Objective To evaluate the directional significance of SurgiCase software in free fibula mandibular reconstruction. Methods Between September 2010 and March 2012, 10 patients with mandibular defect underwent free fibula mandibular reconstruction. There were 7 males and 3 females, with an age range of 19-43 years (mean, 27 years). The extent of lesions was 7 cm × 5 cm to 16 cm × 8 cm. In each case, three-dimensional spiral CT scan of the maxilla, mandible, and fibula was obtained before surgery. The CT data were imported into the SurgiCase software and the virtual surgery planning was performed. After that, the mandibular rapid prototyping was made according to customized design. The reconstruction surgery was then carried out using these preoperative data. During actual surgery, the extent of mandibular defect was from 6 cm × 3 cm to 16 cm × 5 cm; the length of fibula which was used to reconstruct mandible was 6-17 cm; and the area of flap was from 6 cm × 5 cm to 16 cm × 6 cm. Results Preoperative data could not be applied because the intraoperative size of tumor was larger than preoperative design in 1 case of mandibular ameloblastoma, and the fibula was shaped according to the actual osteotomy location; operations were performed successfully according to preoperative design in the other 9 patients. The operation time was 5-7 hours (mean, 6 hours). Primary healing of incision was obtained, without early complications. Ten patients were followed up 1 year. At last follow-up, 8 patients were satisfactory with the appearance and 2 patients complained with unsatisfied wide facial pattern. The panoramic radiograghs showed good bone healing. The range of mouth opening was 2.5-3.5 cm. Conclusion SurgiCase software can provide precise data for free fibula mandibular reconstruction during surgery. It can be applied widely in clinic.
The metacor, which is developed based on the classical frequentist theory, is a specified package for performing meta-analysis of correlation coefficients in R software. This package was officially launched in 2011. Based on the DerSimonian-Laird method and Olkin-Pratt method, correlation coefficients can be directly pooled by using this package. The metacor package also can be used to draw the forest plot and is easy to use; however, it still needs to be improved. This paper briefly introduced how to perform a meta-analysis of correlation coefficients using the metacor package in R software through an example.
ObjectiveTo investigative current status and hotspot issues of pancreatic cancer imaging research.MethodsThe literatures focusing on pancreatic cancer and published from 2001 to 2020 were retrieved from the core database of Web of Science. The quantitative analysis of literatures was then conducted by using the CiteSpace software based on the bibliometric method. The research trend was then summarized systematically and the potential research fronts and focuses were explored.ResultsA total of 2111 articles in the field of pancreatic cancer imaging research were retrieved. The clustering of co-citation of pancreatic cancer included vascular resection, irreversible electroporation, autoimmune pancreatitis, sporadic pancreatic cancer, sarcopenia, pancreas, stereotactic body radiation therapy, metastatic pancreatic cancer, familial pancreatic cancer, abdominal ultrasonography, fibroblast, early diagnosis, time trends in survival, radiomics, pancreatitis, gemcitabine, concurrent chemoradiotherapy, adjuvant chemotherapy, and microbubbles. The burst keywords in the field of pancreatic cancer after 2016 included FOLFIRINOX, skeletal muscle, sarcopenia, and texture analysis. The hot keywords clustering had prognosis, fine needle aspiration, positron emission tomography, vascular invasion, angiogenesis, unresectable, liver transplant, extend pancreatectomy, transplantation, paclitaxel, metastatic colorectal cancer, colorectal cancer, microsatellite stable, radiomics, hospital volume, occult metastasis, risk factor.ConclusionIt might be the trend of imaging research to study the prognosis, risk factors, and quantitative sarcopenia of pancreatic cancer by using radiomics.
