Abstract P153: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Protection Efforts on Acute Stroke Treatment

Stroke ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (Suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Greenwood ◽  
Starlie Belnap ◽  
Rodney Bedgio ◽  
Guilherme Dabus ◽  
Italo Linfante ◽  
...  

Introduction: It is unclear how the interventions designed to restrict community and in-hospital exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus affected the care for stroke patients seeking acute treatment. The objective of the following study was to determine the impact COVID-19 has had on the treatment times for patients evaluated as acute stroke alerts at Baptist Hospital of Miami (BHM). A co-primary objective of the study was to assess the risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 within 2 weeks from hospital discharge. Methods: This retrospective, two phase study was conducted between December 2019 and April 2020. In phase one, we assessed time from symptom onset to hospital arrival, number of strokes with witnessed onset, and in-hospital treatment times pre & post implementation of Covid-19 preventive exposure measures. In phase two of the study, a telephone survey was conducted on the post implementation group to assess the risk of patients developing symptoms or testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 from hospital admission up to two weeks post discharge. Results: Phase I demonstrated there was a 40% decline in stroke volume, but no significant delay to seek medical attention post implementation of the SARS prevention strategies. On average individuals in the pre-group (n=155) waited approximately 260 minutes (SE=24) to seek medical attention vs. 203 minutes (SE=27) minutes for the post-group (n=87). However, there was nearly a six-fold increase in the percentage of cases with unknown symptom onset post implementation of COVID-19 safety precautions. There was significant delay in administering IV alteplase, increasing from 24 mins (n=16) to 33 mins (n=21) post implementation; delays observed for endovascular treatment were not significant (pre, n=13 mean= 73 mins, post n=12 mean= 82 mins). The volume of patients treated with either IV alteplase and/or endovascular treatment remained similar. Phase II of the study is on-going, results will be available for the ISC. Discussion: The COVID-19 crisis in our community was associated with a six-fold increase in the percentage of cases with unknown stroke onset time. Besides a marked decrease in stroke volume, we did not evidence significant delays to either seek or provide acute stroke care outside a modest increase in door to needle time.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caleb R. Matthews ◽  
Mackenzie Madison ◽  
Lava R. Timsina ◽  
Niharika Namburi ◽  
Zainab Faiza ◽  
...  

AbstractThere is a paucity of data describing the effect of time interval between diagnosis and surgery for Acute Type A Aortic Dissection. We describe our 8-year experience and investigate the impact of time interval between symptom onset, diagnosis and surgery on outcomes. Retrospective single-center study utilizing our Society of Thoracic Surgeons registry and patient records. Subjects were grouped by time interval between radiographic diagnosis and surgical treatment: Group A (0–4 h), Group B (4.1–8 h), Group C (8.1–12 h), and Group D (12.1 + h). Data were analyzed to identify factors associated with mortality and outcomes. 164 patients were included. Overall mortality was 21.3%. Group C had the greatest intervals between symptom onset to diagnosis to surgery, and also the highest mortality (66.7%). Preoperative tamponade, cardiac arrest, malperfusion, elevated creatinine, cardiopulmonary bypass time, and blood transfusions were associated with increased mortality, while distance of referring hospital was not. Time intervals between symptom onset, diagnosis and surgery have a significant effect on mortality. Surgery performed 8–12 h after diagnosis carries the highest mortality, which may be exacerbated by longer interval since symptom onset. Time-dependent effects should be considered when determining optimal strategy especially if inter-facility transfer is necessary.


Stroke ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad H Niazi ◽  
Mohammad El-Ghanem ◽  
Kevin Cockroft ◽  
Kathy Morrison ◽  
Alicia Richardson ◽  
...  

