ABSTRACT
Purpose: Routine overprescribing of postoperative opioid analgesics may induce side effects and correlate with chronic opioid use following surgery. This review aims to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for opioid-sparing effects in patients who underwent abdominal surgery. Methods: Eleven databases in different languages, including English (Ovid MEDLINE, CENTRAL, EMBASE, CINAHL), Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, will be searched. Randomized controlled trials using acupuncture for postoperative pain control in adult patients undergoing abdominal surgery will be screened. All randomized controlled trials comparing acupuncture with no treatment, sham acupuncture, and conventional treatments will be included. The Cochrane risk of bias tool will be used to assess the risk of bias. The primary outcome will consist of a cumulative opioid consumption. Additionally, the number of cumulative opioid analgesic demands/requests, the time to initial opioid analgesic usage, postoperative pain, opioid-related side effects, and adverse events of acupuncture will be assessed. The mean differences or risk ratios with a 95% confidence interval will be calculated to estimate the pooled effect of acupuncture when it is possible to conduct a meta-analysis. Results: This study could confirm the effect of opioid-sparing on acupuncture after abdominal surgery. Conclusion: This study would evaluate the evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture after abdominal surgery with a focus on opioid intake. It provides evidence to support decision-making on applying acupuncture for postoperative management. Registration Number: CRD42022311155.
ABSTRACT
Indium gallium nitride (InGaN)-based micro-LEDs (µLEDs) are suitable for meeting ever-increasing demands for high-performance displays owing to their high efficiency, brightness and stability1-5. However, µLEDs have a large problem in that the external quantum efficiency (EQE) decreases with the size reduction6-9. Here we demonstrate a blue InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) nanorod-LED (nLED) with high EQE. To overcome the size-dependent EQE reduction problem8,9, we studied the interaction between the GaN surface and the sidewall passivation layer through various analyses. Minimizing the point defects created during the passivation process is crucial to manufacturing high-performance nLEDs. Notably, the sol-gel method is advantageous for the passivation because SiO2 nanoparticles are adsorbed on the GaN surface, thereby minimizing its atomic interactions. The fabricated nLEDs showed an EQE of 20.2 ± 0.6%, the highest EQE value ever reported for the LED in the nanoscale. This work opens the way for manufacturing self-emissive nLED displays that can become an enabling technology for next-generation displays.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Postoperative delirium (POD) is a form of delirium that is newly diagnosed after a surgical procedure. This study aims to examine the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture treatment for POD in patients who underwent surgery. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials for patients diagnosed with POD using validated delirium assessment scales will be included in this review. Electronic databases, such as MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, CINAHL (English DB), CNKI, Wanfang, VIP (Chinese database), KoreaMed, RISS, KISS, DBpia, OASIS (Korean DB), and J-STAGE (Japanese DB) will be searched without language limitation from their inception to October 2020. The intervention group will include patients who have received any type of acupuncture treatment for POD. The control group will include individuals with no treatment, sham acupuncture treatment, and conventional treatment. The primary outcome is the incidence of POD in each study. Quality assessment will be performed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. A meta-analysis will be performed to pool the estimated effect. CONCLUSION: This study will provide evidence for acupuncture as a potential treatment for POD, in researchers, patients, and policy makers. DISSEMINATION: The result of the study will be disseminated through posters, press releases, conference presentations, and peer-reviewed papers. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: OSF 2020: (https://osf.io/usvdg).