The goal of JAGS (Just Another Gibbs Sampler) software is to remedy the short of BUGS software that unable to running on a system besides Microsoft Windows, such as Unix or Linux. JAGS owns independent computing function and formula of Bayesian theory; it is mischaracterized with simple user interface, good system compatibility, smoother operation, and good interactivity with other programming software. However, due to the limitations of lacking function for results data reading and unscrambling and graph plotting, the popularization and application of JAGS software is restricted. Calling JAGS software from R software through R2jags package, rjags package, or runjags package can overcome these limitations. The operating principle of these three packages is calling JAGS software in the framework of the R software, they have similar functional structure and all have easy maneuverability, concise command, perfect function of data reading and unscrambling and graph drawing; however, there are some differences among them in practice. This article introduces how to performing network meta-analysis by calling JAGS software from R through these three packages.
ITC (Indirect Treatment Comparison) software and indirect procedure of Stata software are especially used for indirect comparison nowadays, both of which possess the characteristics of friendly concise interface and support for menu operation. ITC software needs the application of other software to yield effect estimation and its confidence interval of direct comparison firstly; while Stata-indirect procedure can complete direct comparison internally and also operate using commands, which simplifies complicated process of indirect comparison. However, both of them only perform "single-pathway" of data transferring and pooling, which is a common deficiency. From the results, their results are of high-degree similarity.
ObjectivesTo explore the current situation, hotspots and trends of research on chronic stable angina pectoris in recent 15 years in China, based on bibliometrics, co-occurrence analysis, cluster analysis and visualization analysis.MethodsUsing CNKI database as the source of literature, we collected the related research of chronic stable angina from 2004 to 2018. Citespace software was used to conduct co-occurrence analysis with authors, institutions and keywords as nodes, cluster analysis, time evolution analysis and Burst analysis of keywords, and corresponding visualization maps were drawn and analyzed.ResultsA total of 4 329 related literatures were retrieved, with analysis showing that the focus of research on chronic stable angina pectoris had been developing steadily in recent years, in which the outstanding contribution was represented by Yang guanlin, Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and its affiliated hospital. Research hotspots and frontiers had been mainly focused on angina pectoris, coronary heart disease, trimetazidine, clinical research and other aspects.ConclusionsCiteSpace is used to analyze researches on chronic stable angina pectoris published on Chinese journals from full-text databases in recent 15 years, while intuitively represent the general situation of researches on chronic stable angina pectoris in the past 15 years, preliminarily revealing the cooperative researchers and institutions, forming a general understanding of its research hotspots, frontiers and research trends, and providing a reference for the future development direction.
ObjectiveTo investigate current status and hot issues of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasm (pNEN) imaging research.MethodsThe literatures focusing on pNEN and published from 1998 to 2018 were retrieved from the core database of Web of Science. The quantitative analysis of literatures was then conducted by using the CiteSpace software based on the bibliometrics method. The research trend was then summarized systematically and the potential research fronts and focuses were explored.ResultsA total of 190 articles in the field of pNEN imaging research were retrieved, and the top three countries in the literatures were the United States, Germany, and Italy. The clustering of co-citation of pNEN included the endoscopic ultrasound, current diagnosis, prospective evaluation, cystic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, hypervascular neuroendocrine tumor, nonfunctioning pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, intravoxel incoherent motion, and metastastic lesion. The hot of keywords in the field of pNEN included the fine needle aspiration, CT, diagnosis, pancreas, cancer, neuroendocrine tumor, neoplasm, carcinoma, and management. The hot keywords clustering had the neuroendocrine tumor, pancreatic mass size, non-hyperfunctioning neuroendocrine tumor, CT appearance, metastatic lesion, ancillary studies, somatostatin analogues, somatostatinoma, intraoperative ultrasound, and multiple endcorine neoplasia 1.ConclusionAccurate imaging diagnosis of pNEN is still a hot issue in this field.
