Clinical Presentations of Iranian Confirmed COVID-19 Patients at the Admission Time: A Preliminary Retrospective Study

Background and Aims: The current preliminary study aimed to assess the clinical symptoms of the 67 Iranian COVID-19 patients and investigate the possible beneficial effects of the naproxen compared to the standard therapeutic regimen. Materials and Methods: We assessed 67 COVID-19 patients. All COVID-19 cases were confirmed by computed tomography (CT) and real time-polymerase chain reaction tests. We evaluated the clinical symptoms of the patients at the admission time. Also, a group of 28 patients received naproxen besides their standard treatment. Clinical presentations, radiographic features, white blood cells (WBC) in peripheral blood, hemoglobin, platelets, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, blood urea nitrogen, lactate dehydrogenase, Albumin, and Creatine Phosphokinase were evaluated. Results: The patients' clinical symptoms show that cough (89.6%) was the most repeated signed at the admission time, followed by fever at 78.7%, fatigue at 70%, and myalgia at least 64.2%. Unilateral slight ground-glass opacity was the most abundant presentation by 64.1% in CT. The laboratory assessment in patients indicates that mean WBC was 6193 ± 3258 (x106/L), and mean lymphocyte was 27.8 ± 12%. The survival rate and the hospitalization days for patients with or without the Naproxen regimen were not statistically significant. Conclusion: The most common clinical symptoms in Iranian patients with COVID-19 at the admission time include cough, fever, fatigue, and myalgia. Based on the current study results, the survival rate and the hospitalization days for patients with or without Naproxen usage were not statistically significant. The laboratory parameters could not show any particular statistically significant differences.

Low serum calcium is associated with perioperative blood loss and transfusion rate in elderly patients with hip fracture: a retrospective study

Background To investigate whether hypocalcemia influenced total blood loss and transfusion rate in elderly patients with hip fracture. Methods From our hip fracture database, patients were consecutively included between January 2014 and December 2020. Serum calcium level was corrected for albumin concentration, and hypocalcaemia was defined as corrected calcium < 2.11 mmol/L. Hemoglobin and hematocrit were obtained on admission day and postoperative day, and blood transfusions were collected. According to the combination formulas of Nadler and Gross, the total blood loss of each patient was calculated. Risk factors were further analyzed by multivariate linear regression. Results A total of 583 consecutive elderly hip fracture patients were finally included (mean age 79.32 ± 8.18 years, 68.61% female). On admission, the mean serum corrected calcium level was 2.17 ± 0.14 mmol/L, and the prevalence of hypocalcemia was 33.11% (95% CI: 29.42–37.02). When comparing patients with normal calcium, hypocalcemia patients exhibited a higher blood transfusion rate (7.69% vs 16.06%, P < 0.05), and significantly larger total blood loss (607.86 ± 497.07 ml vs 719.18 ± 569.98 ml, P < 0.05). Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that male, anemia on admission, time from injury to hospital, intertrochanteric fracture, blood transfusion and hypocalcemia were independently associated with increased total blood loss (P < 0.05). Conclusion Hypocalcemia is common in elderly patients with hip fracture, and significantly associated with more total blood loss and blood transfusion. The other risk factors for increased total blood loss are male, anemia on admission, time from injury to hospital, intertrochanteric fracture, and blood transfusion. Level of evidence Level III, retrospective study.

Demographic, clinical, and paraclinical characteristics of COVID-19 pediatric cases in southeast Iran

Background Even though children seem to be less vulnerable to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, still a diverse range of clinical presentations and symptoms have been reported in children. Few studies assessed the clinical presentations of COVID-19 among Iranian children. We aimed to evaluate the clinical and paraclinical characteristics of COVID-19 infected children. Methods All COVID-19 suspected and confirmed children were referred to the Ali-ibn-Abitaleb Hospital, Zahedan, Iran. Patients were included in this longitudinal study. Patients were evaluated at admission and during hospitalization. Patients with some of the main COVID symptoms with positive PCR test were defined as confirmed cases. Clinical, imaging and laboratory results were collected for all patients. Results A total of 62 patients participated in this study. The male:female ratio was 1:1.03. There was a significant difference in fatigue prevalence between age groups (P = 0.002). There was no significant difference between groups in terms of fever duration (P = 0.624) and maximum temperature (P = 0.629). There was a significant difference between PCR positive and negative patients in terms of neurologic signs (P = 0.003), Intensive care unit admission (P = 0.001), white blood cell (P = 0.047). Conclusions Even though our population was small, most of the findings matched other studies conducted on pediatric cases in Iran or other countries. It was also found that some clinical features such as pneumonia, cough, diarrhea, and tachycardia at admission time were statistically different among age groups.

