Impaired lower urinary tract (LUT) afferents often cause LUT symptoms. Assessment of LUT afferent pathways is possible using bipolar cortical sensory evoked potential (SEP) recordings with the active electrode at the vertex during electrical stimulation in the LUT. This study aimed to investigate the topographical distribution and microstates of lower urinary tract sensory evoked potentials (LUTSEPs) using different stimulation frequencies. Ninety healthy subjects (18-36 years old, 40 women) were randomly assigned to one of five stimulation locations [bladder dome; trigone; proximal, membranous (men only) or distal urethra]. Cycles of 0.5 Hz/1.1 Hz/1.6 Hz electrical stimulation were applied using a custom-made catheter. Cortical activity was recorded from 64 surface electrodes. Marker setting was performed manually on an individual subject-level for the P1, N1, and P2 components of vertex recordings. N1 and P2 topographies presented with central negativities and positivities around the vertex. Regarding topographical distribution, Randomization Graphical User interface (RAGU) analyses revealed consistent frequency effects and microstates for N1/P2. Higher stimulation frequencies resulted in decreasing map strength for P1, N1, and P2. LUTSEP topographies suggest central generators in the somatosensory cortex, which are not detectable in a bipolar set-up. The observed frequency effect indicates fiber refractoriness at higher frequencies. The multichannel approach allows more comprehensive assessment of LUTSEPs and might therefore be sensitive to pathological changes. Examinations in patients with LUT symptoms are needed to further investigate this biomarker.We examine whether new government criteria designed to reduce overuse of vitamin D testing changed testing rates in Australian women. Although testing initially declined, the reduction was not sustained.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/durvalumab.html  Women who had more doctor visits and who had been tested previously were more likely to have vitamin D testing.
  Vitamin D testing increased substantially in the 2000s in many countries, particularly in women. Because of concerns about potential over-testing, in 2014, the Australian criteria for subsidised testing were restricted to those at high risk of vitamin D deficiency. We aimed to describe vitamin D testing trends in Australian women (1996 to 2019) and investigate sociodemographic and health factors associated with testing under the new criteria.
 
  We used joinpoint regression to assess changes in national testing trends in Australian women (aged 15+ years) using universal health insurance system data. Additionally, we investigated the factors associated with vitamin D testing through Poisson regressiotamin D deficiency in Australian women is still occurring.
  Surgical intervention for unruptured intracranial aneurysms (IAs) carries inherent health risks. The analysis of "patient-specific" IA geometric and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulated wall shear stress (WSS) data has been investigated to differentiate IAs at high and low risk of rupture to help clinical decision making. Yet, outcomes vary among studies, suggesting that novel analysis could improve rupture characterization. The authors describe a CFD analytic method to assess spatiotemporal characteristics of swirling flow vortices within IAs to improve characterization.
 
  CFD simulations were performed for 47 subjects harboring one medium-sized (4-10mm) middle cerebral artery (MCA) aneurysm with available 3D digital subtraction angiography data. Alongside conventional indices, quantified IA flow vortex spatiotemporal characteristics were applied during statistical characterization. Statistical supervised machine learning using a support vector machine (SVM) method was run with cross-validation (100 iterations) to assess flow vortex-based metrics' strength toward rupture characterization.
 
  Relying solely on vortex indices for statistical characterization underperformed compared with established geometric characteristics (total accuracy of 0.77 vs 0.80) yet showed improvements over wall shear stress models (0.74). However, the application of vortex spatiotemporal characteristics into the combined geometric and wall shear stress parameters augmented model strength for assessing the rupture status of middle cerebral artery aneurysms (0.85).
 
  This preliminary study suggests that the spatiotemporal characteristics of flow vortices within MCA aneurysms are of value to improve the differentiation of ruptured aneurysms from unruptured ones.
 This preliminary study suggests that the spatiotemporal characteristics of flow vortices within MCA aneurysms are of value to improve the differentiation of ruptured aneurysms from unruptured ones.Endothelial shear stress (ESS) identifies coronary plaques at high risk for progression and/or rupture leading to a future acute coronary syndrome. In this study an optimized methodology was developed to derive ESS, pressure drop and oscillatory shear index using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in 3D models of coronary arteries derived from non-invasive coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA). These CTA-based ESS calculations were compared to the ESS calculations using the gold standard with fusion of invasive imaging and CTA. In 14 patients paired patient-specific CFD models based on invasive and non-invasive imaging of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary arteries were created. Ten patients were used to optimize the methodology, and four patients to test this methodology. Time-averaged ESS (TAESS) was calculated for both coronary models applying patient-specific physiological data available at the time of imaging. For data analysis, each 3D reconstructed coronary artery was divided into 2 m, the absolute TAESS values averaged per segment and arc were overestimated using non-invasive vs. invasive imaging [testing patients TAESS segment 30.1(17.1-83.8) vs. 15.8(8.8-63.4) and TAESS arc 29.4(16.2-74.7) vs 15.0(8.9-57.4) p less then 0.001]. We showed that our methodology can accurately assess the TAESS distribution non-invasively from CTA and demonstrated a good correlation with TAESS calculated using IVUS/OCT 3D reconstructed models.