Rapid switching from levetiracetam to brivaracetam in pharmaco-resistant epilepsy in people with and without intellectual disabilities: a naturalistic case control study

BACKGROUND

Approximately one quarter of people with an intellectual disability (PwID) have epilepsy of whom nearly three-quarters are pharmaco-resistant. There are higher reported neuropsychiatric side-effects to anti-seizure medication (ASM) in this group. Levetiracetam (LEV) is a first-line ASM with a stronger association with neuropsychiatric symptoms for PwID than other ASMs. Brivaracetam (BRV) is a newer ASM. Recent studies suggest a beneficial effect of swapping people who experience neuropsychiatric events with LEV to BRV. However, there is limited evidence of this for PwID. This evaluation analyses real world outcomes of LEV to BRV swap for PwID compared to those without ID.

METHODS

We performed a multicentre, retrospective review of clinical records. Demographic, clinical characteristics and reported adverse events of patients switched from LEV to BRV (2016-2020) were recorded at 3 months pre and 6- and 12-month post-BRV initiation. Outcomes were compared between PwID and those without and summarised using cross-tabulations and logistic regression models. A Bonferroni correction was applied.

RESULTS

Of 77 participants, 46 had ID and 52% had a past psychiatric illness. 71% participants switched overnight from LEV to BRV. Seizure reduction of > 50% was seen in 40% patients. Psychiatric illness history was predictive of having neuropsychiatric side-effects with LEV but not BRV (p = 0.001). There was no significant difference for any primary outcomes between PwID versus without ID.

CONCLUSIONS

Switching from LEV to BRV appears as well tolerated and efficacious in PwID as those without ID with over 90% still on BRV after 12 months.

Entropic comparison of Landau-Zener and Demkov interactions in the phase space of a quadrupole billiard

We investigate two types of avoided crossings in a chaotic billiard within the framework of information theory. The Shannon entropy in the phase space for the Landau-Zener interaction increases as the center of the avoided crossing is approached, whereas for the Demkov interaction, the Shannon entropy decreases as the center of avoided crossing is passed by with an increase in the deformation parameter. This feature can provide a new indicator for scar formation. In addition, it is found that the Fisher information of the Landau-Zener interaction is significantly larger than that of the Demkov interaction.

Long-Term Glycaemic Durability of Early Combination Therapy Strategy versus Metformin Monotherapy in Korean Patients with Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

We assessed the glycaemic durability with early combination (EC; vildagliptin+metformin [MET], n=22) versus MET monotherapy (n=17), among newly-diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) enrolled (between 2012 and 2014) in the VERIFY study from Korea (n=39). Primary endpoint was time to initial treatment failure (TF) (glycosylated hemoglobin [HbA1c] ≥7.0% at two consecutive scheduled visits after randomization [end of period 1]). Time to second TF was assessed when both groups were receiving and failing on the combination (end of period 2). With EC the risk of initial TF significantly reduced by 78% compared to MET (n=3 [15%] vs. n=10 [58.7%], P=0.0228). No secondary TF occurred in EC group versus five patients (29.4%) in MET. Patients receiving EC treatment achieved consistently lower HbA1c levels. Both treatment approaches were well tolerated with no hypoglycaemic events. In Korean patients with newly diagnosed T2DM, EC treatment significantly and consistently improved the long-term glycaemic durability as compared with MET.

The upgraded TOMAS device: A toroidal plasma facility for wall conditioning, plasma production, and plasma-surface interaction studies

The Toroidal Magnetized System device has been significantly upgraded to enable development of various wall conditioning techniques, including methods based on ion and electron cyclotron (IC/EC) range of frequency plasmas, and to complement plasma-wall interaction research in tokamaks and stellarators. The toroidal magnetic field generated by 16 coils can reach its maximum of 125 mT on the toroidal axis. The EC system is operated at 2.45 GHz with up to 6 kW forward power. The IC system can couple up to 6 kW in the frequency range of 10 MHz-50 MHz. The direct current glow discharge system is based on a graphite anode with a maximum voltage of 1.5 kV and a current of 6 A. A load-lock system with a vertical manipulator allows exposure of material samples. A number of diagnostics have been installed: single- and triple-pin Langmuir probes for radial plasma profiles, a time-of-flight neutral particle analyzer capable of detecting neutrals in the energy range of 10 eV-1000 eV, and a quadrupole mass spectrometer and video systems for plasma imaging. The majority of systems and diagnostics are controlled by the Siemens SIMATIC S7 system, which also provides safety interlocks.

