Contact sport athletes are exposed to a unique environment where they sustain repeated head impacts throughout the season and can sustain hundreds of head impacts over a few months. Accordingly, ...recent studies outlined the role that head impact exposure (HIE) has in concussion biomechanics and in the development of cognitive and brain-based changes. Those studies focused on time-bound effects by quantifying exposure leading up to the concussion, or cognitive changes after a season in which athletes had high HIE. However, HIE may have a more prolonged effect. This study identified associations between HIE and concussion incidence during different periods of the college football fall season.
This study included 1120 athlete seasons from six National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I football programs across 5 yr. Athletes were instrumented with the Head Impact Telemetry System to record daily HIE. The analysis quantified associations of preseason/regular season/total season concussion incidence with HIE during those periods.
Strong associations were identified between HIE and concussion incidence during different periods of the season. Preseason HIE was associated with preseason and total season concussion incidence, and total season HIE was associated with total season concussion incidence.
These findings demonstrate a prolonged effect of HIE on concussion risk, wherein elevated preseason HIE was associated with higher concussion risk both during the preseason and throughout the entire fall season. This investigation is the first to provide evidence supporting the hypothesis of a relationship between elevated HIE during the college football preseason and a sustained decreased tolerance for concussion throughout that season.
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Background: Combining local ablative and systemic therapies in patients with oligometastatic NSCLC leads to improved overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). ...The potential immunostimulatory effects of ablating all visible disease with SBRT in combination with dual immune checkpoint inhibition has prompted interest, but the toxicity and benefit are unknown. Methods: We conducted a phase Ib study to investigate the safety of SBRT, with doses between 30 and 50 Gy in five fractions to all sites of disease, followed by durvalumab 1500 mg IV in combination with tremelimumab 75 mg IV every 4 weeks x 4 cycles, followed by durvalumab maintenance until progression. Eligible patients had 1-6 extracranial metastatic sites, allowing multiple metastases per location, with all lesions suitable for SBRT, ECOG performance status 0-1, no actionable driver mutation, and no prior immunotherapy. The primary endpoint was safety of this combination. Secondary endpoints include PFS and OS. Dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs) (any Grade ≥ 3 toxicity) were evaluated from the first administration of SBRT until 28 days post start of durvalumab and tremelimumab. Baseline tumor mutational burden, PD-L1 expression on post-SBRT biopsy and circulating tumor cells will be correlated with outcomes. In this first cohort analysis, we assess the safety and outcomes of the first 17 patients. Results: From 2/2018-2/2021, the first 17 pts were enrolled. Characteristics of those enrolled included: median age 68 years, female/male 4/13, squamous/non-squamous 2/15, median number of non-central nervous system (CNS) metastatic sites 2 (1-5), median number of non-CNS metastatic lesions 2 (1-9), CNS involvement 6/17 (35.3%), previous treatment 4/17 (23.5%). DLTs were seen in 2/17 (11.8%) patients; DLTs were autoimmune hepatitis and autoimmune pancreatitis. Most treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) were grade (G) 1/2. TRAEs included: all TRAEs n = 188, 88.2% (of patients); G 3 n = 17, 29.4%; G 4 n = 1, 5.8%. There were no treatment-related deaths. Five patients discontinued treatment due to grade 3/4 immune related adverse events (IRAE). At a median follow up of 20 months 11/17 (64.7%) patients are alive with 10/17 (58.8%) with no evidence of disease (NED). Six of 17 (35.2%) patients experienced disease progression and 4/17 (23.5%) patients died of disease progression. Median PFS and OS are not yet reached. Conclusions: There were no unexpected safety signals in the cohort of patients enrolled. The incidence of grade ≥ 3 IRAEs is similar to the treatment of advanced NSCLC and no additional toxicity was observed with the addition of SBRT. Clinical outcomes look promising with median OS and PFS not yet reached at 20 months median follow up. The study continues to enroll a second cohort and results will be updated. Clinical trial information: NCT03275597.
Objective: Neuropsychological evaluations include hold tests like word-reading ability as estimates of premorbid intellect thought to be resilient to the effects of neurologic insult. We tested the ...alternative hypothesis that exposure to concussion or repetitive subclinical head impacts throughout early life may stunt acquisition of word-reading skills.
Method: Data were obtained from student-athletes within the CARE Consortium that completed the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (WTAR). Measures of head trauma burden included self-reported concussion history and cumulative years of exposure to collision sports. We evaluated the effects of head trauma, sociodemographic (race, SES), and academic (SAT/ACT scores, learning disorder) variables on WTAR standard score using linear regression. Analyses were repeated in a football-only subsample estimating age of first exposure to football as a predictor.
Results: We analyzed data from 6,598 participants (72.2% white, 39.6% female, mean ± SD age = 18.8 ± 1.2 years). Head trauma variables collectively explained 0.1% of the variance in WTAR standard scores, with years of collision sport exposure weakly predicting lower WTAR standard scores (β = .026-.035, very small effect). In contrast, sociodemographic and academic variables collectively explained 20.9-22.5% of WTAR standard score variance, with strongest effects noted for SAT/ACT scores (β = .313-.337, medium effect), LD diagnosis (β = -.115 to -.131, small effect), and SES (β = .101-.108, small effect). Age of first exposure to football did not affect WTAR scores in a football-only sample.
Conclusion: Wechsler Test of Adult Reading performance appears unrelated to history of self-reported concussion(s) and/or repetitive subclinical head trauma exposure in current collegiate athletes. Sociodemographic and academic variables should be incorporated in test score interpretations for diverse populations like athletes.
