Price Faculty of Engineering Scholarly Works

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    Open Access
    Cerebral physiologic insult burden in acute traumatic neural injury: a Canadian High Resolution-TBI (CAHR-TBI) descriptive analysis
    (BMC, 2024-09-04) Stein, Kevin Y.; Gomez, Alwyn; Griesdale, Donald; Sekhon, Mypinder; Bernard, Francis; Gallagher, Clare; Thelin, Eric P.; Raj, Rahul; Aries, Marcel; Froese, Logan; Kramer, Andreas; Zeiler, Frederick A.
    Background Over the recent decades, continuous multi-modal monitoring of cerebral physiology has gained increasing interest for its potential to help minimize secondary brain injury following moderate-to-severe acute traumatic neural injury (also termed traumatic brain injury; TBI). Despite this heightened interest, there has yet to be a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of derangements in multimodal cerebral physiology on global cerebral physiologic insult burden. In this study, we offer a multi-center descriptive analysis of the associations between deranged cerebral physiology and cerebral physiologic insult burden. Methods Using data from the Canadian High-Resolution TBI (CAHR-TBI) Research Collaborative, a total of 369 complete patient datasets were acquired for the purposes of this study. For various cerebral physiologic metrics, patients were trichotomized into low, intermediate, and high cohorts based on mean values. Jonckheere–Terpstra testing was then used to assess for directional relationships between these cerebral physiologic metrics and various measures of cerebral physiologic insult burden. Contour plots were then created to illustrate the impact of preserved vs impaired cerebrovascular reactivity on these relationships. Results It was found that elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) was associated with more time spent with cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) < 60 mmHg and more time with impaired cerebrovascular reactivity. Low CPP was associated with more time spent with ICP > 20 or 22 mmHg and more time spent with impaired cerebrovascular reactivity. Elevated cerebrovascular reactivity indices were associated with more time spent with CPP < 60 mmHg as well as ICP > 20 or 22 mmHg. Low brain tissue oxygenation (PbtO2) only demonstrated a significant association with more time spent with CPP < 60 mmHg. Low regional oxygen saturation (rSO2) failed to produce a statistically significant association with any particular measure of cerebral physiologic insult burden. Conclusions Mean ICP, CPP and, cerebrovascular reactivity values demonstrate statistically significant associations with global cerebral physiologic insult burden; however, it is uncertain whether measures of oxygen delivery provide any significant insight into such insult burden.
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    Open Access
    Critical thresholds of long-pressure reactivity index and impact of intracranial pressure monitoring methods in traumatic brain injury
    (BMC, 2024-07-29) Hong, Erik; Froese, Logan; Pontén, Emeli; Fletcher-Sandersjöö, Alexander; Tatter, Charles; Hammarlund, Emma; Åkerlund, Cecilia A. I.; Tjerkaski, Jonathan; Alpkvist, Peter; Bartek, Jiri; Raj, Rahul; Lindblad, Caroline; Nelson, David W.; Zeiler, Frederick A.; Thelin, Eric P.
    Background Moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) has a global mortality rate of about 30%, resulting in acquired life-long disabilities in many survivors. To potentially improve outcomes in this TBI population, the management of secondary injuries, particularly the failure of cerebrovascular reactivity (assessed via the pressure reactivity index; PRx, a correlation between intracranial pressure (ICP) and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP)), has gained interest in the field. However, derivation of PRx requires high-resolution data and expensive technological solutions, as calculations use a short time-window, which has resulted in it being used in only a handful of centers worldwide. As a solution to this, low resolution (longer time-windows) PRx has been suggested, known as Long-PRx or LPRx. Though LPRx has been proposed little is known about the best methodology to derive this measure, with different thresholds and time-windows proposed. Furthermore, the impact of ICP monitoring on cerebrovascular reactivity measures is poorly understood. Hence, this observational study establishes critical thresholds of LPRx associated with long-term functional outcome, comparing different time-windows for calculating LPRx as well as evaluating LPRx determined through external ventricular drains (EVD) vs intraparenchymal pressure device (IPD) ICP monitoring. Methods The study included a total of n = 435 TBI patients from the Karolinska University Hospital. Patients were dichotomized into alive vs. dead and favorable vs. unfavorable outcomes based on 1-year Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS). Pearson’s chi-square values were computed for incrementally increasing LPRx or ICP thresholds against outcome. The thresholds that generated the greatest chi-squared value for each LPRx or ICP parameter had the highest outcome discriminatory capacity. This methodology was also completed for the segmentation of the population based on EVD, IPD, and time of data recorded in hospital stay. Results LPRx calculated with 10–120-min windows behaved similarly, with maximal chi-square values ranging at around a LPRx of 0.25–0.35, for both survival and favorable outcome. When investigating the temporal relations of LPRx derived thresholds, the first 4 days appeared to be the most associated with outcomes. The segmentation of the data based on intracranial monitoring found limited differences between EVD and IPD, with similar LPRx values around 0.3. Conclusion Our work suggests that the underlying prognostic factors causing impairment in cerebrovascular reactivity can, to some degree, be detected using lower resolution PRx metrics (similar found thresholding values) with LPRx found clinically using as low as 10 min-by-minute samples of MAP and ICP. Furthermore, EVD derived LPRx with intermittent cerebrospinal fluid draining, seems to present similar outcome capacity as IPD. This low-resolution low sample LPRx method appears to be an adequate substitute for the clinical prognostic value of PRx and may be implemented independent of ICP monitoring method when PRx is not feasible, though further research is warranted.
