Background and Purpose— The aim of this study was to explore clinical and radiological prognostic factors for long-term swallowing recovery in patients with poststroke dysphagia and to develop and validate a prognostic model using a machine learning algorithm. Methods— Consecutive patients (N=137) with acute ischemic stroke referred for swallowing examinations were retrospectively reviewed. Dysphagia was monitored in the 6 months poststroke period and then analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression model for clinical and radiological factors. Bayesian network models were developed using potential prognostic factors to classify patients into those with good (no need for tube feeding or diet modification for 6 months) and poor (tube feeding or diet modification for 6 months) recovery of swallowing function. Results— Twenty-four (17.5%) patients showed persistent dysphagia for the first 6 months with a mean duration of 65.6 days. The time duration of poststroke dysphagia significantly differed by tube feeding status, clinical dysphagia scale, sex, severe white matter hyperintensities, and bilateral lesions at the corona radiata, basal ganglia, or internal capsule (CR/BG/IC). Among these factors, tube feeding status ( P <0.001), bilateral lesions at CR/BG/IC ( P =0.001), and clinical dysphagia scale ( P =0.042) were significant prognostic factors in a multivariate analysis using Cox regression models. The tree-augmented network classifier, based on 10 factors (sex, lesions at CR, BG/IC, and insula, laterality, anterolateral territory of the brain stem, bilateral lesions at CR/BG/IC, severe white matter hyperintensities, clinical dysphagia scale, and tube feeding status), performed better than other benchmarking classifiers developed in this study. Conclusions— Initial dysphagia severity and bilateral lesions at CR/BG/IC are revealed to be significant prognostic factors for 6-month swallowing recovery. The prediction of 6-month swallowing recovery was feasible based on clinical and radiological factors using the Bayesian network model. We emphasize the importance of bilateral subcortical lesions as prognostic factors that can be utilized to develop prediction models for long-term swallowing recovery.
Ultrasound-guided cervical medial branch block (CMBB) is commonly performed to diagnose and treat head, neck, and shoulder pain. However, its use at the C7 level has been shown to be less accurate than at other levels, which may increase the chance of injury owing to the imprecision of needle site provided by the ultrasound guide. We report the first case of iatrogenic spinal cord injury from an ultrasound-guided C7 CMBB. The patient, upon receiving this procedure, had fainted shortly after experiencing an electrical sensation that ran from the neck to the toe. The patient complained of weakness and tingling sensation in the left upper extremity. Cervical magnetic resonance imaging revealed a hematoma in the cervical spinal cord, and an electrophysiological study, which was performed at 3 weeks after the incident, revealed an injury at the left C3-T2 anterior horn. After 2 months of rehabilitation, the patient showed moderate improvement in the strength of the left proximal upper extremity; however, there was no improvement in the strength of the left distal upper extremity. Therefore, we recommend caution when performing ultrasound-guided CMBB at the C7 level, as the guide particularly at this level is relatively inaccurate, posing a risk of spinal cord injury.
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