diagnosed based on pelvic examination. However, an imaging study may be necessary for more accurate diagnosis. Translabial ultrasound (TLUS) was used to assess diverse types of POP, particularly posterior-compartment POP. It is beneficial to distinguish between true and false rectocele, and detect the rectocele as clinically apparent. TLUS can also establish whether the underlying cause is a problem of the rectovaginal septum, perineal hypermobility, or isolated enterocele. TLUS also plays a role in differentiating POP from conditions that mimic POP. It is a simple, inexpensive, and non-harmful diagnostic modality that is appropriate for most gynecologic clinics.

Purpose: The standard of care for early rectal cancer is radical surgery; however, it carries high postoperative morbidity. This study aimed to assess the short-term and oncological outcomes of local excision and adjuvant radiotherapy in patients with high-risk pathological stage (p) T1 rectal cancer. Methods: Fifty-five patients underwent local excision with adjuvant radiotherapy or radical resection for high-risk T1 rectal cancer. Patients with adenocarcinoma within 10 cm from the anal verge; pT1 with high-risk features (grade 3–4); a tumor size of ≥3 cm; a positive margin; a lymphovascular or perineural invasion; or a submucosal invasion depth of ≥SM2 were included. Results: The rates of postoperative complications and stoma formation were higher in the radical surgery group (P = 0.021 and P = 0.003, respectively). No significant differences were observed in the overall survival and disease-free survival (DFS) between the 2 groups (P = 0.301 and P = 0.076, respectively). Vascular invasion was a significantly poor prognostic factor for DFS (P = 0.033). The presence of 3 or more high-risk features was associated with a poor DFS (P = 0.002). Conclusion Local excision with adjuvant radiotherapy significantly reduces the risk of complications and stoma formation. It is also an alternative option for patients with fewer than 3 high-risk features.

Background: and Purpose Recent studies suggested an increased incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We evaluated the volume of CVT hospitalization and in-hospital mortality during the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the preceding year. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional retrospective study of 171 stroke centers from 49 countries. We recorded COVID-19 admission volumes, CVT hospitalization, and CVT in-hospital mortality from January 1, 2019, to May 31, 2021. CVT diagnoses were identified by International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10) codes or stroke databases. We additionally sought to compare the same metrics in the first 5 months of 2021 compared to the corresponding months in 2019 and 2020 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04934020). Results: There were 2,313 CVT admissions across the 1-year pre-pandemic (2019) and pandemic year (2020); no differences in CVT volume or CVT mortality were observed. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT volumes compared to 2019 (27.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 24.2 to 32.0; P<0.0001) and 2020 (41.4%; 95% CI, 37.0 to 46.0; P<0.0001). A COVID-19 diagnosis was present in 7.6% (132/1,738) of CVT hospitalizations. CVT was present in 0.04% (103/292,080) of COVID-19 hospitalizations. During the first pandemic year, CVT mortality was higher in patients who were COVID positive compared to COVID negative patients (8/53 [15.0%] vs. 41/910 [4.5%], P=0.004). There was an increase in CVT mortality during the first 5 months of pandemic years 2020 and 2021 compared to the first 5 months of the pre-pandemic year 2019 (2019 vs. 2020: 2.26% vs. 4.74%, P=0.05; 2019 vs. 2021: 2.26% vs. 4.99%, P=0.03). In the first 5 months of 2021, there were 26 cases of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), resulting in six deaths. Conclusions During the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic, CVT hospitalization volume and CVT in-hospital mortality did not change compared to the prior year. COVID-19 diagnosis was associated with higher CVT in-hospital mortality. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT hospitalization volume and increase in CVT-related mortality, partially attributable to VITT.