Background: Prehospital triage tools are essential to identify large vessel occlusion (LVO) in order to triage patients to a comprehensive stroke center for timely endovascular treatment (ET). Prehospital Acute Stroke Severity Scale (PASS) (score range 0-3) was recently identified as a valuable tool to predict LVO. Several studies have shown that in patients treated with IV tPA, a score calculated by multiplying admission NIHSS by the time from symptom onset to tPA treatment (in hours) can predict outcome. In our study, we applied similar concept for patients with LVO who underwent successful ET. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed all LVO patients between January 2015 and June 2016 who received ET. We analyzed the association of time of symptom onset to groin time (OGT), NIHSS, PASS, NIHSS-OGT, and PASS-OGT with modified Rankin scale (mRS) at the time of discharge. Results: Fifty-four patients underwent ET during the study period. Patients with posterior circulation LVO and those treated after 6 hours from last known normal were excluded. A total of 34 patients were left for final analysis. Patients with a good outcome (mRS ≤2) had an average NIHSS-OGT score of 43.2 (95% CI: 29.7-56.8) and PASS-OGT score of 5.52 (95% CI: 4.48-6.56). Patient’s with poor to miserable outcomes (mRS 3-6) average NIHSS-OGT 84.7 (95% CI: 72.8-96.6) and PASS-OGT average 9.8 (95% CI: 8.3-11.2). For NIHSS-OGT cut off of 55 the sensitivity and specificity was 0.75 and 0.85 respectively; diagnostic odds ratio 16.5 (96% CI: 2.41-112.83). For PASS-OGT cut off of 6.5 the sensitivity and specificity were 0.88 and 0.76 respectively; diagnostic odds ratio 23.33 (95% CI: 2.37-229.33). The wide confidence intervals can be attributed to small sample size. Conclusion: Our study indicates NIHSS–OGT and PASS-OGT scores have a linear relationship with discharge mRS and can reliably predict early clinical outcomes after ET. Further confirmation with randomized control trials is needed.


Radiology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 257 (3) ◽  
pp. 782-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Petkova ◽  
Sebastian Rodrigo ◽  
Catherine Lamy ◽  
Georges Oppenheim ◽  
Emmanuel Touzé ◽  
...  

Stroke ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Shack ◽  
Andrea Andrade ◽  
Manohar Shroff ◽  
Mahendranath Moharir ◽  
Ivanna Yau ◽  
...  

Introduction: In pediatric stroke, reported median delays from symptom onset to imaging diagnosis are 16-24hrs. This results in delayed treatment initiation. The impact of an Acute Stroke Protocol in pediatric hospitals has not been reported. Such a program was implemented at SickKids in 2005. The current study measured the impact of this protocol on delays to diagnosis and initiation of antithrombotic agents. Methods: We compared time to diagnosis and treatment in children (age 1mo-18yrs) with acute AIS diagnosed after stroke protocol implementation (‘post-protocol’ from 2005-2012), to 209 children diagnosed ‘pre-protocol’ 1992-2004. Focused health record reviews abstracted intervals from symptom onset to diagnosis and to initiation of first antithrombotic treatment. We statistically compared time intervals in pre and post-protocol cohorts. Results: Among 118 children diagnosed post-protocol (75 outpatient and 43 inpatient strokes), median age was 5.8 years with 65 males. Median delay from symptom onset to diagnosis in post-protocol children was similar to pre-protocol children, for all strokes (19.9hrs vs 22.7hrs respectively; p=0.24), outpatient (22.4hrs vs 29.1hrs; p=0.12) and inpatient strokes (12.8hrs vs 14.6hrs; p=0.92). The main contributors to diagnosis beyond 6 hrs were delays in initial neuroimaging (25% of delays) and false-negative neuroimaging results (19% of delays) in CT scan as first test. The interval from diagnosis to antithrombotic treatment was more frequently within 24 hours for children treated post-protocol (55.1% vs 18.7% pre-protocol;p<0.0001) and in post-protocol children this interval was median 4.5 hrs (IQR 1.9-16.6). Also children with inpatient strokes more frequently received antithrombotic agents post-protocol (58% vs 35% pre-protocol;p=0.031). The types of antithrombotic treatments were similar (p=0.337). Conclusions: The implementation of an Acute Stroke Protocol in our children’s hospital reduced the time to initiation of antithrombotic treatment. As thrombolysis and other hyper-acute treatments become available, the implementation of institutional Acute Stroke Protocols in children’s hospitals will be an important strategy to increase access to these therapies for children with AIS.


