Canary: An NLP Platform for Clinicians and Researchers.

Information Extraction methods can help discover critical knowledge buried in the vast repositories of unstructured clinical data. However, these methods are underutilized in clinical research, potentially due to the absence of free software geared towards clinicians with little technical expertise. The skills required for developing/using such software constitute a major barrier for medical researchers wishing to employ these methods. To address this, we have developed Canary, a free and open-source solution designed for users without natural language processing (NLP) or software engineering experience. It was designed to be fast and work out of the box via a user-friendly graphical interface.

The effects of short-term and long-term testosterone supplementation on blood viscosity and erythrocyte deformability in healthy adult mice.

Testosterone treatment induces erythrocytosis that could potentially affect blood viscosity and cardiovascular risk. We thus investigated the effects of testosterone administration on blood viscosity and erythrocyte deformability using mouse models. Blood viscosity, erythrocyte deformability, and hematocrits were measured in normal male and female mice, as well as in females and castrated males after short-term (2 wk) and long-term (5-7 mo) testosterone intervention (50 mg/kg, weekly). Castrated males for long-term intervention were studied in parallel with the normal males to assess the effect of long-term testosterone deprivation. An additional short-term intervention study was conducted in females with a lower testosterone dose (5 mg/kg). Our results indicate no rheological difference among normal males, females, and castrated males at steady-state. Short-term high-dose testosterone increased hematocrit and whole-blood viscosity in both females and castrated males. This effect diminished after long-term treatment, in association with increased erythrocyte deformability in the testosterone-treated mice, suggesting the presence of adaptive mechanism. Considering that cardiovascular events in human trials are seen early after intervention, rheological changes as potential mediator of vascular events warrant further investigation.

Case report. Gelastic seizures in a patient with right gyrus cinguli astrocytoma.

OBJECTIVE AND IMPORTANCE: Gelastic seizure (GS) also known as "gelastic epilepsy" is a rare type of seizure associated with several different conditions such as tumors--hypothalamic hamartromas, tuberous sclerosis, hemangiomas, post infectious foci, cortical temporal dysplasia. We report one case of this rare condition generated by a right gyrus cinguli gr. II astrocytoma. CLINICAL PRESENTATION: A 27 year-old male, right handed, was admitted for a 2 years history of very frequent gelastic seizures accompanied sometimes by simple motor partial seizures in both arms, more often being involved his left arm, without impairment of his consciousness state. His neurological examination was normal. Diagnosis was made on native CT scan: minimal hypodense frontal right paramedian lesion, cerebral MRI showed a small well delimited right, parenchymal, homogeneous lesion (16/22/15 mm), involving gyrus cinguli, without perilesional edema and mass effect, hyperintense both on T1 and T2 MR sequences, non-enhancing after Gadolinium. The cerebral lesion was also documented on EEG and video-EEG recordings. Using an interhemispheric microsurgical approach, above the corpus callosum and the right pericallosal artery, at the level of gyrus cinguli, a yellow-gray, infiltrative tumor, having a moderate vascularisation, has been identified and totally removed. The anatomopathological analysis revealed a grade II astrocytoma. The patient recovered very well, without deficits, no gelastic seizures or epileptic manifestations; three months after operation he is still free of seizures. CONCLUSION: A case of gelastic seizures accompanied by simple motor partial seizures in both arms, without the impairment of his consciousness state induced by a grade II right gyrus cinguli astrocytoma is described and documented by radiological and electrophysiological studies. Using microsurgical resection, the tumor was totally removed, the patient clinical condition improved. Without an affective connotation as in temporal or hypothalamus topography, gelastic seizures are not patognomonic for hypothalamic hamartomas and in the case of frontal localization of the lesion; they can be associated with motor involvement of the limbs as in our case.