Medical visual question answering (MVQA) plays a crucial role in the fields of computer-aided diagnosis and telemedicine. Due to the limited size and uneven annotation quality of the MVQA datasets, most existing methods rely on additional datasets for pre-training and use discriminant formulas to predict answers from a predefined set of labels. This approach makes the model prone to overfitting in low resource domains. To cope with the above problems, we propose an image-aware generative MVQA method based on image caption prompts. Firstly, we combine a dual visual feature extractor with a progressive bilinear attention interaction module to extract multi-level image features. Secondly, we propose an image caption prompt method to guide the model to better understand the image information. Finally, the image-aware generative model is used to generate answers. Experimental results show that our proposed method outperforms existing models on the MVQA task, realizing efficient visual feature extraction, as well as flexible and accurate answer outputs with small computational costs in low-resource domains. It is of great significance for achieving personalized precision medicine, reducing medical burden, and improving medical diagnosis efficiency.
Objective
To investigate the opinions of operating room nurse (ORN) on enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS).
Methods
A questionnaire survey was performed among 215 ORNs in West China Hospital. There were 10 males and 205 females at age of 33.4±8.84 years.
Results
A total of 154 ORNs (71.6%) thought that we already had very good ERAS theory but we still needed more practice. Thirty-four ORNs(15.8%) thought that the application of ERAS was poor in our clinic comparing to other countries.A percentage of 84.2% (181/215) ORNs thought the criteria to judge whether the ERAS succeed or not should be average days of hospitalization, patients' feeling, and experience and social satisfactions. Besides, 78.1% (168/215) ORNs selected team building as the key point of ERAS success. There were 91.2% (196/215) ORNs who believed expert consensus and ERAS guide should be worked out and propagandized through academic forum or conference in order to popularize the ERAS.
Conclusion
The theory of ERAS has already been accepted by almost all the clinicians and team building is the best way to make ERAS work well.
Objective To understand the current status of the preferences and opinions on the investigator-initiated trails (IIT) of the neurosurgeons participating in INTERACT3 in China, as well as the design preference for IIT projects, and to provide a basis for the design and organization of multi-center clinical studies in the future. Methods Neurosurgeons with different seniority and professional titles from 89 domestic research institutions participating in the INTERACT3 project were collected from September to October 2023. The questionnaires were collected by questionnaire star. Results A total of 56 valid questionnaires were collected from 29 units. Among the 56 respondents, 52 neurosurgeons (92.86%) were from teaching hospitals and 45 (80.36%) were from grade A tertiary hospitals. 30 neurosurgeons (53.57%) had experience in conducting various clinical studies, and 55 neurosurgeons (98.21%) had experience in participating in various clinical studies. The main purposes of presiding over or participating in clinical research focused on “accumulating relevant experience and preparing for future projects” and “standardizing clinical diagnosis and treatment”, which were 89.29% and 83.93%. Respectively, regarding the way the case report form completing, respondents preferred to use electronic data collection systems (83.93%). Conclusions The purpose of the neurosurgeons interviewed to host or participate in clinical research is mainly to assist clinical and scientific research. Economic reasons have little impact on whether to participate in clinical research. The rationality and ease of operation of the trail design are the keys to attracting respondents to participate in clinical researches, and the level of remuneration has little impact on the decision-making of the respondents. The safety of clinical studies and the difficulty of enrolling subjects are the key factors that hinder respondents’ participation in clinical studies.
ObjectiveTo investigate the preoperative psychological state of patients with pulmonary nodules in order to make the content of the education more "individualized and humanized".MethodsWe conducted a consecutive questionnaire study for 107 patients who were planning to undergo pulmonary resection surgery from May 2018 to July 2018 in our department. There were 54 males and 53 females with an average age of 56.8±11.2 years. The questionnaire content included two parts: personal basic information and 20 questions about surgery, complications, follow-up and hospitalization expense.ResultsThere were 60.7% of the patients diagnosed with pulmonary nodules by CT scan during physical examination, and 52.3% of the patients had strong will to undergo pulmonary surgery to resect nodules; 64.5% of patients wanted doctors to tell them the extent of the disease and whether the tumor could be cured by surgery, and 30.0% of patients concerned whether chief surgeon would complete the whole surgery. The surgery risk and postoperative complications were ignored by patients easily (5.6% and 14.9% respectively). The hospital expenses were not the primary concern of patients. Only 1.9% of patients believed that doctors used nonessentials which deliberately led to increased costs. Network follow-up was accepted by most patients (94.4%).ConclusionIt will contribute to improve preoperative education rationality and effectiveness by understanding true psychological state of patients.
Objective To understand the new characteristics of clinical symptoms of patients with mild COVID-19 during the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron, and provide basis for better prevention and treatment of COVID-19.Methods A cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted with WeChat questionnaire among medical staff with COVID-19 recently, who come from the Third Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University and The Second Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University.Results A total of 630 valid questionnaires was received. 99.2% of infected people had been vaccinated against COVID-19. 2.4% of infected persons developed pneumonia and 2.1% were hospitalized. The most common symptoms after infection were coughing (89.7%), fever (83.0%), fatigue (84.1%), headache and dizziness (75.7%), muscle soreness (72.7%), sore throat (62.1%), nasal congestion and runny nose (60.6%), expectoration (71.6%), anorexia (58.0%) and taste loss (40.2%). The incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiovascular symptoms was relatively low (17.8% and 31.0% respectively). The severity of self-reported symptoms of most infected persons was moderate or severe. The proportion of serious symptoms reported was coughing (23.8%), sore throat (27.0%), headache and dizziness (17.9%). The severity of symptoms reported by young group (<35 years old) was significantly higher than that of older group (>35 years old). Fever was the highest at 38 to 39 ℃ (52.4%). 77.0% of fever sustained for 1 to 3 days. At the time of investigation, the viral detection turned negative in 60.6% of infected people, and the time of turning negative was mostly 7 to 10 days. More than half of the infected persons still had different symptoms, among which cough (43.7%) and fatigue (23.8%) were the most common.Conclusions Most subjects with mild COVID-19 infection have obvious upper respiratory tract and systemic symptoms, the most prominent is the high incidence of cough, which has become a new feature of omicron infection. And most of the infected people have moderate to severe symptoms, and the younger ones have more severer symptoms.