Resident interactions when affirming and correcting peers in a therapeutic community for women

Purpose While recent years have seen a number of studies of social networks in therapeutic communities (TCs) and other residential settings, these have primarily focused on male residents. This paper aims to conduct a longitudinal social network analysis of interpersonal interactions in a TC for women. Design/methodology/approach The data consists of a longitudinal directed social network of instances of feedback between 56 residents of a 16 bed TC for women over a period of 611 days. Mean age of the participants was 33.1 years, mean length of stay was 133.9 days and 91% of the participants were female. Feedback consisted of written affirmations for prosocial behavior and written corrections for contravening TC norms. Data was analyzed using a latent factor longitudinal social network model. Findings Residents react to peer intervention in complex ways. Residents reciprocated affirmations (B = 0.14, 95% confidence interval = 0.10, 0.18) and corrections (B = 0.20, 95% CI = 0.13, 0.25). Controlling for reciprocity, participants who received affirmations were more likely to affirm and correct peers (B = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.06, 0.15; B = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.10, 0.23), suggesting that the encouragement offered by affirmations leads to increased activity. Homophily by admission time occurred in both affirmations and corrections (B = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.10, 0.37; B = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.29, 0.74). Originality/value While affirmations and corrections serve as vehicles for behavioral reinforcement and social learning, they also allow residents to interact in ways that strengthen social bonds.

COVID-19 Screening of Breast Cancer Patients During Treatment: A Single Center Experience in Japan

Background/Aim: Breast cancer treatment mainly involves interventional methods such as surgical resection and chemotherapy. How to best perform these treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic remains to be established. Patients and Methods: Patients with breast cancer who received SARS-CoV-2 PCR screening before cancer treatment from December 2020 to April 2021 were included. PCR screening was performed within 72 hours of the scheduled admission time and treatment. Results: A total of 19 tests in 15 patients were analysed. Fourteen cases displayed no symptoms, and five cases had some symptoms. COVID PCR tests were negative in all cases. Conclusion: COVID-19 screening can ensure that breast cancer patients do not miss scheduled treatments as a result of the pandemic. Diagnosis of patients with symptoms that are shared by COVID-19 infection, chemotherapy, and breast cancer recurrence must be performed carefully.

Quantifying the impact of addressing data challenges in prediction of length of stay

Background Prediction of length of stay (LOS) at admission time can provide physicians and nurses insight into the illness severity of patients and aid them in avoiding adverse events and clinical deterioration. It also assists hospitals with more effectively managing their resources and manpower. Methods In this field of research, there are some important challenges, such as missing values and LOS data skewness. Moreover, various studies use a binary classification which puts a wide range of patients with different conditions into one category. To address these shortcomings, first multivariate imputation techniques are applied to fill incomplete records, then two proper resampling techniques, namely Borderline-SMOTE and SMOGN, are applied to address data skewness in the classification and regression domains, respectively. Finally, machine learning (ML) techniques including neural networks, extreme gradient boosting, random forest, support vector machine, and decision tree are implemented for both approaches to predict LOS of patients admitted to the Emergency Department of Odense University Hospital between June 2018 and April 2019. The ML models are developed based on data obtained from patients at admission time, including pulse rate, arterial blood oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, systolic blood pressure, triage category, arrival ICD-10 codes, age, and gender. Results The performance of predictive models before and after addressing missing values and data skewness is evaluated using four evaluation metrics namely receiver operating characteristic, area under the curve (AUC), R-squared score (R2), and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE). Results show that the performance of predictive models is improved on average by 15.75% for AUC, 32.19% for R2 score, and 11.32% for NRMSE after addressing the mentioned challenges. Moreover, our results indicate that there is a relationship between the missing values rate, data skewness, and illness severity of patients, so it is clinically essential to take incomplete records of patients into account and apply proper solutions for interpolation of missing values. Conclusion We propose a new method comprised of three stages: missing values imputation, data skewness handling, and building predictive models based on classification and regression approaches. Our results indicated that addressing these challenges in a proper way enhanced the performance of models significantly, which led to a more valid prediction of LOS.

