Purpose: The increase in thyroid cancer incidence has inevitably led to an increase in thyroid cancer surgeries. This meta-regression analysis aimed to determine if the rate of post-thyroidectomy complications changes by year. Materials and Methods: PubMed and Embase databases were used to perform a systematic literature search of studies published from January 1, 2005, using the keywords “thyroidectomy” and “complication.” A meta-regression was performed for post-thyroidectomy hypocalcemia and bleeding. Results: This meta-analysis included 25 studies involving 927751 individuals. Through the years of publications in this study, there was no significant difference in the proportion of post-thyroidectomy hypocalcemia and bleeding (p=0.9978, 0.6393). Conclusion Although the number of thyroid surgeries has recently increased, the incidence of post-thyroidectomy hypocalcemia and bleeding did not significantly increase.

Objective: To develop and test a machine learning model for classifying human papillomavirus (HPV) status of patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) using 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose ( 18 F-FDG) PET-derived parameters in derived parameters and an appropriate combination of machine learning methods in patients with OPSCC. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study enrolled 126 patients (118 male; mean age, 60 years) with newly diagnosed, pathologically confirmed OPSCC, that underwent 18 F-FDG PET-computed tomography (CT) between January 2012 and February 2020. Patients were randomly assigned to training and internal validation sets in a 7:3 ratio. An external test set of 19 patients (16 male; mean age, 65.3 years) was recruited sequentially from two other tertiary hospitals. Model 1 used only PET parameters, Model 2 used only clinical features, and Model 3 used both PET and clinical parameters. Multiple feature transforms, feature selection, oversampling, and training models are all investigated. The external test set was used to test the three models that performed best in the internal validation set. The values for area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) were compared between models. Results: In the external test set, ExtraTrees-based Model 3, which uses two PET-derived parameters and three clinical features, with a combination of MinMaxScaler, mutual information selection, and adaptive synthetic sampling approach, showed the best performance (AUC = 0.78; 95% confidence interval, 0.46–1). Model 3 outperformed Model 1 using PET parameters alone (AUC = 0.48, p = 0.047) and Model 2 using clinical parameters alone (AUC = 0.52, p = 0.142) in predicting HPV status. Conclusion Using oversampling and mutual information selection, an ExtraTree-based HPV status classifier was developed by combining metabolic parameters derived from 18 F-FDG PET/CT and clinical parameters in OPSCC, which exhibited higher performance than the models using either PET or clinical parameters alone.

Purpose: Predicting human papillomavirus (HPV) status is critical in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) radiomics. In this study, we developed a model for HPV status prediction using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radiomics and18F-fluorodeoxyglucose ( 18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) parameters in patients withOPSCC. Materials and Methods: Patients with OPSCC who underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT and contrast-enhanced MRI before treatment between January 2012 and February 2020 were enrolled. Training and test sets (3:2) were randomly selected. 18F-FDG PET/CT parameters and MRI radiomics feature were extracted. We developed three light-gradient boosting machine prediction models using the training set: Model 1, MRI radiomics features; Model 2, 18F-FDG PET/CT parameters; and Model 3, combination of MRI radiomics features and 18F-FDG PET/CT parameters. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) values were used to analyze the performance of the models in predicting HPV status in the test set. Results: A total of 126 patients (118 male and 8 female; mean age: 60 years) were included. Of these, 103 patients (81.7%) were HPV-positive, and 23 patients (18.3%) were HPV-negative. AUROC values in the test set were 0.762 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.564–0.959], 0.638 (95% CI, 0.404–0.871), and 0.823 (95% CI, 0.668–0.978) for Models 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The net reclassification improvement of Model 3, compared with that of Model 1, in the test set was 0.119. Conclusion When combined with an MRI radiomics model, 18F-FDG PET/CT exhibits incremental value in predicting HPV status in patients with OPSCC.