2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastian Cheng ◽  
Mathias Brinkmann ◽  
Nils D Forkert ◽  
Andras Treszl ◽  
Martin Ebinger ◽  
...  

In acute stroke magnetic resonance imaging, a ‘mismatch’ between visibility of an ischemic lesion on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and missing corresponding parenchymal hyperintensities on fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) data sets was shown to identify patients with time from symptom onset ≤4.5 hours with high specificity. However, moderate sensitivity and suboptimal interpreter agreement are limitations of a visual rating of FLAIR lesion visibility. We tested refined image analysis methods in patients included in the previously published PREFLAIR study using refined visual analysis and quantitative measurements of relative FLAIR signal intensity (rSI) from a three-dimensional, segmented stroke lesion volume. A total of 399 patients were included. The rSI of FLAIR lesions showed a moderate correlation with time from symptom onset ( r = 0.382, P < 0.001). A FLAIR rSI threshold of <1.0721 predicted symptom onset ≤4.5 hours with slightly increased specificity (0.85 versus 0.78) but also slightly decreased sensitivity (0.47 versus 0.58) as compared with visual analysis. Refined visual analysis differentiating between ‘subtle’ and ‘obvious’ FLAIR hyperintensities and classification and regression tree algorithms combining information from visual and quantitative analysis also did not improve diagnostic accuracy. Our results raise doubts whether the prediction of stroke onset time by visual image judgment can be improved by quantitative rSI measurements.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sai Akilesh M ◽  
Ashish Wadhwani

: Infectious diseases have been prevalent since many decades and viral pathogens have caused global health crisis and economic meltdown on a devastating scale. High occurrence of newer viral infections in the recent years, in spite of the progress achieved in the field of pharmaceutical sciences defines the critical need for newer and more effective antiviral therapies and diagnostics. The incidence of multi-drug resistance and adverse effects due to the prolonged use of anti-viral therapy is also a major concern. Nanotechnology offers a cutting edge platform for the development of novel compounds and formulations for biomedical applications. The unique properties of nano-based materials can be attributed to the multi-fold increase in the surface to volume ratio at the nano-scale, tunable surface properties of charge and chemical moieties. Idealistic pharmaceutical properties such as increased bioavailability and retention times, lower toxicity profiles, sustained release formulations, lower dosage forms and most importantly, targeted drug delivery can be achieved through the approach of nanotechnology. The extensively researched nano-based materials are metal and polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers and micelles, nano-drug delivery vesicles, liposomes and lipid based nanoparticles. In this review article, the impact of nanotechnology on the treatment of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) viral infections during the last decade are outlined.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1321
Author(s):  
Constanza Saka-Herrán ◽  
Enric Jané-Salas ◽  
Antoni Mari-Roig ◽  
Albert Estrugo-Devesa ◽  
José López-López

The purpose of this review was to identify and describe the causes that influence the time-intervals in the pathway of diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer and to assess its impact on prognosis and survival. The review was structured according to the recommendations of the Aarhus statement, considering original data from individual studies and systematic reviews that reported outcomes related to the patient, diagnostic and pre-treatment intervals. The patient interval is the major contributor to the total time-interval. Unawareness of signs and/or symptoms, denial and lack of knowledge about oral cancer are the major contributors to the process of seeking medical attention. The diagnostic interval is influenced by tumor factors, delays in referral due to higher number of consultations and previous treatment with different medicines or dental procedures and by professional factors such as experience and lack of knowledge related to the disease and diagnostic procedures. Patients with advanced stage disease, primary treatment with radiotherapy, treatment at an academic facility and transitions in care are associated with prolonged pre-treatment intervals. An emerging body of evidence supports the impact of prolonged pre-treatment and treatment intervals with poorer survival from oral cancer.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. s111-s112
Author(s):  
Mohammed Alsuhaibani ◽  
Mohammed Alzunitan ◽  
Kyle Jenn ◽  
Daniel Diekema ◽  
Michael Edmond ◽  
...  

