ABSTRACT
Creating a comprehensive didactic curriculum for breast imaging fellows can be a demanding undertaking, especially considering that most breast practices are understaffed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid rising clinical volumes. This leaves little time for didactic education. In this article, we present our approach to creating a collaborative weekly multidisciplinary didactic lecture series involving multiple institutions, using the Society of Breast Imaging's suggested fellowship curriculum as the foundation. We discuss the advantages for both trainees and faculty, including fostering camaraderie, networking, and engagement among breast imaging fellows. Faculty have the opportunity for professional development by leveraging their clinical expertise through selecting didactic topics in their niche. This creates a pathway for speaking faculty to be recognized as regional and national experts.
ABSTRACT
The latest pandemic caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is known to manifest in various forms, ranging from a mild illness to a life-threatening condition. Though lung cavitation has not been commonly reported as a post Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection complication, there has been a rise in the number of patients presenting with lung cavitation post the viral infection. In this case series, authors have reported four cases of lung cavitation developed post COVID-19 infection. Three out of four patients were newly diagnosed cases of diabetes, all received steroids as a part of treatment for COVID-19 infection. Three patients showed a temporary improvement in their condition after COVID-19 treatment, in the form of decreasing trends of inflammatory markers and decreased total count, but subsequently developed signs of super added infection during the course of their illness. Two patients had associated sino-orbital mucormycosis. Two patients required the support of non invasive ventilation and did not show clinical improvement, while one amongst the two succumbed to the infection. The cause for the development of lung cavities post COVID-19 infection is difficult to speculate it appears to be multifactorial with factors including isolated bacterial, fungal infections or bacterial and fungal co-infection, SARS-CoV-2 specific inflammatory pathways, and the immunosuppressive effects of glucocorticoids.
ABSTRACT
With the resurgence of non-contact vital sign sensing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, remote heart-rate monitoring has gained significant prominence. Many existing methods use cameras;however previous work shows a performance loss for darker skin tones. In this paper, we show through light transport analysis that the camera modality is fundamentally biased against darker skin tones. We propose to reduce this bias through multi-modal fusion with a complementary and fairer modality - radar. Through a novel debiasing oriented fusion framework, we achieve performance gains over all tested baselines and achieve skin tone fairness improvements over the RGB modality. That is, the associated Pareto frontier between performance and fairness is improved when compared to the RGB modality. In addition, performance improvements are obtained over the radar-based method, with small trade-offs in fairness. We also open-source the largest multi-modal remote heart-rate estimation dataset of paired camera and radar measurements with a focus on skin tone representation. © 2022 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
Introduction While the COVID-19 pandemic may still be ongoing, we have simultaneously entered into the post-acute phase of COVID-19, which comes with its own challenges. This case series reports 11 patients of COVID-19 treated with corticosteroids who subsequently developed osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). Methods All consecutive patients diagnosed on MRI with ONFH from August 2020 to May 2021 and were retrospectively COVID-19 positive were included. The treatment administered for COVID-19 was retrieved and evaluated. The patients were managed for femoral head necrosis, and results were reported. Results Overall, 11 patients developed ONFH in a total of 16 hips. The severity of femoral head necrosis depended on the dose of corticosteroid administered during COVID-19. A high dose for a longer duration resulted in a higher ONFH stage (FICAT & Arlet ). Hips in the lower grade were treated conservatively, and in the higher grade were treated surgically. The follow-up scores of patients demonstrated steady improvement. Conclusions High suspicion of femoral head necrosis has to be considered in patients treated with corticosteroids for COVID-19 as it can aid in early detection and early intervention to preserve the native femoral head © Kandari A.K.s, Bhamare D.S., Salunkhe R., Sukrethan S.V., Shevate I., Deshmukh A., Pisal T., Kulkarni K., Janapamala K., 2022
ABSTRACT
Background: Post COVID-19 complications have been a matter of concern because of various presentations with unknown mechanisms underlying the condition. While the common complications ranged from fatigue, dyspnoea to thromboembolic events and pulmonary fibrosis, lung cavitation was an uncommon finding on CT thorax. Case Study: Four patients, with diabetes mellitus and documented COVID-19 infection developed cavitatory lesions in lung during the course of their recovery from the viral illness. With the rise in number of sino-orbital mucormycosis cases during the second wave, a possibility of pulmonary mucormycosis could not be ruled out. One patient had a bacterial infection known to cause cavitation, while fungal infection was documented in one case, and the rest yielded no results, probably owing to the antibiotic cover provided. All were referred to a thoracic surgeon for further management of lung cavitations. Discussion: Cavitatory lung lesions are usually related to fungal, mycobacterial, autoimmune or neoplastic etiologies, uncommonly caused by viral pneumonias, but have been observed in COVID-19 patients. The velocity of development of cavitatory lesions can be atypical to mycobacterial infections, and hence regarded as a complication of COVID-19 pneumonia. Conclusion: The development of lung cavitations in COVID- 19 infected individuals, warrants vigilant monitoring through regular follow ups, especially the immuno-compromised, for early recognition and definitive treatment of the disease. Further studies are needed to determine the causative factors. It also warrants the clinicians to be aware of the evolving CT findings in COVID-19 and appropriate follow-up of convalescent patients to ensure complete recovery.
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Background and objectives: In COVID19 vaccination drive, Healthcare workers (HCWs) were first to receive the vaccine. But their concern about the safety of the vaccine prompted us to conducted this survey. Methods: A questionnaire-based online survey was conducted to know post-vaccination symptoms in vaccinated and reasons of refusal in non-vaccinated HCWs. Results: Among 2036 eligible respondents 1589 were vaccinated. In vaccinated group 665 experienced at least one post-vaccination symptom while remaining had no symptoms. Most commonly experienced post-vaccination symptom was pain at injection site (31.8%) and myalgia (31.7%) and were mild to moderate. Age showed inverse relationship with the post vaccination reactogenicity (p<0.001) whereas gender and brand of vaccine showed no significant association. Respondents with comorbidities experienced significantly less symptoms (p<0.001) whereas those with prior COVID19 infection showed significantly higher incidence of post-vaccination symptoms (p<0.046). Among non-vaccinated 447(22.0%) respondents, lack of availability was the major reason cited (29.7%). Interpretation and conclusion: Apart from few mild to moderate, transient, self-limiting symptoms, no HCW reported any major post-vaccination symptom, including elderly with comorbidities, assuring safety of vaccine. We can encourage and appeal general public to participate in vaccination drive without any apprehension, and strengthen the fight against COVID19 pandemic.
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This research paper focuses on the modeling of total cases due to COVID-19 and the critical assessment of socioeconomic impact on India. The data set considered for the present analysis is from December 31, 2019 to May 16, 2020 for training and testing of developed regression model. Least-square approximation of linear regression technique is applied to estimate the total cases of COVID-19. Three variables, viz. daily new cases, total deaths and daily new deaths, were considered for development of correlations. In the present study, seven correlations are developed as a function of single variable, two variables and three variables with accuracy (R2) ranging from 85.71 to 99.95%. The paper also highlights the socioeconomic impact of COVID 19 on different sector, challenges and remedies for improving the GDP of the country. © 2021, The Institution of Engineers (India).