Object
Glomus tumors are rare skull base neoplasms that frequently involve critical cerebrovascular structures and lower cranial nerves. Complete resection is often difficult and may increase cranial ...nerve deficits. Stereotactic radiosurgery has gained an increasing role in the management of glomus tumors. The authors of this study examine the outcomes after radiosurgery in a large, multicenter patient population.
Methods
Under the auspices of the North American Gamma Knife Consortium, 8 Gamma Knife surgery centers that treat glomus tumors combined their outcome data retrospectively. One hundred thirty-four patient procedures were included in the study (134 procedures in 132 patients, with each procedure being analyzed separately). Prior resection was performed in 51 patients, and prior fractionated external beam radiotherapy was performed in 6 patients. The patients' median age at the time of radiosurgery was 59 years. Forty percent had pulsatile tinnitus at the time of radiosurgery. The median dose to the tumor margin was 15 Gy. The median duration of follow-up was 50.5 months (range 5–220 months).
Results
Overall tumor control was achieved in 93% of patients at last follow-up; actuarial tumor control was 88% at 5 years postradiosurgery. Absence of trigeminal nerve dysfunction at the time of radiosurgery (p = 0.001) and higher number of isocenters (p = 0.005) were statistically associated with tumor progression–free tumor survival. Patients demonstrating new or progressive cranial nerve deficits were also likely to demonstrate tumor progression (p = 0.002). Pulsatile tinnitus improved in 49% of patients who reported it at presentation. New or progressive cranial nerve deficits were noted in 15% of patients; improvement in preexisting cranial nerve deficits was observed in 11% of patients. No patient died as a result of tumor progression.
Conclusions
Gamma Knife surgery was a well-tolerated management strategy that provided a high rate of long-term glomus tumor control. Symptomatic tinnitus improved in almost one-half of the patients. Overall neurological status and cranial nerve function were preserved or improved in the vast majority of patients after radiosurgery.
Every neurosurgeon can appreciate Dandy's recognition that the drainage of brain abscesses causes trauma to the delicate parenchyma. Over the years, brain surgery has evolved toward management of ...problems by using less and less invasive techniques and thus gaining ever lower morbidity. Clearly, the advent of better imaging techniques has improved the outcome in patients afflicted with intracerebral infections. The combination of stereotaxy with these imaging techniques is contributing a "zero mortality" in the treatment of these infections. In our series of 29 consecutive patients with non-AIDS-related infections, no patient died as a direct result of a stereotactic surgical procedure. Two patients (7%) had new neurologic deficits after surgery. The only patient left with a permanent disability had a kidney allograft and subacute bacterial endocarditis. His condition deteriorated 6 hours after aspiration of a sterile abscess, when an intra-abscess hematoma was diagnosed and evacuated. In retrospect, this complication may have been avoided by less vigorous aspiration. Three of the four patients with nonviral infections who died were iatrogenically immunosuppressed for their organ transplants. These patients are difficult to treat, and given the current popularity of transplantation procedures, neurosurgeons will face more and more opportunistic infections. In general, the patients with abscesses did well. On the other hand, nonoperative mortality was extremely high for patients with viral encephalitides. This high mortality may have resulted from a delay in diagnosis and treatment or from the unavailability of highly effective antiviral agents at the time the biopsies were performed. The importance of early diagnosis and treatment of infection cannot be overemphasized. T.H. Flewett's warning about the management of HSE applies to the management of all cerebral infections: "It seems clear from everybody's published results in the papers already given if we wait to do biopsy until the clinical indications are unmistakable, we have waited so long that the patient, if he survives, will be left a severe neurological cripple." Because it is relatively noninvasive, stereotactic neurosurgery has been used increasingly to diagnose brain masses in patients with AIDS. We recommend its use for establishing diagnoses in all suspected cases of cerebral infection. We agree with Rosenblum et al: Empiric treatment of brain infections should be regarded as "radical." Such treatment should be reserved for patients who have an identifiable source of infection and causative organism or for patients who are clinically too unstable to undergo surgery.
Stereotactic radiosurgery is becoming a more accepted treatment option for benign, deep seated intracranial lesions. However, little is known about the effects of large single fractions of radiation ...on cranial nerves. This study was undertaken to assess the effect of radiosurgery on the cranial nerves of the cavernous sinus.
We examined the tolerance of cranial nerves (II-VI) following radiosurgery for 62 patients (42/62 with meningiomas) treated for lesions within or near the cavernous sinus. Twenty-nine patients were treated with a modified 6 MV linear accelerator (Joint Center for Radiation Therapy) and 33 were treated with the Gamma Knife (University of Pittsburgh). Three-dimensional treatment plans were retrospectively reviewed and maximum doses were calculated for the cavernous sinus and the optic nerve and chiasm.
Median follow-up was 19 months (range 3-49). New cranial neuropathies developed in 12 patients from 3-41 months following radiosurgery. Four of these complications involved injury to the optic system and 8 (3/8 transient) were the result of injury to the sensory or motor nerves of the cavernous sinus. There was no clear relationship between the maximum dose to the cavernous sinus and the development of complications for cranial nerves III-VI over the dose range used (1000-4000 cGy). For the optic apparatus, there was a significantly increased incidence of complications with dose. Four of 17 patients (24%) receiving greater than 800 cGy to any part of the optic apparatus developed visual complications compared with 0/35 who received less than 800 cGy (p = 0.009).
Radiosurgery using tumor-controlling doses of up to 4000 cGy appears to be a relatively safe technique in treating lesions within or near the sensory and motor nerves (III-VI) of the cavernous sinus. The dose to the optic apparatus should be limited to under 800 cGy.
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