Background: Surveillance for surgical site infections (SSI) is recommended by the CDC. Currently, colon and abdominal hysterectomy SSI rates are publicly available and impact hospital reimbursement. However, the CDC NHSN allows surgical procedures to be abstracted based on International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) or current procedural terminology (CPT) codes. We assessed the impact of using ICD and/or CPT codes on the number of cases abstracted and SSI rates. Methods: We retrieved administrative codes (ICD and/or CPT) for procedures performed at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics over 1 year: October 2018–September 2019. We included 10 procedure types: colon, hysterectomy, cesarean section, breast, cardiac, craniotomy, spinal fusion, laminectomy, hip prosthesis, and knee prosthesis surgeries. We then calculated the number of procedures that would be abstracted if we used different permutations in administration codes: (1) ICD codes only, (2) CPT codes only, (3) both ICD and CPT codes, and (4) at least 1 code from either ICD or CPT. We then calculated the impact on SSI rates based on any of the 4 coding permutations. Results: In total, 9,583 surgical procedures and 180 SSIs were detected during the study period using the fourth method (ICD or CPT codes). Denominators varied according to procedure type and coding method used. The number of procedures abstracted for breast surgery had a >10-fold difference if reported based on ICD only versus ICD or CPT codes (104 vs 1,109). Hip prosthesis had the lowest variation (638 vs 767). For SSI rates, cesarean section showed almost a 3-fold increment (2.6% when using ICD only to 7.32% with both ICD & CPT), whereas abdominal hysterectomy showed nearly a 2-fold increase (1.14% when using CPT only to 2.22% with both ICD & CPT codes). However, SSI rates remained fairly similar for craniotomy (0.14% absolute difference), hip prosthesis (0.24% absolute difference), and colon (0.09% absolute difference) despite differences in the number of abstracted procedures and coding methods. Conclusions: Denominators and SSI rates vary depending on the coding method used. Variations in the number of procedures abstracted and their subsequent impact on SSI rates were not predictable. Variations in coding methods used by hospitals could impact interhospital comparisons and benchmarking, potentially leading to disparities in public reporting and hospital penalties.Funding: NoneDisclosures: None


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 453
Author(s):  
Gabriela Wiergowska ◽  
Dominika Ludowicz ◽  
Kamil Wdowiak ◽  
Andrzej Miklaszewski ◽  
Kornelia Lewandowska ◽  
...  

To improve physicochemical properties of vardenafil hydrochloride (VAR), its amorphous form and combinations with excipients—hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD)—were prepared. The impact of the modification on physicochemical properties was estimated by comparing amorphous mixtures of VAR to their crystalline form. The amorphous form of VAR was obtained as a result of the freeze-drying process. Confirmation of the identity of the amorphous dispersion of VAR was obtained through the use of comprehensive analysis techniques—X-ray powder diffraction (PXRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), supported by FT-IR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy) coupled with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The amorphous mixtures of VAR increased its apparent solubility compared to the crystalline form. Moreover, a nearly 1.3-fold increase of amorphous VAR permeability through membranes simulating gastrointestinal epithelium as a consequence of the changes of apparent solubility (Papp crystalline VAR = 6.83 × 10−6 cm/s vs. Papp amorphous VAR = 8.75 × 10−6 cm/s) was observed, especially for its combinations with β-CD in the ratio of 1:5—more than 1.5-fold increase (Papp amorphous VAR = 8.75 × 10−6 cm/s vs. Papp amorphous VAR:β-CD 1:5 = 13.43 × 10−6 cm/s). The stability of the amorphous VAR was confirmed for 7 months. The HPMC and β-CD are effective modifiers of its apparent solubility and permeation through membranes simulating gastrointestinal epithelium, suggesting a possibility of a stronger pharmacological effect.


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