Gregory S. Hawk

• Research Assistant Professor at University of Kentucky

Purpose: To evaluate Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS) pre and post COVID-19 pandemic in a comprehensive perinatal substance treatment program. Methods: Prospective cohort study of pregnant patients with OUD enrolled in a multidisciplinary treatment program between January 2015 and July 2023. 404 patients were delivered prior to the COVID-...

Objectives Liver transplant (LT) is an effective treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in appropriately selected patients. Locoregional therapy (LRT) is often performed to extend a patient’s eligibility for LT. Imaging has a modest sensitivity of approximately 40–77% for detecting pathologically viable HCC in post-LRT patients. The impact on...

Background and aims: Focal liver lesions (FLL) are one of the most common indications for hepatology and hepatobiliary surgery consultation. In this retrospective study, we aim to assess if contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) can address diagnostic dilemmas in the evaluation of indeterminate liver lesions by identifying characteristics of indetermi...

This study examined the association between a dental implant and changes in adjacent teeth over time. Electronic health records of 1818 patients who received a dental implant were retrospectively evaluated over 14 years (2005-2019) in a university setting. The status of the adjacent tooth and vertical and horizontal distance from the implant platfo...

We examined the impact of perpetrator and victim gender on bystander helping choices and assault perceptions. Participants (32 females, 37 males) read about two simultaneously occurring sexual assaults, indicated which victim they would help, and gave their perceptions of the assaults. We used a within-participants design that fully manipulated the...

Quadriceps rate of torque development (RTD) and torque steadiness are valuable metrics for assessing explosive strength and the ability to control force over a sustained period of time, which can inform clinical assessments of knee function. Despite their widespread use, there is a significant gap in standardized methodology for measuring these met...

Objective: To evaluate whether antidepressant utilization alters prenatal compliance in patients with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) enrolled in a multidisciplinary treatment program. Methods: Patients in a cohort study of women enrolled in an SUD program between 2015 and 2022 were eligible. Patients with the co-morbidity of depression at the initial...

OBJECTIVES To examine the effect of local aqueous tobramycin injection adjunct to perioperative intravenous (IV) antibiotic prophylaxis in reducing fracture-related infections (FRIs) following reduction and internal fixation of open fractures. METHODS Design : Retrospective cohort study Setting Single academic Level I trauma center Patient Selec...

A central goal in the world of statistics and data science is the construction of linear regression models for continuous variables of interest. Often, our objective is to examine the impact of one or more explanatory variables, after adjusting for demographic covariates or other known/relevant factor(s). While the traditional approach is to use hy...

OBJECTIVES To compare radiographic and clinical outcomes in non-operative management of humeral shaft fractures treated initially with coaptation splinting (CS) followed by delayed functional bracing (FB) versus treatment with immediate FB. METHODS Design : Retrospective cohort study Setting Academic Level 1 Trauma Center Patient Selection Crite...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether scheduled low-dose, short-term ketorolac modulates cytokine concentrations in orthopaedic polytrauma patients. METHODS Design Secondary analysis of a double-blinded, randomized controlled trial. Setting Single Level I trauma center from August 2018 to October 2022. Patient Selection Criteria Orthopaedic polytraum...

Background Female athletes lag behind their male counterparts in recovery from anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. Quadriceps muscle size and strength are crucial factors for regaining function after ACL injury, but little is known about how these metrics vary due to biological sex. Hypothesis Female patients have reduced vastus lateralis fib...

Graham, MC, Thompson, KL, Hawk, GS, Fry, CS, and Noehren, B. Muscle fiber cross-sectional area is associated with quadriceps strength and rate of torque development after ACL injury. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2023—The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between muscle fiber type–specific properties of the vastus late...

Elevated plasma levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1) are documented in patients with sepsis and levels positively correlate with disease severity and mortality. Our prior work demonstrated that PAI-1 in plasma is positively associated with acute kidney injury (AKI) in septic patients and mice. The objective of this study was to...

γδ T cells are resident in visceral adipose tissue (VAT) where they show an age-associated increase in numbers and contribute to local and systemic chronic inflammation. However, regulation of this population and mechanisms for the age-dependent accumulation are not known. In this study, we identified a progressive trend of γδ T cell accumulation i...

Objective Evaluate maternal and neonatal outcomes after buprenorphine wean compared to patients maintained on buprenorphine throughout pregnancy. Methods Prospective cohort study of pregnant patients with opioid use disorder enrolled in a multidisciplinary treatment program between 2015 and 2022. All patients were offered Medications to treat Opio...