On- vs off-hours primary percutaneous coronary intervention: a single-centre experience

Introduction In ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients, emergency medical system delays importantly affect outcomes. The effect of admission time in STEMI patients is dubious when percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is the preferred reperfusion strategy. Aims The authors aimed to retrospectively describe the association between admission time and STEMI patient's care standards and outcomes. Methods Characteristics and outcomes of 1222 consecutive STEMI patients treated in a PCI-centre were collected. On-hours were defined as admission on non-national-holidays from Monday to Friday from 8 AM to 6 PM. Time delays, in-hospital and one-year all-cause mortality were assessed. Results A total of 439 patients (36%) were admitted on-hours and 783 patients (64%) were admitted off-hours. Baseline characteristics were well-balanced between groups, including the percentage of patients admitted in cardiogenic shock (on-hours: 4.6% vs off-hours 4%; p=0.62). Median emergency system dependent time to reperfusion (i.e. first-medical contact to reperfusion) did not differ between the two groups (on-hours: 120 min vs. off-hours 123 min, p=0.54). The authors observed no association between admission time and in-hospital mortality (on-hours: 5% vs. off-hours 4.9%, p=0.90) or 1-year mortality (on-hours: 10% vs. off-hours 10%, p=0.97). In patients admitted directly in the PCI-centre, median time from first-medical contact to reperfusion (on-hours: 87 min vs off-hours: 88 min, p=0.54), in-hospital mortality (on-hours: 4% vs off-hours: 7%, p=0.30) and 1 year mortality (on-hours: 9% vs off-hours: 13%, p=0.27) did not differ between the two groups. Survival analysis showed no survival benefit of on-hours PCI over off-hours PCI (HR 1.01; 95% CI [0.77–1.46], p=0.95). Conclusion In a contemporary well-organized emergency network, STEMI patients admission time in the PCI-centre was not associated with reperfusion delays or increased mortality. FUNDunding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None. Kaplan-Meier curve

Early Decompressive Craniectomy: A Life Saving Option in Closed Head Trauma

Aim: To determine outcome and factors associated with outcome among patients with closed head injury who underwent decompressive craniectomy. Methodology: Cross sectional analytical study conducted in Neurosurgery Department of teaching hospital Dera Ghazi Khan from January, 2021 to June, 2021. Total 105 patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study. Approval of ethical review committee was obtained. All the patients with closed head injury which underwent decompressive craniectomy were included. Socio demographic profile, mode of injury, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) at admission time, pupillary reaction and timing from hospital admission to surgery, duration of surgery, length of hospital stay and occurrence of CSF leakage was noted. SPSS version 22 was used for data entry and analysis. Results: Head injury was more common in males. 43.8% cases admitted with GCS score between 3-8 and with head injury by road traffic accident. Leakage of CSF was recorded in 13.3% patients. Mortality was recorded in 18.1% patients. GCS at time of admission, time elapsed between admission and surgery and duration of surgery was significantly associated with the outcome. Conclusion: Early decompressive craniectomy significantly reduce death rate in patients with closed head injury. Keywords: Craniectomy, Outcome, Glasgow coma scale

Metabolic Changes in SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Clinical Data and Molecular Hypothesis to Explain Alterations of Lipid Profile and Thyroid Function Observed in COVID-19 Patients

It seems that during SARS-CoV-2 infection, total cholesterol, LDL-C, and HDL-C values decrease and lipids could play a fundamental role in viral replication. Moreover, it has been shown that SARS-CoV-2 infection could influence thyroid function. We performed a retrospective analysis of 118 hospitalized patients with COVID-19, comparing pre-infection lipid profile (53 patients) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) values (45 patients) to those measured on admission. Our aim was to evaluate whether SARS-CoV-2 infection could be involved in thyroid and lipid profile alterations and study possible correlations with disease severity and clinical outcome. Median baseline values at the admission time were: total cholesterol at 136.89 ± 42.73 mg/dL, LDL-C 81.53 ± 30.35 mg/dL, and HDL-C 32.36 ± 15.13 mg/dL; and triglycerides at 115.00 ± 40.45 mg/dL, non-HDL-C 104.53 ± 32.63 md/dL, and TSH 1.15 ± 1.08 μUI/mL. Median values of pre-infection total cholesterol, HDL-C, and TSH were significantly higher than those measured at the admission time (p value < 0.05). The C-reactive protein (CRP) negatively correlated with LDL-C (p = 0.013) and HDL-C (p = 0.05). Our data underline a possible impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on thyroid function. Moreover it suggests a possible relation between COVID-19 and the lipid profile with a negative correlation between CRP, LDL-C, and HDL-C values, proposing the hypothesis that lipid lowering could follow the rising of the COVID-19 inflammatory state.