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    Open Access
    Time spent above optimal cerebral perfusion pressure is not associated with failure to improve in outcome in traumatic brain injury
    (SpringerOpen, 2023-12-14) Stein, Kevin; Froese, Logan; Gomez, Alwyn; Sainbhi, Amanjyot S.; Vakitbilir, Nuray; Ibrahim, Younis; Islam, Abrar; Marquez, Izabella; Amenta, Fiorella; Bergmann, Tobias; Zeiler, Frederick
    Background Optimal cerebral perfusion pressure (CPPopt) has emerged as a promising personalized medicine approach to the management of moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Though literature demonstrating its association with poor outcomes exists, there is yet to be work done on its association with outcome transition due to a lack of serial outcome data analysis. In this study we investigate the association between various metrics of CPPopt and failure to improve in outcome over time. Methods CPPopt was derived using three different cerebrovascular reactivity indices; the pressure reactivity index (PRx), the pulse amplitude index (PAx), and the RAC index. For each index, % times spent with cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) above and below its CPPopt and upper and lower limits of reactivity were calculated. Patients were dichotomized based on improvement in Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended (GOSE) scores into Improved vs. Not Improved between 1 and 3 months, 3 and 6 months, and 1- and 6-month post-TBI. Logistic regression analyses were then conducted, adjusting for the International Mission for Prognosis and Analysis of Clinical Trials (IMPACT) variables. Results This study included a total of 103 patients from the Winnipeg Acute TBI Database. Through Mann–Whitney U testing and logistic regression analysis, it was found that % time spent with CPP below CPPopt was associated with failure to improve in outcome, while % time spent with CPP above CPPopt was generally associated with improvement in outcome. Conclusions Our study supports the existing narrative that time spent with CPP below CPPopt results in poorer outcomes. However, it also suggests that time spent above CPPopt may not be associated with worse outcomes and is possibly even associated with improvement in outcome.
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    Open Access
    The impact of sedative and vasopressor agents on cerebrovascular reactivity in severe traumatic brain injury
    (SpringerOpen, 2023-08-05) Froese, Logan; Hammarlund, Emma; Åkerlund, Cecilia A. I.; Tjerkaski, Jonathan; Hong, Erik; Lindblad, Caroline; Nelson, David W.; Thelin, Eric P.; Zeiler, Frederick
    Background The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of commonly administered sedatives (Propofol, Alfentanil, Fentanyl, and Midazolam) and vasopressor (Dobutamine, Ephedrine, Noradrenaline and Vasopressin) agents on cerebrovascular reactivity in moderate/severe TBI patients. Cerebrovascular reactivity, as a surrogate for cerebral autoregulation was assessed using the long pressure reactivity index (LPRx). We evaluated the data in two phases, first we assessed the minute-by-minute data relationships between different dosing amounts of continuous infusion agents and physiological variables using boxplots, multiple linear regression and ANOVA. Next, we assessed the relationship between continuous/bolus infusion agents and physiological variables, assessing pre-/post- dose of medication change in physiology using a Wilcoxon signed-ranked test. Finally, we evaluated sub-groups of data for each individual dose change per medication, focusing on key physiological thresholds and demographics. Results Of the 475 patients with an average stay of 10 days resulting in over 3000 days of recorded information 367 (77.3%) were male with a median Glasgow coma score of 7 (4–9). The results of this retrospective observational study confirmed that the infusion of most administered agents do not impact cerebrovascular reactivity, which is confirmed by the multiple linear regression components having p value > 0.05. Incremental dose changes or bolus doses in these medications in general do not lead to significant changes in cerebrovascular reactivity (confirm by Wilcoxon signed-ranked p value > 0.05 for nearly all assessed relationships). Within the sub-group analysis that separated the data based on LPRx pre-dose, a significance between pre-/post-drug change in LPRx was seen, however this may be more of a result from patient state than drug impact. Conclusions Overall, this study indicates that commonly administered agents with incremental dosing changes have no clinically significant influence on cerebrovascular reactivity in TBI (nor do they impair cerebrovascular reactivity). Though further investigation in a larger and more diverse TBI patient population is required.
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    Open Access
    Product Specification Analysis for Modular Product Design Using Big Sales Data
    (BMC, 2023-02-13) Zhang, Jian; Li, Bingbing; Peng, Qingjin; Gu, Peihua
    Big data on product sales are an emerging resource for supporting modular product design to meet diversified customers’ requirements of product specification combinations. To better facilitate decision-making of modular product design, correlations among specifications and components originated from customers’ conscious and subconscious preferences can be investigated by using big data on product sales. This study proposes a framework and the associated methods for supporting modular product design decisions based on correlation analysis of product specifications and components using big sales data. The correlations of the product specifications are determined by analyzing the collected product sales data. By building the relations between the product components and specifications, a matrix for measuring the correlation among product components is formed for component clustering. Six rules for supporting the decision making of modular product design are proposed based on the frequency analysis of the specification values per component cluster. A case study of electric vehicles illustrates the application of the proposed method.