Veteran suicide remains a pressing public health problem in Kentucky (KY) and the United States. Perfect storm theory (PST) suggests that human behavior arises from the intensity of interactions between instigating, impelling, and disinhibiting forces and could be used to study the effects of interacting factors related to catastrophic behaviors su...

Musculoskeletal disorders contribute substantially to worldwide disability. Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears result in unresolved muscle weakness and posttraumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA). Growth differentiation factor 8 (GDF8) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of musculoskeletal degeneration following ACL injury. We investigated GDF8 lev...

This study compared perceived social support among women of all body mass index (BMI) categories with an attempt to assess the efficacy of the BumptUp® mobile application to improve social support for exercise during pregnancy and postpartum. Thirty-five pregnant women living in Southern United States were included in the sample. The intervention g...

Objective: To determine whether scheduled low-dose, short-term ketorolac is associated with reduced length of stay, opioid use, and pain in orthopaedic polytrauma patients. Design: Double-blinded, randomized controlled trial. Setting: One Level 1 trauma center. Patients: From August 2018 to October 2022, 70 orthopaedic polytrauma patients be...

Purpose: Preoperative mood disorders influence postoperative outcomes after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction (ACLR), but the prevalence and risk factors associated with postoperative depression/anxiety development remain unknown. The purposes of this study were to quantify the prevalence of postoperative diagnoses of depression or an...

Background: Rural residence has been associated with a lower incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) but higher health care utilization and worse outcomes. Socioeconomic status is intrinsically tied to both IBD incidence and outcomes. Inflammatory bowel disease outcomes have not been investigated in Appalachia: a rural, economically distress...

Purpose: To determine the association between postoperative utilization of psychological treatment and preoperative depression and/or anxiety in patients who have undergone arthroscopic rotator cuff repair (RCR). Methods: The Truven Healthcare Marketscan database identified patients who underwent arthroscopic RCR between January 2009 and Decembe...

Background The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is commonly injured in elite-level female athletes, which usually requires ACL reconstruction (ACLR). Purpose To analyze return to play (RTP) and changes in performance of players in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) after ACLR. Study Design Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods NWSL play...

Purpose It remains unknown if cephalomedullary nail (CMN) length has an impact on pain and opioid use following fixation. Given the lack of level I evidence favoring a specific CMN length to prevent adverse surgical outcomes, we investigated if CMN length impacts acute postoperative pain and opioid use. The authors hypothesize that the use of longe...

Background A Lisfranc injury can occur to either the ligament or bone, which causes instability when attempting to perform strength and balance maneuvers. Purpose/Hypothesis The study's aims were to (1) analyze the return-to-play (RTP) rate and performance level of players in the National Football League (NFL) after Lisfranc injury and (2) determi...

Purpose: To determine which preoperative factors are associated with prolonged opioid use after medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction (MPFLR). Methods: The M151Ortho PearlDiver database was queried for patients who underwent MPFLR between 2010 and 2020. Inclusion criteria included patients who underwent MPFLR using Current Procedural Ter...

Purpose: To evaluate the epidemiology of concussions in pediatric baseball and softball players. We hypothesized that head-to-ball injuries would be the most common cause of concussions. Methods: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database was used to gather data. Concussions occurring during baseball and softball partici...

Purpose: To evaluate the content and quality of YouTube videos concerning patellar dislocations. Methods: “Patellar dislocation” and “kneecap dislocation” were searched on the YouTube library. The Uniform Resource Locator of the first 25 suggested videos was extracted, for a total of 50 videos. The following variables were collected for each video:...

Complete denture fabrication requires multiple clinical and laboratory steps. One of the most critical clinical steps is establishing an anatomical occlusal plane based on hard and soft tissue references. The aim of this study was to determine whether age or gender affects the level of the Ala-Tragus plane to establish which reference point on the...

Purpose: To explore the impact of oral hygiene practices, as well as beliefs and attitudes toward orthodontic treatment on white spot lesion (WSL) development and plaque accumulation in orthodontic patients. Materials and methods: A total of 106 individuals (61 female, 45 male) patients aged 10-49 years who were treated with fixed appliances tre...

Purpose: To evaluate the epidemiology of concussions in youth ice hockey players. Methods: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database was used to gather data. Concussions occurring during ice hockey participation in youth patients (4-21 years old) from 2012 to 2021 was gathered. Concussion mechanisms were grouped into 7...

To combat maternal morbidity and mortality, interventions designed to increase physical activity levels during and after pregnancy are needed. Mobile phone-based interventions show considerable promise, and BumptUp® has been carefully developed to address the lack of exercise among pregnant and postpartum women. The primary goal of this pilot study...

