ABSTRACT
Background The ophthalmology match is an important step for graduating medical students that defines their future career. Residency programs demonstrate significant variability due to differences in size, location, research output, subspecialty exposure, surgical case load, and alumni fellowship/practice placement. Despite the importance of informed decision-making, applicants often find limited, inconsistent information about potential programs. Purpose The purpose of this study was to characterize and identify gaps in the information available to residents in the 2022 to 2023 Match. Methods The SFMatch Web site was reviewed to identify programs included as well as characteristics cited on each program's webpage. Program webpages were used to evaluate availability and consistency of data on site surgical caseload, fellowship slots, and teaching staff. Results Of the 121 programs included on SFMatch, 23 (19%) provided no data on August 15, 2022 (15 days prior to application submission deadline) and 9 (7%) lacked program data on October 15, 2022. Though most programs provided mean cataract volume, data on volume of other procedures for graduating residents was highly variable and occasionally misleading. Programs did not provide information on several academic and social considerations that may influence match ranking choice. Conclusion Applicants often must read "between the lines" to identify residency program strengths and weaknesses. Data crucial to informing the application process remain sparse, unavailable, or spread across resources. Limited data increases applicant dependence on word-of-mouth knowledge to inform decision-making. This might reduce diversity by limiting successful applicants to those with existing connections within the field.
ABSTRACT
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1777413.].
ABSTRACT
Liquid biopsies are an integral part of the diagnosis of cancer. Here, we have extended previous validation studies of a new targeted NGS panel to include the detection of copy number amplifications (CNAs), fusions, and exon skipping variants. Detection of these gene classes included specimens from clinical and healthy donors and cell lines (fusions: ROS1, EML4-ALK, NTRK1; exon skipping: MET exon 14; CNAs: HER2, CDK6, EGFR, MYC, and MET). The limit of detection (LOD) for fusion/skipping was 42 copies (QC threshold was three copies) and was verified using three additional fusion/skipping variants. LOD for CNAs was 1.40-fold-change (QC threshold = 1.15-fold change) and was verified with three additional CNAs. In repeatability and intermediate precision (within lab) studies, all fusion/skipping variants were detected in all runs and all days of testing (n = 18/18; 100%); average CV for repeatability was 20.5% (range 8.7-34.8%), and for intermediate precision it was 20.8% (range 15.7-30.5%). For CNAs, 28/29 (96.6%) copy gains were detected. For CNAs, the average CV was 1.85% (range 0% to 5.49%) for repeatability and 6.59% (range 1.65% to 9.22%) for intermediate precision. The test panel meets the criteria for being highly sensitive and specific and extends its utility for the serial detection of clinically relevant variants in cancer.