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is often accompanied by secondary infections, such as invasive aspergillosis. In this study, risk factors for developing COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA) and their clinical outcomes were evaluated. Methods: This multicenter retrospective cohort study included critically ill COVID-19 patients from July 2020 through March 2021. Critically ill patients were defined as patients requiring high-flow respiratory support or mechanical ventilation. CAPA was defined based on the 2020 European Confederation of Medical Mycology and the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology consensus criteria. Factors associated with CAPA were analyzed, and their clinical outcomes were adjusted by a propensity score-matched model. Results: Among 187 eligible patients, 17 (9.1%) developed CAPA, which is equal to 33.10 per 10,000 patient-days. Sixteen patients received voriconazole-based antifungal treatment. In addition, 82.4% and 53.5% of patients with CAPA and without CAPA, respectively, received early high-dose corticosteroids (P = 0.022). In multivariable analysis, initial 10-day cumulative steroid dose > 60 mg of dexamethasone or dexamethasone equivalent dose) (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 3.77; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03–13.79) and chronic pulmonary disease (adjusted OR, 4.20; 95% CI, 1.26–14.02) were independently associated with CAPA. Tendencies of higher 90-day overall mortality (54.3% vs. 35.2%, P= 0.346) and lower respiratory support-free rate were observed in patients with CAPA (76.3% vs. 54.9%, P = 0.089). Conclusion Our study showed that the dose of corticosteroid use might be a risk factor for CAPA development and the possibility of CAPA contributing to adverse outcomes in critically ill COVID-19 patients.

A 33-year-old man was evaluated because of an incidentally found cyst in the pancreatic tail, which was first seen 6 years ago. The cyst was a unilocular cystic mass, 13.0 cm in diameter, and had increased in size in last 2 months. On F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG PET/CT), the cystic wall showed increased FDG uptake. The patient underwent distal pancreatectomy with suspicion of mucinous cystic neoplasm of the pancreas. The mass turned out to be a squamous carcinoma arising from an epidermoid cyst in an intrapancreatic accessory spleen (ECIPAS). FDG PET/CT may assist recognition of a potential malignant lesion arising from an ECIPAS.

Purpose: We assessed prognostic implication of bone marrow uptake on baseline F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG PET/CT) in patients with advanced-stage diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 140 patients with stage III and IV DLBCL, who underwent baseline F-18 FDG PET/CT at diagnosis. Bone marrow uptake on F-18 FDG PET/CT (BM FDG) was compared with findings on bone marrow biopsy (BMB), and patients were grouped based on these results: BMB-positive and BM FDG-positive (group 1), BMB-positive and BM FDG-negative (group 2), BMB-negative and BM FDG-positive (group 3), and BMB-negative and BM FDG-negative (group 4). The prognostic value of clinicopathologic factors and BM FDG for predicting progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) was assessed using a Cox proportional hazards model. Differences in PFS and OS were examined by the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: BMB was the only significant indicator in predicting PFS, and age, IPI score higher than 3, and BM FDG significantly predicted OS. Group 1 showed inferior PFS than group 2 (median PFS, 7.4 vs. 13.9 months; p = 0.04). In contrast, there was no significant difference either in PFS or OS between group 2 and group 3. Conclusion We showed that BM FDG-positive predicted a poorer survival in patients with advanced stage DBLCL. We also found that BMB-negative and BM FDG-positive patients had similar PFS or OS to BMB-positive and BM FDG-negative patients. Further study in a larger population is needed to clarify clinical significance of BM FDG in these patients.

No abstract available.
Cyclosporine ; Peroneal Neuropathies

The authors recently found a mistake in their previously published article.

BACKGROUND: Although intracavitary radiotherapy (ICR) is essential for the radiation therapy of cervical cancer, few institutions in Korea perform 3-dimensional (3D)-based ICR. To identify patients who would benefit from 3D-based ICR, dosimetric parameters for tumor targets and organs at risk (OARs) were compared between 2-dimensional (2D)- and 3D-based ICR. METHODS: Twenty patients with locally advanced cervical cancer who underwent external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) following 3D-based ICR were retrospectively evaluated. New 2D-based plans based on the Manchester system were developed. Tumor size was measured by magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: The mean high risk clinical target volume (HR-CTV) D90 value was about 10% lower for 2D- than for 3D-based plans (88.4% vs. 97.7%; P = 0.068). Tumor coverage did not differ between 2D- and 3D-based plans in patients with tumors ≤ 4 cm at the time of brachytherapy, but the mean HR-CTV D90 values in patients with tumors > 4 cm were significantly higher for 3D-based plans than for 2D-based plans (96.0% vs. 78.1%; P = 0.017). Similar results were found for patients with tumors > 5 cm initially. Other dosimetric parameters for OARs were similar between 2D- and 3D-based plans, except that mean sigmoid D2cc was higher for 2D- than for 3D-based plans (67.5% vs. 58.8%; P = 0.043). CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that 3D-based ICR plans improve tumor coverage while satisfying the dose constraints for OARs. 3D-based ICR should be considered in patients with tumors > 4 cm size at the time of brachytherapy or > 5 cm initially.
Brachytherapy* ; Colon, Sigmoid ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Korea ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Organs at Risk ; Radiotherapy ; Retrospective Studies ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms*