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Campbell, B. C.V. et al. (2019) Penumbral imaging and functional outcome in patients with anterior circulation ischaemic stroke treated with endovascular thrombectomy versus medical therapy: a meta-analysis of individual patient-level data.ABSTRACT Background: CT-perfusion (CTP) and MRI may assist patient selection for endovascular thrombectomy. We aimed to establish whether imaging assessments of ischaemic core and penumbra volumes were associated with functional outcomes and treatment effect.

Campbell, B. C. V. et al. (2018) Effect of general anaesthesia on functional outcome in patients with anterior circulation ischaemic stroke having endovascular thrombectomy versus standard care: a meta-analysis of individual patient data. Lancet Neurology, 17(1), pp. 47-53. (doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(17)30407-6) This is the author's final accepted version.There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it.http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/149670/ variables. An alternative approach using propensity-score stratification was also used. To account for between-trial variance we used mixed-effects modeling with a random effect for trial incorporated in all models. Bias was assessed using the Cochrane tool.Findings: Of 1764 patients in 7 trials, 871 were allocated to endovascular thrombectomy. After exclusion of 74 patients (72 who did not undergo the procedure and 2 with missing data on anaesthetic strategy), 236/797 (30%) of endovascular patients were treated under GA. At baseline, GA patients were younger and had shorter time to randomisation but similar pre-treatment clinical severity compared to non-GA. Endovascular thrombectomy improved functional outcome at 3 months versus standard care in both GA (adjusted common odds ratio (cOR) 1·52, 95%CI 1·09-2·11, p=0·014) and non-GA (adjusted cOR 2·33, 95%CI 1·75-3·10, p<0·001) patients. However, outcomes were significantly better for those treated under non-GA versus GA (covariate-adjusted cOR 1·53, 95%CI 1·14-2·04, p=0·004; propensitystratified cOR 1·44 95%CI 1·08-1·92, p=0·012). The risk of bias and variability among studies was assessed to be low.Interpretation: Worse outcomes after endovascular thrombectomy were associated with GA, after adjustment for baseline prognostic variables. These data support avoidance of GA whenever possible. The procedure did, however, remain effective versus standard care in patients treated under GA, indicating that treatment should not be withheld in those who require anaesthesia for medical reasons. Funding:The HERMES collaboration was funded by an unrestricted grant from Medtronic to the University of Calgary. Research in contextEvidence before this study between abolition of the thrombectomy treatment effect in MR CLEAN and no effect in THRACE. Three single-centre randomised trials of general anaesthesia versus conscious sedation found either no difference in functional outcome between groups or a slight benefit of general anaesthesia. Added value of this studyThese data from contemporary, high quality randomised trials form the largest study to date of the association between general anesthesia and the benefit of endovascular thrombectomy versus standard care. We used two different approaches to adjust for baseline imbalances (multivariable logistic regression and propensity-score stratification). We found that GA for endovascular thrombectomy, as practiced in contemporary clinical care across a wide range of expert centres during the rand...

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These preliminary results suggest that sleep may play a role in perivascular clearance in ischemic brain disease, and invite future research into the potential relevance of Virchow-Robin spaces as an imaging biomarker for nocturnal metabolite clearance.

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Background: To examine the association between the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and nocturnal hypoxemia with incident cancer. Methods: This was a multicenter retrospective clinical cohort study using linked clinical and provincial health administrative data on consecutive adults who underwent a diagnostic sleep study between 1994 and 2017 in four academic hospitals (Canada) who were free of cancer at baseline. Cancer status was derived from the Ontario Cancer Registry. Cox cause–specific regressions were utilized to address the objective and to calculate the 10-year absolute risk difference (ARD) in the marginal probability of incident cancer and the number needed to harm (NNH). Results: Of 33,997 individuals considered, 33,711 with no missing OSA severity were included: median age, 50 years; 58% male; and 23% with severe OSA (apnea-hypopnea index &gt;30). Of the 18,458 individuals with information on sleep time spent with oxygen saturation (SaO2) &lt;90%, 5% spent &gt;30% of sleep with SaO2 &lt;90% (severe nocturnal hypoxemia). Over a median of 7 years, 2,498 of 33,711 (7%) individuals developed cancer, with an incidence rate of 10.3 (10.0–10.8) per 1,000 person-years. Controlling for confounders, severe OSA was associated with a 15% increased hazard of developing cancer compared with no OSA (HR = 1.15, 1.02–1.30; ARD = 1.28%, 0.20–2.37; and NNH = 78). Severe hypoxemia was associated with about 30% increased hazard (HR = 1.32, 1.08–1.61; ARD = 2.38%, 0.47–4.31; and NNH = 42). Conclusions: In a large cohort of individuals with suspected OSA free of cancer at baseline, the severity of OSA and nocturnal hypoxemia was independently associated with incident cancer. Impact: These findings suggest the need for more targeted cancer risk awareness in individuals with OSA.

SUMMARYActigraphy can assist in the detection of periodic limb movements in sleep. Although several actigraphs have been previously reported to accurately detect periodic limb movements, many are no longer available; of the existing actigraphs, most sample too infrequently to accurately detect periodic limb movements. The purpose of this study was to use advanced signal analysis to validate a readily available actigraph that has the capability of sampling at relatively high frequencies. We simultaneously recorded polysomnography and bilateral ankle actigraphy in 96 consecutive patients presenting to our sleep laboratory. After pre-processing and conditioning, the bilateral ankle actigraphy signals were then analysed for 14 simple time, frequency and morphology-based features. These features reduced the signal dimensionality and aided in better representation of the periodic limb movement activity in the actigraph signals. These features were then processed by a Na€ ıve-Bayes binary classifier for distinguishing between normal and abnormal periodic limb movement indices. We trained the Na€ ıve-Bayes classifier using a training set, and subsequently tested its classification accuracy using a testing set. From our experiments, using a periodic limb movement index cut-off of 5, we found that the Na€ ıve-Bayes classifier had a correct classification rate of 78.9%, with a sensitivity of 80.3% and a specificity of 73.7%. The algorithm developed in this study has the potential of facilitating identification of periodic limb movements across a wide spectrum of patient populations via the use of bilateral ankle actigraphy.