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Ireland's central source for Open Access health research
Lenus, the Irish Health Research repository is the leading source for Irish research in health and social care. The Lenus collections include peer reviewed journal articles, grey literature, dissertations, reports and conference presentations. Lenus contains the publications of the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) and the collected research output of over 130 health organisations past and present are all freely accessible.
Submit Your Research to Lenus
If you are an Irish researcher or have conducted research in an Irish institution or health organisation, you can add your published research to Lenus. Submitted articles must be available in Open Access format or the publisher's policy must permit author self archiving. Advice on Open Access publishing and publishers' policies is available on the 'Open Access Publishing Guide' and 'Publishers' policies' pages available on the left-hand menu.
Authors and researchers – have you applied for an ORCID?
ORCIDs are a form of persistent unique identifier that gather all your published research together and link it unambiguously with you. Having an ORCID means eliminating confusion with similarly-named authors, and allows you to list all past affiliations, funding details and publications. Click here to get your free ORCID today.
HSE Open Access Research Awards 2022
The 9th annual HSE Open Access Research Awards are now open for entry.
The awards celebrate practitioners and researchers working across health and social care disciplines in Ireland who are publishing and making their research available in Open Access format.
The awards are judged across a number of categories, and for 2022 the categories are:
Acute Care and Hospitals
Community and Social Care
Mental Health and Disabilities
Integrated Services
Climate or Environmental Health
Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges with research experience. There will be a prize for each category, and an overall winner will also be selected as representing the best of all submissions received.
This year there will be a special Innovation prize to recognise outstanding developments in practice or service delivery.
Winners will receive a custom piece of glassware celebrating their achievement.
Criteria for Entry
Entries must fulfil the following criteria:
- The research must have been published within the past two years (24 months)
- The research must be available in full text in an Open Access forum (and added to the Lenus repository as a condition of entry)
- At least one author must be working for or on behalf of the health services
Entries close on Friday October 28th 2022 and the winners will be announced in early December. Enquiries about the awards can be directed to lenus@hse.ie.
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Communities in Lenus
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Recently Added
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Ultraviolet disinfection robots to improve hospital cleaning: Real promise or just a gimmick?The global COVID-19 pandemic due to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has challenged the availability of traditional surface disinfectants. It has also stimulated the production of ultraviolet-disinfection robots by companies and institutions. These robots are increasingly advocated as a simple solution for the immediate disinfection of rooms and spaces of all surfaces in one process and as such they seem attractive to hospital management, also because of automation and apparent cost savings by reducing cleaning staff. Yet, there true potential in the hospital setting needs to be carefully evaluated. Presently, disinfection robots do not replace routine (manual) cleaning but may complement it. Further design adjustments of hospitals and devices are needed to overcome the issue of shadowing and free the movement of robots in the hospital environment. They might in the future provide validated, reproducible and documented disinfection processes. Further technical developments and clinical trials in a variety of hospitals are warranted to overcome the current limitations and to find ways to integrate this novel technology in to the hospitals of to-day and the future.
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Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Wound Bundles in Emergency Midline Laparotomy Identifies That It Is Time for Improvement.Background: Emergency midline laparotomy is the cornerstone of survival in patients with peritonitis. While bundling of care elements has been shown to optimize outcomes, this has focused on elective rather than emergency abdominal surgery. The aim of this study was to undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis of factors affecting the development of surgical site infection (SSI) in patients undergoing midline emergency laparotomy. Methods: An ethically approved, PROSPERO registered (ID: CRD42020193246) meta-analysis and systematic review, searching PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane Library electronic databases from January 2015 to June 2020 and adhering to PRISMA guidelines was undertaken. Search headings included "emergency surgery", "laparotomy", "surgical site infection", "midline incision" and "wound bundle". Suitable publications were graded using Methodological Index for Non-Randomised Studies (MINORS); papers scoring ≥16/24 were included for data analysis. The primary outcome in this study was SSI rates following the use of wound bundles. Secondary outcomes consisted of the effect of the individual interventions included in the bundles and the SSI rates for superficial and deep infections. Five studies focusing on closure techniques were grouped to assess their effect on SSI. Results: This study identified 1875 articles. A total of 58 were potentially suitable, and 11 were included after applying MINORS score. The final cohort included 2,856 patients from eight countries. Three papers came from the USA, two papers from Japan and the remainder from Denmark, England, Iran, Netherlands, Spain and Turkey. There was a 32% non-significant SSI reduction after the implementation of wound bundles (RR = 0.68; CI, 0.39-1.17; p = 0.16). In bundles used for technical closure the reduction in SSI of 15% was non-significant (RR = 0.85; CI, 0.57-1.26; p = 0.41). Analysis of an effective wound bundle was limited due to insufficient data. Conclusions: This study identified a significant deficit in the world literature relating to emergency laparotomy and wound outcome optimisation. Given the global burden of emergency general surgery urgent action is needed to assess bundle's ability to potentially improve outcome after emergency laparotomy.
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Meningioma uptake of Gallium-PSMA-11 as a pitfall on positron emission tomography/computer tomography.Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy in men with high incidence of recurrence following treatment. Biochemical recurrence, as indicated by rising PSA levels following successful treatment of the primary disease, is a frequent encounter in routine clinical practice. 68Gallium-PSMA positron emission tomography/computer tomography has been widely accepted as the modality of choice with the highest impact in management of this group of patients. Pitfalls of this diagnostic technique stem from the diversity of histological entities, other than prostate tumour cells, which can demonstrate increased uptake of the radiotracer. We present a case of intracranial uptake of PSMA by meningioma in a patient with BCR, as a pitfall in imaging of prostate cancer. Knowledge of normal distribution of the tracer is of utmost importance when reading positron emission tomography/computer tomography imaging especially given the relative novelty of usage of 68Gallium-PSMA.