Extracting hypertrophic cardiomyopathy features from cardiac magnetic resonance reports by natural language processing

Objective

Determine if information regarding hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) can be accurately retrieved from cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) reports using natural language processing (NLP).

Background

CMR imaging is used for diagnosis and risk stratification of HCM. Manual annotation of information from CMR is time-consuming. NLP is an artificial intelligence method for automating extraction of information from narrative text.

Methods

We identified 200 HCM patients who had CMR reports from 1998 to 2018. These patients were randomly allocated into training (100 patients with 185 CMR reports) and testing sets (100 patients with 206 reports). An NLP system with 2 tiers was developed; the first extracted information regarding HCM diagnosis while second extracted categorical or numeric concepts for HCM classification. NLP performance was compared with gold-standard manual annotation.

Results

NLP algorithms achieved very high performance across all concepts with mean positive predictive value (PPV) = 0.96. An outlier was the performance for abstracting the presence of an apical pouch from CMR reports, which had noticeably lower PPV= 0.78 which be attributed to the low number of cases with this finding.

Conclusions

The algorithms developed can be translated to clinical decision support systems to increase efficiency and contribute to improved quality of care.

Funding Acknowledgement

Type of funding source: Other. Main funding source(s): Study supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of National Institutes of Health (K01HL124045), the Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCaTS), and the Mayo Clinic K2R award. Content is solely the responsibility of authors and does not necessarily represent official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Timing of antibiotics in septic patients: a prospective cohort study

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the effect of timing and appropriateness of antibiotics administration on mortality in patients diagnosed with sepsis according to the Sepsis-3 definition.

METHODS

This prospective cohort study was conducted in patients diagnosed with sepsis according to the Sepsis-3 definition at the emergency department of Korea University Ansan Hospital from January 2016 to January 2019. The time to antibiotics was defined as the time in hours from emergency department arrival to the first antibiotic administration. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to estimate the association between time to antibiotics and 7-, 14- and 28-day mortality.

RESULTS

Of 482 patients enrolled onto this study, 203 (42.1%) of 482 and 312 (64.7%) of 482 were diagnosed with septic shock and high-grade infection respectively. The median time to receipt of antibiotic therapy was 115 minutes. Antibiotics were administered within 3 and 6 hours in 340 (70.4%) of 482 and 450 (93.2%) of 482 patients respectively. Initial appropriate empirical antibiotics were administered in 375 (77.8%) of 482 patients. The time to and appropriateness of the initial antibiotics were not associated with 7-, 14- and 28-day mortality in multivariate analysis. The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 1.229, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.093-1.381, p 0.001) and initial lactate levels (aHR 1.128, 95% CI 1.034-1.230, p 0.007), Charlson comorbidity index (aHR 1.115, 95% CI 1.027-1.210, p 0.014), 2-hour lactate level (aHR 1.115, 95% CI 1.027-1.210, p 0.009) and SOFA score (aHR 1.077, 95% CI 1.013-1.144, p 0.018) affected 7-, 14- and 28-day mortality respectively. Subgroup analysis with septic shock, bacteraemia and high-grade infection did not affect mortality rates.

CONCLUSIONS

Time to receipt of antibiotics may not affect the prognosis of patients with sepsis if a rapid and well-trained resuscitation is combined with appropriate antibiotic administration within a reasonable time.

Abstract PD1-07: Withdrawn

This abstract was withdrawn by the authors.

Citation Format: Howell SJ, Waters S, Twelves C, Joffe J, Moon S, Bale C, Venkitaraman R, Bezecny P, Casbard A, Wilhelm-Benartzi C, Carucci M, Butler R, Alchami F, Jones R. Withdrawn [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr PD1-07.

