2025
Autores
Dias Costa, P; Bessa, JP; Canelas Pais, M; Ferreira Santos, D; Montenegro Sá, F; Monteiro Soares, M; Hipólito Reis, A; Martins Oliveira, M; Pereira Rodrigues, P;
Publicação
Revista Portuguesa de Cardiologia
Abstract
Background: Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is an established therapeutic option for heart failure, but despite careful selection around 30% of the patients still do not respond to this therapy. The standard electrocardiogram (ECG) is a practical and inexpensive tool to assess potential responders to CRT but with conflicting evidence regarding the value of different ECG parameters. As such, we conducted a systematic review of real-world studies to assess the value of pre-implantation standard ECG parameters in predicting response to CRT. Methods: We searched on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Knowledge online databases to identify analytic studies and synthesized results through evidence tables. Results: Sixty-two eligible articles were included in this review. Traditional predictors of response were QRS duration =150 ms and the presence of left bundle branch block morphology. Contemporary ECG parameters, such as the presence of QRS notching or fragmentation, the S wave assessment, the time to intrinsicoid deflection (ID) in lateral leads, and a lead one ratio =12 also showed great potential in assessing response to CRT. Conclusions: This review highlights the promising capability of the standard ECG in predicting response to CRT, particularly when using more contemporary predictors, while emphasizing the necessity for further research to validate the prognostic value of these predictors. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
2025
Autores
Almeida, E; Pereira Rodrigues, P; Ferreira Santos, D;
Publicação
Studies in health technology and informatics
Abstract
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder marked by repeated episodes of airway obstruction, leading to apneas (complete blockage) or hypopneas (partial blockage) during sleep. The standard diagnostic metric, the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), quantifies the number of these events per hour of sleep but has limitations, such as its dependence on manual interpretation and lack of attention to event duration, which can be clinically significant. To address these issues, this study developed an algorithm to detect respiratory events from nasal airflow signals and measure their duration, using data from 22 patients at St. Vincent's University Hospital, sourced from the PhysioNet dataset. Signal processing techniques, including filtering and envelope analysis, were applied to extract features, and apnea/hypopnea events were identified based on American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) guidelines. Events were classified by duration into three groups: 10-20 seconds, 20-40 seconds, and over 40 seconds. Preliminary results showed detection accuracy of 60% for apnea and 93% for hypopnea events. The study also explored relations between event duration and demographic factors, such as age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) scores, to assess whether longer events were linked to greater severity. These findings suggest that incorporating event duration and automated detection into OSA diagnosis could improve accuracy and provide better insight into the condition, potentially leading to more personalized treatments.
2025
Autores
Teixeira, F; Costa, J; Amorim, P; Guimarães, N; Ferreira Santos, D;
Publicação
Studies in health technology and informatics
Abstract
This work introduces a web application for extracting, processing, and visualizing data from sleep studies reports. Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), the pipeline extracts over 75 key data points from four types of sleep reports. The web application offers an intuitive interface to view individual reports' details and aggregate data from multiple reports. The pipeline demonstrated 100% accuracy in extracting targeted information from a test set of 40 reports, even in cases with missing data or formatting inconsistencies. The developed tool streamlines the analysis of OSA reports, reducing the need for technical expertise and enabling healthcare providers and researchers to utilize sleep study data efficiently. Future work aims to expand the dataset for more complex analyses and imputation techniques.