Introduction Affecting more than 30 million adults annually, osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder in the United States. A variety of management options for knee OA exists, including physical therapy, weight loss, intra-articular corticosteroid injections, and total joint arthroplasty. With many treatments available, patients often...

Objective To identify the prevalence of mood disorder diagnoses in patients undergoing cartilage transplantation procedures and determine the relationship between mood disorders, opioid usage, and postoperative health care costs. Design Patients with current procedural terminology (CPT) codes for osteochondral autograft transplantation (OAT), oste...

The mechanisms through which oral commensal bacteria mitigates uncontrolled inflammatory responses of the oral mucosa remain unknown. Here, we show that representative oral bacterial species normally associated with oral health [ S. gordonii ( Sg ), V. parvula ( Vp ); A. naeslundii ( An ); C. sputigena ( Cs ), and N. mucosa ( Nm )] enhanced differe...

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive age-dependent disorder whose risk is affected by genetic factors. Better models for investigating early effects of risk factors such as apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype are needed. Objective To determine whether APOE genotype produces neuropathologies in an AD-susceptible neural system, we compa...

Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and known carcinogen in the Top 10 on the United States' list of priority pollutants. Humans are exposed through a variety of sources including tobacco smoke, grilled foods and fossil fuel combustion. Recent studies of children exposed to higher levels of PAHs during pregnancy and earl...

Purpose In this study, we investigated whether patients undergoing arthroscopic treatment of femoral acetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) seek health care for treatment of comorbid depression and anxiety in the year following hip arthroscopy. Methods Using the Truven Health Marketscan database, FAIS patients who underwent hip arthroscopy between...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify factors predictive of a large labral tear at the time of shoulder instability surgery. Methods As part of the Multicenter Orthopaedic Outcomes Network (MOON) Shoulder Instability cohort, patients undergoing open or arthroscopic shoulder instability surgery for a labral tear were evaluated. Patients...

Objective: Hearing loss (HL) and apolipoprotein E ε4 (ApoE4) allele are both dementia risk factors. No research has investigated the association of these variables regarding dementia, specifically Alzheimer's disease. Our goal was to evaluate HL and ApoE4 allele positivity toward degree of Alzheimer's neurodegeneration. Study design: Retrospecti...

The concept of Pareto optimality has been utilized in fields such as engineering and economics to understand fluid dynamics and consumer behavior. In machine learning contexts, Pareto-optimality has been used to identify tuning parameters that best optimize a set of m criteria (multi-objective optimization). During the process of regression model s...

Objectives Labral tears are often described by either their location (superior, anterior, or posterior) or their size, commonly defined as degrees of labral involvement from 0° to 360°. Large tears are thought to include 270° or more of the labrum, which has been reported to include 3.3% to 6.5% of those undergoing shoulder instability surgery for...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to 1) quantify the prevalence of mood disorders in patients undergoing arthroscopic rotator cuff repair using a large claims database and 2) compare opioid use and medical costs in the year before and the year after rotator cuff repair between those with and without comorbid mood disorders. Methods The Truven...

Age is a non-modifiable risk factor for the inflammation that underlies age-associated diseases; thus, anti-inflammaging drugs hold promise for increasing health span. Cytokine profiling and bioinformatic analyses showed that Th17 cytokine production differentiates CD4⁺ T cells from lean, normoglycemic older and younger subjects, and mimics a diabe...

There is a lack of vapor intrusion (VI) models that reliably account for weather conditions and building characteristics, especially at sites where active alternative pathways, such as sewer connections and other preferential pathways, are present. Here, a method is presented to incorporate freely-available models, CONTAM, and CFD0, to estimate sit...

Purpose: To determine if opioid use and health care costs in the year before and following hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) differ between those with or without depression or anxiety. Methods: Using the Truven Health Marketscan database, FAI patients who underwent hip arthroscopy between October 2010 and December 2015 were...

Chronic critical illness is a global clinical issue affecting millions of sepsis survivors annually. Survivors report chronic skeletal muscle weakness and development of new functional limitations that persist for years. To delineate mechanisms of sepsis-induced chronic weakness, we first surpassed a critical barrier by establishing a murine model...

Chronic critical illness is a global clinical issue affecting millions of sepsis survivors annually. Survivors report chronic skeletal muscle weakness and development of new functional limitations that persist for years. To delineate mechanisms of sepsis-induced chronic weakness, we first surpassed a critical barrier by establishing a murine model...

Objective: The relationship between hearing loss and cognitive decline is of great importance with growing evidence of hearing loss as an independent modifiable risk factor for dementia. Our goal was to evaluate for differences in dementia neuropathology between subjective normal hearing and hearing loss subjects, as well as subjects who wore hear...