Objective: The purpose of this study is to find out the level of awareness and acceptance of artificial intelligence (AI) in Pakistan’s medical community so as to comment on its future in our healthcare system. Methods: A survey consisting of 15 close-ended questions was conducted. The questions inquired about awareness about AI and discovered the opinions of healthcare professionals regarding its benefits and expected problems. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 26, and descriptive statistics for percentage and frequency were computed. χ² test was used to analyze the subgroups (Significant p value <0.05). Results: A total of 351 participants were included in this study. General familiarity with AI was low. Only 75 (21.3%) participants answered that they had good familiarity with AI, and only 56 (16%) of them had good familiarity with the role of AI in medicine. One hundred sixty-eight (47.9%) participants disagreed that AI would out-compete the physician in the important traits of professionalism. Only 71 (20.2%) participants believed AI to be diagnostically superior to the physician. Two hundred fourteen (61.0%) were worried about completely trusting AI in its decisions, and 204(58.1%) believed that AI systems lacking human traits would not be able to mirror the doctor-patient relationship. Two hundred sixty-one (74.4%) participants believed that AI would be useful in Administrative tasks. A majority, 162 (46.2%), do not believe that AI would replace them. Finally, a huge majority of participants [225 (64.1%)] demanded the integration of AI in Pakistan’s healthcare system. Conclusion: This study suggests that a majority of healthcare professionals in Pakistan do not believe that they are sufficiently aware of the role of AI in healthcare. This was corroborated by their answers to various questions regarding the capabilities of AI. This study indicates the need for a more comprehensive ascertainment of healthcare professionals’ perceptions regarding the role of Artificial Intelligence in medicine and bridging the gap between doctors and technology to further promote a patient-centred approach to medicine.

Background: A conservative strategy is the primary modality of treatment for acute pancreatitis of which fluid replacement is an important component. Since the results regarding early aggressive versus moderate fluid replenishment for acute pancreatitis are inconsistent, we sought to compare outcomes between the two resuscitation strategies in our meta‐analysis.Methods: We searched MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, the Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov for all available randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing outcomes for patients treated with aggressive fluid replacement compared to moderate fluid replacement. Our primary outcome was all‐cause mortality.Results: Our meta‐analysis included 6 RCTs involving a total of 632 patients. Our results showed that aggressive fluid resuscitation increased the risk of all‐cause mortality as compared to moderate fluid replacement (RR 2.40, CI: 1.38–4.19). For all of our secondary outcomes which included the development of organ failure, severe pancreatitis, pancreatic necrosis, clinical improvement, development of SIRS, persistent SIRS, and length of hospital stay, the results indicate that there was no significant difference between the two groups.Conclusions: Aggressive fluid resuscitation is associated with higher mortality as compared to moderate fluid replacement in patients with acute pancreatitis. RCTs with larger sample sizes are needed to provide greater statistical power and establish more definitive conclusions.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on cardiovascular outcomes. Methods: After searching different databases, we retrieved and included randomized controlled trials on long-term supplementation of vitamin D (≥1-year intervention) and reporting cardiovascular outcomes. We calculated risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for dichotomous outcomes. Results: Compared to the control group, the vitamin D group was not associated with a statistically significant decrease in the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) [risk ratio=0.99; 95% CI: 0.94–1.03]. We found no difference between the vitamin D group and the control group for the outcomes of incidences of myocardial infarction, heart failure, coronary revascularization, cardiovascular death, and all-cause mortality. The heterogeneity was low for all outcomes. Conclusion: According to our meta-analysis, vitamin D supplementation did not reduce major adverse cardiovascular events, other cardiovascular parameters, and all-cause mortality.

The efficacy and safety profile of mavacamten, a cardiac myosin inhibitor for the treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is not well-established, prompting the need for an updated meta-analysis. The authors conducted an extensive search across multiple electronic databases, including Embase, MEDLINE (via Pubmed), and CENTRAL, to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the efficacy and safety of mavacamten in HCM. Review Manager 5.4 (Revman) was employed to pool risk ratios (RR) and mean differences (MD). Our literature search yielded 4 RCTs with a total of 503 patients. Mavacamten was found to be associated with higher rates of greater than or equal to 1 New York Heart Association (NYHA) class improvement (RR 2.20, 95% CI: 1.48–3.28; I²=51%) and change from baseline in the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire- Clinical Summary Score (KCCQ-CSS) (MD 7.50, 95% CI: 3.44–11.55; I² =50%). Mavacamten was also associated with improved resting left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) gradient (MD −38.33, 95% CI: −49.38 to −27.28; I² =75%), Valsalva LVOT gradient (MD −48.08, 95% CI: −62.21 to −33.96; I² =78%), post-exercise LVOT gradient (MD −37.1, 95% CI: −44.37 to −29.84; I² =0%), LVMI (MD −16.91, 95% CI: −28.29 to −5.54; I² =88%), and lower rates of septal reduction therapy (SRT) (RR 0.30, 95% CI: 0.22–0.40; I² =0%). There were no significant differences between mavacamten and placebo regarding the composite functional outcome, greater than or equal to 1 treatment-emergent adverse event, greater than or equal to 1 serious adverse event, and atrial fibrillation. The authors; findings suggest that mavacamten contributes to improvements in NYHA class, KCCQ-CSS scores, and LVOT gradients while reducing the incidence of SRT in patients with HCM.

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