ObjectiveThe application of the coefficient of variation (CV) in the development of clinical practice guidelines is limited to evaluating the consistency of the consensus panel in clinical questions rating, and the application of variability was limited. This study presents the application and results of variability evaluation in the development of guidelines. MethodsWe conducted a large-scale clinical survey through questionnaire survey, and conducted two rounds of questionnaire survey and face-to-face consensus meeting for the consensus group. Means and CV were calculated for clinical questions and outcome importance ratings. We performed the summary and analysis by SPSS and Microsoft Excel. ResultsA total of 356 clinical survey questionnaires and two rounds survey in consensus panel were collected. We found that in the clinical survey and the first-round of the consensus panel, the CV was greater than 25% for all clinical questions regardless of the overall importance score. In the consensus panel, the results of the second-round were greatly changed. On the one hand, compared with the first-round, the CV of almost all clinical questions was smaller in the second-round, and the CV of high-priority clinical questions was less than 25%, while the clinical questions with a CV greater than 25% were of low-priority. In view of the CV of outcome importance, the clinical survey was similar to the results of the first-round of consensus panel. The CV of very important outcomes was less than 30%. In the second-round of consensus panel, the variability of very important outcomes was less than 20%. The higher the importance level of the outcome was, the smaller the CV was. ConclusionThe study of variability evaluation has practical methodological value, which can assist clinical questions and outcomes priority selection, and help to fully consider the influence of different factors and values, and develop high-quality guidelines.
ObjectiveTo introduce and preliminarily apply a tool for assessing the importance of research questions (Australia & New Zealand Musculoskeletal Clinical Trials Network Research Question Importance Tool, ANZMUSC-RQIT), thereby providing a methodological reference for selecting research questions. MethodsAn overview of the development process and main content of ANZMUSC-RQIT is provided, and an exploratory application of the tool is conducted to evaluate clinical research questions in the field of musculoskeletal disorders (MSKDs) within Chinese Medicine (CM). ResultsANZMUSC-RQIT assesses the importance of specific research questions across five dimensions. Currently, clinical research on MSKDs in CM often focuses on the consensus among stakeholders regarding the importance of issues, prioritizes addressing problems that pose a significant burden on patients, and aims to alleviate clinical symptoms as the main intervention goal. The total score of ANZMUSC-RQIT is positively correlated with journal impact but shows no statistically significant relationship with citation frequency. Additionally, national funding support is positively correlated with the RQIT total score of the research question. ConclusionThe development of ANZMUSC-RQIT provides valuable reference and inspiration for selecting future research questions. However, to more effectively assess the importance of CM clinical research questions, there is a pressing need to develop an evaluation tool tailored to the specific characteristics of CM clinical research.
ObjectiveTo systematically review the efficacy of Tai Chi on patients with heart failure.MethodsDatabases including CNKI, VIP, WanFang Data, Web of Science, PubMed, EMbase and The Cochrane Library (Issue 8, 2016) were searched from inception to August, 2016 to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Tai Chi for heart failure patients. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software.ResultsA total of 10 RCTs involving 689 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with the control group, the heart failure patients in Tai Chi group had better score of minnesotaliving with heart failure questionnaire (MLHFQ) (MD=–9.37, 95%CI –13.09 to –5.65, P<0.000 01), longer six minute walk test (6MWT) (MD=40.37, 95%CI 9.48 to 71.27, P=0.01), higher left ventricular ejectionfractions (LVEF) (MD=7.89, 95%CI 3.01 to 12.77, P=0.002) and lower level of BNP (brain natriuretic peptide) (MD=–10.75, 95%CI –13.20 to –8.30, P<0.000 01); however, as to the maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) (MD=0.29, 95%CI –1.223 to 1.81, P=0.71), systolic pressure (SBP) (MD=–2.81, 95%CI –8.52 to 2.90, P=0.33) and diastolic pressure (DBP) (MD=0.37, 95%CI –3.73 to 4.48, P=0.86), there were no significant differences between both groups.ConclusionThe current evidence shows that Tai Chi is feasible for patients with heart failure as it has positive effects on life quality, physiological functions. Due to the limited quality and quantity of included studies, the above conclusion should be validated by more high quality studies.
When prioritizing clinical questions in the development of the clinical practice guidelines, clinical questions with high recognition and low variability, or high score and less disagreement among experts were often prioritized, while questions with high recognition but high variability were excluded. By this approach, clinical questions with practical value but also showed high variability due to different causes were not accepted as priorities. There were some methodological and clinical limitations by doing so. By summarizing the causes and connotations of expert opinion variability in terms of clinical experience, expertise and values, this paper analyzed the advantages of the variability quantification application, and proposed corresponding methodological recommendations, so as to provide references for guideline developers in the priority selection of clinical questions.
To help better understanding on evidence-based medicine, five frequently asked questions relevant to evidence-based clinical practice were commented on. The questions included: 1. Dose evidence-based medicine only emphasize evidence and ignore clinical experiences? 2. Dose evidence only include randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews? 3. How to face the quality of evidence? 4. Is randomized evidence suitable for treating individual patient? 5. Is evidence-based medicine useless since there is no adequate evidence for many clinical questions?