2025
Autores
Ghorvei, M; Karhu, T; Hietakoste, S; Ferreira Santos, D; Hrubos Strom, H; Islind, AS; Biedebach, L; Nikkonen, S; Leppaenen, T; Rusanen, M;
Publicação
JOURNAL OF SLEEP RESEARCH
Abstract
Obstructive sleep apnea is a heterogeneous sleep disorder with varying phenotypes. Several studies have already performed cluster analyses to discover various obstructive sleep apnea phenotypic clusters. However, the selection of the clustering method might affect the outputs. Consequently, it is unclear whether similar obstructive sleep apnea clusters can be reproduced using different clustering methods. In this study, we applied four well-known clustering methods: Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering; K-means; Fuzzy C-means; and Gaussian Mixture Model to a population of 865 suspected obstructive sleep apnea patients. By creating five clusters with each method, we examined the effect of clustering methods on forming obstructive sleep apnea clusters and the differences in their physiological characteristics. We utilized a visualization technique to indicate the cluster formations, Cohen's kappa statistics to find the similarity and agreement between clustering methods, and performance evaluation to compare the clustering performance. As a result, two out of five clusters were distinctly different with all four methods, while three other clusters exhibited overlapping features across all methods. In terms of agreement, Fuzzy C-means and K-means had the strongest (kappa = 0.87), and Agglomerative hierarchical clustering and Gaussian Mixture Model had the weakest agreement (kappa = 0.51) between each other. The K-means showed the best clustering performance, followed by the Fuzzy C-means in most evaluation criteria. Moreover, Fuzzy C-means showed the greatest potential in handling overlapping clusters compared with other methods. In conclusion, we revealed a direct impact of clustering method selection on the formation and physiological characteristics of obstructive sleep apnea clusters. In addition, we highlighted the capability of soft clustering methods, particularly Fuzzy C-means, in the application of obstructive sleep apnea phenotyping.
2025
Autores
De Oliveira, GV; Pirassoli, V; Sousa, LM; Paulino, N;
Publicação
DSD
Abstract
2025
Autores
Mróz, P; Dong, SB; Mérand, A; Shangguan, JY; Woillez, J; Gould, A; Udalski, A; Eisenhauer, F; Ryu, YH; Wu, ZX; Liu, ZK; Yang, HJ; Bourdarot, G; Defrère, D; Drescher, A; Fabricius, M; Garcia, P; Genzel, R; Gillessen, S; Hönig, SF; Kreidberg, L; Le Bouquin, JB; Lutz, D; Millour, F; Ott, T; Paumard, T; Sauter, J; Shimizu, TT; Straubmeier, C; Subroweit, M; Widmann, F; GRAVITY Collaboration; Szymanski, MK; Soszynski, I; Pietrukowicz, P; Kozlowski, S; Poleski, R; Skowron, J; Ulaczyk, K; Gromadzki, M; Rybicki, K; Iwanek, P; Wrona, M; Mróz, MJ; OGLE Collaboration; Albrow, MD; Chung, SJ; Han, C; Hwang, KH; Jung, YK; Shin, IG; Shvartzvald, Y; Yee, JC; Zang, W; Cha, SM; Kim, DJ; Kim, SL; Lee, CU; Lee, DJ; Lee, Y; Park, BG; Pogge, RW; KMTNet Collaboration;
Publicação
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Abstract
Interferometric observations of gravitational microlensing events offer an opportunity for precise, efficient, and direct mass and distance measurements of lensing objects, especially those of isolated neutron stars and black holes. However, such observations have previously been possible for only a handful of extremely bright events. The recent development of a dual-field interferometer, GRAVITY Wide, has made it possible to reach out to significantly fainter objects and increase the pool of microlensing events amenable to interferometric observations by 2 orders of magnitude. Here, we present the first successful observation of a microlensing event with GRAVITY Wide and the resolution of microlensed images in the event OGLE-2023-BLG-0061/KMT-2023-BLG-0496. We measure the angular Einstein radius of the lens with subpercent precision, theta E = 1.280 +/- 0.009 mas. Combined with the microlensing parallax detected from the event light curve, the mass and distance to the lens are found to be 0.472 +/- 0.012 M circle dot and 1.81 +/- 0.05 kpc, respectively. We present the procedure for the selection of targets for interferometric observations and discuss possible systematic effects affecting GRAVITY Wide data. This detection demonstrates the capabilities of the new instrument, and it opens up completely new possibilities for the follow-up of microlensing events and future routine discoveries of isolated neutron stars and black holes.
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