Objective To evaluate the predictive performance of the geometric characteristics, centerline (CL) of pulmonary nodules for prognosis in patients with surgically treatment in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). MethodsCT images of 178 patients who underwent surgical treatment and were diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the low-dose CT (LDCT) cohort from the NLST image database were selected, including 99 males and 79 females, with a median age of 64 (59, 68) years. CT images were processed using commercial software Mimics 21.0 to record the volume, surface area, CL and the area perpendicular to the centerline of pulmonary nodules. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to compare the predictive performance of LD, AD and CL on prognosis. Univariate Cox regression was used to explore the influencing factors for postoperative disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), and meaningful independent variables were included in the multivariate Cox regression to construct the prediction model. ResultsThe area under the curve (AUC) of CL for postoperative recurrence and death were 0.650 and 0.719, better than LD (0.596, 0.623) and AD (0.600, 0.631). Multivariate Cox proportional risk regression analysis showed that pulmonary nodule volume (P=0.010), the maximum area perpendicular to the centerline (MApc) (P=0.028) and lymph node metastasis (P<0.001) were independent risk factors for DFS. Meanwhile, age (P=0.010), CL (P=0.043), lymph node metastasis (P<0.001), MApc (P=0.022) and the average area perpendicular to the centerline (AApc) (P=0.016) were independently associated with OS. ConclusionFor the postoperative outcomes of NSCLC patients in the LDCT cohort of the NLST, the CL of the pulmonary nodule prediction performance for prognosis is superior to the LD and AD, CL can effectively predict the risk stratification and prognosis of lung cancer, and spheroid tumors have a better prognosis.
As an important auxiliary means of pharmacoeconomics evaluation, budget impact analysis can effectively measure the affordability of medical insurance fund, and plays a significant role in the process of medical insurance access negotiation, adjustment of medical insurance reimbursement directory and establishment of payment price. The quality of budget impact analysis data has a great impact on the analysis results and the scientific decision-making. When the existing data cannot meet the requirements of the paper, relevant software is needed to carry out Delphi method to ensure the data accuracy. Infopoll is a powerful, easy-to-use application that designs consultation questionnaires by providing multiple question choices and multiple forms of answer settings, as well as detailed statistical charts for results analysis. This paper introduces how to obtain the data of budget impact analysis based on Delphi method using Infopoll software, and analyzes the main results in detail.
ObjectiveTo investigate the value of smart phone Scoliometer software in obtaining optimal lumbar lordosis (LL) during L4-S1 fusion surgery. MethodsBetween November 2014 and February 2015, 20 patients scheduled for L4-S1 fusion surgery were prospectively enrolled the study. There were 8 males and 12 females, aged 41-65 years (mean, 52.3 years). The disease duration ranged from 6 months to 6 years (mean, 3.4 years). Before operation, the pelvic incidence (PI) and Cobb angle of L4-S1 (CobbL4-S1) were measured on lateral X-ray film of lumbosacral spine by PACS system; and the ideal CobbL4-S1 was then calculated according to previously published methods [(PI+9°)×70%]. Subsequently, intraoperative CobbL4-S1 was monitored by the Scoliometer software and was defined as optimal while it was less than 5° difference compared with ideal CobbL4-S1. Finally, the CobbL4-S1 was measured by the PACS system after operation and the consistency was compared between Scoliometer software and PACS system to evaluate the accuracy of this software. In addition, value of this method in obtaining optimal LL was validated by comparing the difference between ideal CobbL4-S1 and preoperative one with that between ideal CobbL4-S1 and postoperative one. ResultsThe CobbL4-S1 was (36.17±1.53)° for ideal one, (22.57±5.50)° for preoperative one, (32.25±1.46)° for intraoperative one measured by Scoliometer software, and (34.43±1.72)° for postoperative one, respectively. The observed intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was excellent [ICC=0.96, 95% confidence interval (0.93, 0.97)] and the mean absolute difference (MAD) was low (MAD=1.23) between Scoliometer software and PACS system. The deviation between ideal CobbL4-S1 and postoperative CobbL4-S1 was (2.31±0.23)°, which was significantly lower than the deviation between ideal CobbL4-S1 and preoperative CobbL4-S1 (13.60±1.85)° (t=6.065, P=0.001). ConclusionScoliometer software can help surgeon obtain the optimal LL and deserve further dissemination.