I have been negligent in my posting for annotated bibliographies, but I had too many things juggling in the air, and something had to give.  Part of my tardiness relates to my lack of organization of all my PDF files.  You might find it useful for me to describe the workflow I use for finding and referencing new articles:

I have multiple RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication) of journal Tables of Contents (TOC) into Google Reader for the journals I am interested in.  I find this is the most efficient way to keep track of current articles, and I would highly recommend this method.  I then go through the abstracts when the new TOCs appear in Reader, and ‘star’ the ones I think would be interesting to read in full.  I then bring up the on-line library for our institution, and download the PDF’s of those ‘starred’ articles.  Here is where I was having trouble.  I generally gave the files some name vaguely related to the article title and threw them into a catch-all folder on my computer.  Over the months and years the number of PDF’s I have accumulated has grown sizably, but without any overarching organization.

My latest addition to my workflow is the software ‘Mendeley’ (I have no disclosures related to this software).  I ran across this as I was trying to find a new reference manager, and it is one of many.  There is a very helpful Wikipedia entry outlining the various types (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software).  Mendeley allows you to import PDF’s into the desktop version and tries to automatically figure out the article title, journal and citation data.  Once imported, you can organize the files into subfolders or different projects.  Importantly for me, you can do a document keyword search on all the files.  The real power of this type of software is the ability to sync the data to the cloud, and to sync the data between computers.  So this software is sort of a cross between the old Reference Manager and Dropbox.  Mendeley has both PC and Mac versions of the desktop software, and also iPad and iPhone apps.  I currently have over 1700 PDF’s catalogued with this method.  There is a social aspect of the software which I have not explored, allowing cross collaboration with colleagues.  You have to pay for cloud storage, on the order of $5 per month depending upon how much storage you need.

While the pluses have far outweighed the negatives (so far), the software is not without its glitches.  The importing works about 70% of the time getting the article name, authors and citation data correct.  I literally had to look at the citation entries on each one of the 1700+ articles I added. Some journals seem never to work correctly, particularly the NEJM.  If the article is over 50MB in size, it will not upload to the cloud.  I only have one paper this size, which is on the anatomy of cerebral sulci and gyri.  A few times it seems as if the software looked at the wrong DOI, went to the cloud and pulled in the wrong abstract.  This happened maybe 5 times for the 1700 articles.  The software allows you to choose if you want to download only the abstract or the full document, and whether you want to sync upon opening the file, or choose when to sync.  As a test, I downloaded all the PDF’s to my iPhone 3GS.  It’s a trifle slow, but it does work.  The one aspect of the phone software that I have not been able to use is the full database document search.  The application crashes for me when I try and do this, but only on my phone.  Nonetheless, it has been nice while standing in line for coffee to be able to pull up full PDF’s on my phone and read current articles I am interested in.  This is probably better academically than playing Plants vs. Zombies.

I am hoping that this new addition to my organization will allow me to more easily cite the new journal articles I am considering for annotated bibliography.  I will keep you updated on my success or failure.

Here are a few recent articles I have found interesting:

Dailey, A., Harrop, J. S., & France, J. C. (2010). High-energy contact sports and cervical spine neuropraxia injuries: what are the criteria for return to participation? Spine, 35(21 Suppl), S193-201. doi: 10.1097/BRS.0b013e3181f32db0.
This was a systematic review of the literature coupled with expert opinion.  On the basis of expert opinion, there was a recommendation that a return to full participation in high-energy contact sports could be based on radiographic findings: patients with transient neuropraxia without stenosis could return as a strong recommendation, whereas stenotic patients could not return as a weak recommendation.   There is an excellent and comprehensive literature review.

Lu, D. C., Zador, Z., Mummaneni, P. V., & Lawton, M. T. (2010). Rotational vertebral artery occlusion-series of 9 cases. Neurosurgery, 67(4), 1066-72; discussion 1072. doi: 10.1227/NEU.0b013e3181ee36db.
Relatively large group of patients (9) with this uncommon problem, with a focus on surgical approaches.  The authors used far lateral, anterior and minimally invasive approaches to vertebral decompression.  Catheter angiography was the gold standard for diagnosis.

Okada, S., Maeda, T., Saiwai, H., Ohkawa, Y., Shiba, K., & Iwamoto, Y. (2010). Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament of the lumbar spine: a case series. Neurosurgery, 67(5), 1311-8; discussion 1318. doi: 10.1227/NEU.0b013e3181ef2806.
10 of 6192 lumbar spine operations over 27 years were for lumbar ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament.  I find the provided images confusing, since some I would have called osteophytes, some calcified disc herniations.  Reasonable to at least think about this diagnosis when linear enhancement of disc/dura is present in the lumbar spine.

Sundström, P., Wåhlin, A., Ambarki, K., Birgander, R., Eklund, A., & Malm, J. (2010). Venous and cerebrospinal fluid flow in multiple sclerosis: A case-control study. Annals of Neurology, 68(2), 255-9. doi: 10.1002/ana.22132.
The authors studied 21 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis cases and 20 healthy controls with phase- contrast magnetic resonance imaging.  In multiple sclerosis cases they performed contrast- enhanced magnetic resonance angiography. They found no differences regarding internal jugular venous outflow, aqueductal cerebrospinal fluid flow, or the presence of internal jugular blood reflux between MS patients and controls.

Doepp, F., Paul, F., Valdueza, J. M., Schmierer, K., & Schreiber, S. J. (2010). No cerebrocervical venous congestion in patients with multiple sclerosis. Annals of Neurology, 68(2), 173-83. doi: 10.1002/ana.22085.
The authors performed extended extra- and transcranial color-coded sonography study including analysis of extracranial venous blood volume flow, cross-sectional areas, IJV flow analysis during Valsalva maneuver, and CCSVI criteria in 56 MS patients and 20 controls. None of the subjects investigated in this study fulfilled >1 criterion for CCSVI.

Wen, P. Y., Macdonald, D. R., Reardon, D. a, Cloughesy, T. F., Sorensen, a G., Galanis, E., et al. (2010). Updated response assessment criteria for high-grade gliomas: response assessment in neuro-oncology working group. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 28(11), 1963-72. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2009.26.3541.
This is a must read paper for all neuroradiology fellows (and staff).  Take it slow, and read the whole thing.  The paper covers current concepts and methods regarding tumor measurements, progression, pseudoprogression and pseudoresponse.