Background
In multidisciplinary education, different perspectives from more than one discipline are used to illustrate a certain topic. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an ...online, multidisciplinary radiology curriculum to teach radiology to medical students in Egypt. A multidisciplinary team of radiologists, surgeons, and internists taught a series of 5 case-based radiology sessions on a web conference platform. Topics included common clinical case scenarios for various body systems. Undergraduate medical students across Egypt were enrolled in the course. A pre-test–post-test design was used to evaluate the efficacy of each session. Upon course completion, students filled out a subjective survey to assess the radiology education series.
Results
On average, 1000 students attended each session. For each session, an average of 734 students completed both the pre-test and post-test. There was a statistically significant increase in post-test scores compared to pre-test scores across all 5 sessions (
p
< 0.001) with an overall average score improvement of 63%. A subjective survey at the end of the course was completed by 1027 students. Over 96% of students found the lecture series to be a worthwhile experience that increased their imaging knowledge and interest in radiology, and that the use of a multidisciplinary approach added educational value. About 66% of students also reported that the session topics were “excellent and clinically important.” There was a marked increase in reported confidence levels in radiology competencies before and after attendance of the sessions.
Conclusions
An online radiology curriculum with a multidisciplinary approach can be implemented successfully to reach a large group of medical students and meet their educational objectives.
Background
Radiology serves in the diagnosis and management of many diseases. Despite its rising importance and use, radiology is not a core component of a lot of medical school curricula. This ...survey aims to clarify current gaps in the radiological education in Egyptian medical schools. In February–May 2021, 5318 students enrolled in Egyptian medical schools were recruited and given a 20-multiple-choice-question survey assessing their radiology knowledge, radiograph interpretation, and encountered imaging experiences. We measured the objective parameters as a percentage. We conducted descriptive analysis and used Likert scales where values were represented as numerical values. Percentages were graphed afterwards.
Results
A total of 5318 medical students in Egypt answered our survey. Gender distribution was 45% males and 54% females. The results represented all 7 class years of medical school (six academic years and a final training year). In assessing students’ knowledge of radiology, most students (75%) reported that they received ‘too little’ education, while 20% stated the amount was ‘just right’ and only 4% reported it was ‘too much.’ Sixty-two percent of students stated they were taught radiology through medical imaging lectures. Participants’ future career plans were almost equally distributed. Near half of participants (43%) have not heard about the American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria (ACR-AR), while 39% have heard about it but are not familiar with.
Conclusions
Radiology is a novel underestimated field. Therefore, medical students need more imaging exposure. To accomplish this, attention and efforts should be directed toward undergraduate radiology education to dissolve the gap between radiology and other specialties during clinical practice. A survey answered by medical students can bridge between presence of any current defect in undergraduate radiology teaching and future solutions for this topic.
Background
There is a worldwide deficit in teaching and training in the field of radiology for undergraduate medical students. This educational gap is prominent in many medical schools as most ...radiology curricula are a part of other specialty trainings, usually provided by non-radiologists. After COVID-19 pandemic, there was an increased trend in online education. However, questions have been raised about the efficacy and acceptance of online education. We developed a course on the principles of radiology and medical imaging basics to target Egyptian medical students. We then assessed the impact of these educational videos through several online surveys. Our "The Principles of Radiology Online Course" was delivered to students at various Egyptian medical schools; it was a prerecorded series composed of nine sessions, and each session followed the sequence of a pre-test, video, and post-test. There was a final survey to assess the overall feedback. Finally, we analyzed the results to give insight onto how teaching radiology through online lectures can help build better physicians.
Results
Among various medical schools around Egypt, 1396 Egyptian medical students joined this cohort. Cohort population percentage was 56% female and 44% male. Ninety-eight percent of the students agreed that this program increased their understanding of radiology. Eighty-four percent of the students found the platform friendly and easy to use. Seventy-nine percent found these webinars were more convenient compared to in-person education. Statistical significance (
p-
value < 0.05) was achieved in all sessions after comparing students’ pre and post-test scores, and in students’ confidence and knowledge level before and after the course.
Conclusions
Radiology is an underrepresented subject for a lot of medical students. Online radiology webinars have proven to be a promising method of teaching medical students key medical imaging concepts. An online course of radiology basics and principles can help improve a medical student’s knowledge and enhance overall future patient care.