Lithium suppression of tau induces brain iron accumulation and neurodegeneration

Lithium is a first-line therapy for bipolar affective disorder. However, various adverse effects, including a Parkinson-like hand tremor, often limit its use. The understanding of the neurobiological basis of these side effects is still very limited. Nigral iron elevation is also a feature of Parkinsonian degeneration that may be related to soluble tau reduction. We found that magnetic resonance imaging T₂ relaxation time changes in subjects commenced on lithium therapy were consistent with iron elevation. In mice, lithium treatment lowers brain tau levels and increases nigral and cortical iron elevation that is closely associated with neurodegeneration, cognitive loss and parkinsonian features. In neuronal cultures lithium attenuates iron efflux by lowering tau protein that traffics amyloid precursor protein to facilitate iron efflux. Thus, tau- and amyloid protein precursor-knockout mice were protected against lithium-induced iron elevation and neurotoxicity. These findings challenge the appropriateness of lithium as a potential treatment for disorders where brain iron is elevated (for example, Alzheimer's disease), and may explain lithium-associated motor symptoms in susceptible patients.

Smartphone, Smart Surgeon, what about a 'Smart Logbook'?

BACKGROUND

Mobile phone applications (Apps) have become a vital assistant to medical personnel in today's technologically advanced era. The utility of Apps with case logbook capabilities has not yet been explored.

OBJECTIVE

To assess and evaluate all currently available surgical and procedural case logbook Apps.

METHOD

A comprehensive search was conducted in April 2015 on the Android Play Store, iTunes (Apple App Store, iOS), and BlackBerry World for surgical and/or procedural logbooks. The search terms'surgical logbook', 'logbook', 'procedure logbook' and 'surgical log' were used. Apps which could not be utilized as a surgical/procedural logbook were excluded. Each App was individually assessed and rated using preset criteria, by the unit consultant, registrars, and medical officer.

RESULTS

In total, 2 740 Apps were assessed. After applying our exclusion criteria, only 16 Apps were relevant, and 11 suitable for critical review. Data sizes ranged from 510Kb to 12.2Mb. Costing of the Apps ranged from ZAR 0.00 to ZAR 105.32. The overall study scores revealed the following top five rated Apps: Surgical Logbook by Surgilog; Surgeon Logbook Pro; Surgery Notebook, Surgical Logbook, and Universal Logbook.

CONCLUSION

The current mobile Apps available are efficient in replacing traditional case logbooks. The use of the 'Smart Logbook' may become common practice in the life of the modern-day surgeon.

Geophysical imaging reveals topographic stress control of bedrock weathering

Bedrock fracture systems facilitate weathering, allowing fresh mineral surfaces to interact with corrosive waters and biota from Earth's surface, while simultaneously promoting drainage of chemically equilibrated fluids. We show that topographic perturbations to regional stress fields explain bedrock fracture distributions, as revealed by seismic velocity and electrical resistivity surveys from three landscapes. The base of the fracture-rich zone mirrors surface topography where the ratio of horizontal compressive tectonic stresses to near-surface gravitational stresses is relatively large, and it parallels the surface topography where the ratio is relatively small. Three-dimensional stress calculations predict these results, suggesting that tectonic stresses interact with topography to influence bedrock disaggregation, groundwater flow, chemical weathering, and the depth of the "critical zone" in which many biogeochemical processes occur.

A new compound heterozygous mutation in the CYP17A1 gene in a female with 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency

BACKGROUND

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency (OMIM #202110) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder, which is caused by mutations of the CYP17A1 gene located on chromosome 10q24.3. It has been reported that the type of mutation of the CYP17A1 gene was associated with the extent of 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency, and the prevalence of common mutation was different among ethnic groups.

CASE

A 21-year-old Korean female presented with primary amenorrhea and sexual infantilism, and intermittent hypokalemic episodes. Laboratory test was consistent with hypergonadotropic hypogonadism. The karyotype was 46,XX[20]. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes. All the eight exons of the CYP17A1 gene including flanking regions of introns were amplified by PCR. The mutations of the CYP17A1 gene were detected by direct sequencing. A compound heterozygous mutation was identified; one allele had a missense mutation of c.1118A>T (p.His373Leu), which was reported previously and induced the complete loss of both 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase activity. This mutation has been known to be one of the common mutation types in East Asia. The other allele had a novel 1-bp deletion c.1148delA causing frameshift, premature termination codon (p.Glu383fs) and induced truncated enzymes.

CONCLUSION

Our experience for stepwise clinical, laboratory and molecular approach would be helpful to diagnose these patients accurately and understand the genetic events in 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency patients.