In recent years, channel state information (CSI) in WiFi 802.11n has been increasingly used to collect data pertaining to human activity. Such raw data are then used to enhance human activity ...recognition. Activities such as lying down, falling, walking, running, sitting down, and standing up can now be detected with the use of information collected through CSI. Human activity recognition has a multitude of applications, such as home monitoring of patients. Four deep learning models are presented in this paper, namely: a convolution neural network (CNN) with a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU); a CNN with a GRU and attention; a CNN with a GRU and a second CNN, and a CNN with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and a second CNN. Those models were trained to perform Human Activity Recognition (HAR) using CSI amplitude data collected by a CSI tool. Experiments conducted to test the efficacy of these models showed superior results compared with other recent approaches. This enhanced performance of our models may be attributable the ability of our models to make full use of available data and to extract all data features, including high dimensionality and time sequence. The highest average recognition accuracy reached by the proposed models was achieved by the CNN-GRU, and the CNN-GRU with attention models, standing at 99.31% and 99.16%, respectively. In addition, the performance of the models was evaluated for unseen CSI data by training our models using a random split-of-dataset method (70% training and 30% testing). Our models achieved impressive results with accuracies reaching 100% for nearly all activities. For the lying down activity, accuracy obtained from the CNN-GRU model stood at 99.46%; slightly higher than the 99.05% achieved by the CNN-GRU with attention model. This confirmed the robustness of our models against environmental changes.
The accumulation of agricultural waste is representing one of the major and permanent environmental problems because of the large amount of waste poses from one hand and continuation poses of these ...wastes to environment year-around on the other hand. The current study aims to use the high biomass of guava (leaves and seeds) and pomegranate (peels and seeds) wastes as source of antioxidant compounds. The method focused on extraction of antioxidant compounds from these wastes using different successive extracts: pet.ether, ethyl acetate, acetone, ethanol, and methanol against four different antioxidant determination methods: two radical methods (2, 2 diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2, 2′-azino-bis ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS
.+
)) and two non-radical methods (KMnO
4
and methylene blue) as new methods for evaluation of antioxidant activity. The results show that the highest antioxidant activities were recorded with DPPH and ABTS radical assay more than KMnO
4
and methylene blue. The crude petroleum ether extract of guava seeds showed the highest antioxidant activity with 75.6, 78.4, 19.1, and 15.6% against ABTS, DPPH, KMnO
4
, and methylene blue respectively, at 100 μg/ml when compared with other extracts and natural antioxidant standard (ascorbic acid). Also, there is great correlation between antioxidant activity against ABTS and DPPH and phenolic compound concentration; also, the thermal stability of antioxidant compounds of promising extract (ethyl acetate of pomegranate seeds) is crucial and may be correlated with both the extraction method and extract content; FTIR was used for interpretation of active groups in both extracts (before and after thermal treatment).
Fractional CO2 laser has been shown effective in improving pigmentation, pruritus, and tightness of hypertrophic burn scars. However, there is no consensus on the optimal treatment parameters.
To ...compare effectiveness of different densities of fractional CO2 laser in the treatment of mature hypertrophic burn scars.
The study included 25 patients, each with 3 or more mature hypertrophic burn scars. Scars were randomly assigned to treatment with low-, medium-, and high-density fractional CO2 laser. Each scar received 3 sessions of laser at 1-month interval. The degree of improvement was assessed clinically using Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS) and Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale (POSAS) scores, and histologically through evaluation of collagen (Masson's Trichrome stain) before and 1 month after end of therapy.
High-density parameters showed significant higher improvement in VSS and POSAS assessment scores (p-value < .001). Pliability and relief are the most improved parameters. Histopathological evaluation revealed a significant drop in the mean area percent of collagen in the 3 used parameters, with highest improvement with high-density laser treatment (p-value < .001).
High-density fractional CO2 laser treatment provides more improvement in burn scars both clinically and histopathologically.
The emergence of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has become a major public health challenge of global concern since December 2019, when the virus was recognized in Wuhan, the ...capital city of Hubei province in China and epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic. Given the novelty of COVID-19 and the lack of specific anti-virus therapies, the current management is essentially supportive. There is an absence of consensus on guidelines or treatment strategies for complex disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS), in which the risk of infections is higher than in the general population. This is due to the overall impairment of the immune system typical of autoimmune diseases, in addition to accumulation of disabilities, and the iatrogenic effect generated by corticosteroids and the recommended disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). DMTs have different modes of action, but all modulate and interfere with the patient's immune response, thereby raising concerns about adverse effects, such as an increased susceptibility to infections. In this review, we analyze the evidence for use of DMTs during the current critical period and ratify an algorithmic approach for management to optimize care between keeping DMTs, with their infection hazards, or coming off them, with the risk of disease activation. We also provide an algorithmic approach to the management of breakthrough activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In nonzero magnetic field, the magnetic properties and thermodynamics of the quantum-chromodynamic (QCD) matter are studied in the hadron resonance gas and the Polyakov linear-sigma models and ...compared with recent lattice calculations. Both models are fairly suited to describe the degrees of freedom in the hadronic phase. The partonic ones are only accessible by the second model. It is found that the QCD matter has paramagnetic properties, which monotonically depend on the temperature and are not affected by the hadron-quark phase transition. Furthermore, raising the magnetic field strength increases the thermodynamic quantities, especially in the hadronic phase, but reduces the critical temperature, that is, inverse magnetic catalysis.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex autoimmune disease with a heterogeneous presentation and diverse disease course. Recent studies indicate a rising prevalence of MS in the Middle East.
To ...characterize the demographics and disease features of Egyptian patients attending four tertiary referral MS centers in Cairo.
This was a retrospective, observational study on 1,581 patients between 2001 and 2015. Medical records were reviewed and data were identified and extracted in a standardized electronic registry.
The mean age of disease onset was 26.6±7.8 years, with the majority being female (2.11:1). Relapsing-remitting MS was the most common type (75.1%). The main presenting symptom was motor weakness (43.9%), which was also the most frequent symptom during the disease course. Family history of MS was found in 2.28%. Higher initial Expanded Disability Status Scale score, black holes, and infratentorial lesions on initial magnetic resonance imaging were independent factors for disease progression by univariate analysis (OR 3.87 95% CI 1.84-6.51, 4.14 95% CI 3.08-5.58, 4.07 95% CI 3.21-4.99, respectively); however, in multivariate analysis, only infratentorial lesions were an independent risk for disease progression (OR 6, 95% CI 2.99-12.02;
=0.0005).
The results from this registry - the largest for MS in the Arab region to date - are comparable to other registries with slight differences.
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by persistent hyperglycemia, revealing a decrease in insulin efficiency. The sustained glucotoxic pancreatic microenvironment increases ...reactive oxygen species generation, resulting in chronic oxidative stress responsible for massive DNA damage. This triggers PARP-1 activation with both NAD
+
and ATP depletion, affecting drastically pancreatic beta cells’ energy storage and leading to their dysfunction and death. The aim of the present study is to highlight the main histological changes observed in pancreatic islets pre-treated with a unique NADH intraperitoneal injection in a streptozotocin-(STZ)-induced diabetes model. In order to adjust NADH doses, a preliminary study with three different doses, 500 mg/kg, 300 mg/kg, and 150 mg/kg, respectively, was conducted. Subsequently, and on the basis of the results of the aforementioned study, Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups: non-diabetic control group, diabetics (STZ 45 mg/kg), NADH-treated group (150 mg/kg) 15 min before STZ administration, and NADH-treated group (150 mg/kg) 15 min after STZ administration. The effect of NADH was assessed by blood glucose level, TUNEL staining, histo-morphological analysis, and immunohistochemistry. The optimum protective dose of NADH was 150 mg/kg. NADH effectively decreased hyperglycemia and reduced diabetes induced by STZ. Histologically, NADH pre-treatment revealed a decrease in beta cell death favoring apoptosis over necrosis and therefore preventing inflammation with further beta cell destruction. Our data clearly demonstrate that NADH prior or post-treatment could effectively prevent the deleterious loss of beta cell mass in STZ-induced diabetes in rats and preserve the normal pancreatic islet’s function.
Graphical abstract
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