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Ethical Review Processes as a Barrier to Research in Primary Healthcare: Reflection on the Submission of a Multicenter Study
No full textinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Sociodemographic, Clinical, and Behavioral Factors Associated With Sexual Transmitted Infection Among HIV-1 Positive Migrants in Portugal: Are There Differences Between Sexes?
No full textIntroduction: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to occur at high levels. According to the WHO, each year there are an estimated 374 million new infections with syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis. STIs are associated with an increased risk of acquiring HIV infection. Migrants are reportedly highly affected by STIs.
Objectives: This study aims to characterize factors associated with STIs in a population of HIV-positive migrants living in Portugal.
Methodology: This is a cross-sectional observational study of 265 newly diagnosed HIV-1 positive migrants, who were defined as individuals born outside Portugal. This group of people were part of the BESTHOPE study that was developed in 17 Portuguese hospitals between September 2014 and December 2019, and included information collected through sociodemographic and behavioral questionnaires filled in by the migrant patients, clinical questionnaires filled in by the clinicians and HIV-1 genomic sequences generated through resistance testing (Sanger sequencing). A multivariable statistical analysis was used to analyze the association between sociodemographic characteristics, sexual behaviors, HIV testing and sexual infections.
Results: Most HIV-1 positive individuals included in the study were men (66.8%) and aged between 25 and 44 years old (59.9%). Men had a higher proportion of STIs when compared to women (40.4% vs. 14.0%) and the majority of men reported homosexual contacts (52.0%). Most men reported having had two or more occasional sexual partners in the previous year (88.8%) and 50.9% reported always using condoms with occasional partners, while 13.2% never used it. For regular partners, only 29.5% of the women reported using condoms, compared to 47.3% of men. Other risk behaviors for acquiring HIV, such as tattooing and performing invasive medical procedures, were more prevalent in men (38.0% and 46.2%, respectively), when compared to women (30.4% and 45.1% respectively) and 4.7% of men reported having already shared injectable materials, with no data for comparison in the case for women. Additionally, 23.9% of women reported having had a blood transfusion while only 10.3% of men reported having had this medical procedure. Meanwhile, 30.9% of the individuals reported having been diagnosed with some type of STI in the last 12 months. In addition, 43.3% of individuals that answered a question about hepatitis reported to be infected with hepatitis B, while 13.0% reported having hepatitis C infection. According to the multivariable analysis, the only transmission route was significantly associated with reports of previous STI infection: men who have sex with men (MSM) were 70% more likely to have been diagnosed with an STI in the past 12 months compared to the heterosexual route.
Conclusion: HIV-1 infected men were more likely to report previous STIs than women. On the other hand, most migrant women had a regular sexual partner and never or only sometimes used condoms. This somewhat discrepant findings suggest that gender inequalities may make women unable to negotiate safe sexual practices, resulting in increased susceptibility to infection. However, since migrant women report less STIs, we cannot exclude that these STIs may remain undiagnosed. The implementation of safer sex awareness campaigns for condom use and screening for STIs in women is crucial. On the other hand, health education campaigns for STI knowledge need to be implemented for both MSM and women and their partners.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
The Role of Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator and Thoracodorsal Artery Perforator Flaps in Head and Neck Reconstruction.
No full textHead and neck reconstruction has evolved to a more accurate replacement of the missing tissues for aesthetic and functional benefits, besides a concern with the morbidity caused in the donor site. This has led us to the use of perforator flaps. Deep inferior epigastric perforator flap allows the harvest of a large well-vascularized skin paddle with adequate bulk for large and voluminous defects reconstruction. Its main uses described in the literature are: tongue reconstruction, orbitomaxillary reconstruction, and scalp reconstruction. Thoracodorsal artery perforator flap is derived from the subscapular system and allows the harvest of a large array of chimeric flaps
A Mother's Deficiency, a Baby's Challenge: Vitamin B12 Deficiency Related Seizures and Pancytopenia in an Infant
No full textAnemia is prevalent in pediatric age and it stems from diverse factors. While iron deficiency is a common cause above six months of age, other nutritional deficits contribute to the disease burden. During pregnancy, anemia due to nutritional deficits is associated with adverse outcomes for the newborn. Precise diagnosis of dietary deficits in the
pediatric population is vital to avert negative health consequences. We describe the case of a six-month-old exclusively breastfed infant with a mother having unspecified anemia under folic acid supplementation. The infant presented with neurological symptoms, including paroxysmal events and developmental regression. Laboratory
analysis revealed pancytopenia and severe vitamin B12 deficiency. The patient’s mother's serum level of vitamin B12 was also low and ant parietal cell antibodies were positive, suggesting maternal autoimmune gastritis. Treatment with hydroxocobalamin led to clinical and analytical improvement. Maternal deficiency is the major cause of cobalamin deficiency in infants. It is paramount to raise awareness to this issue to prevent its avoidable repercussions
Acoustic and Clinical Data Analysis of Vocal Recordings: Pandemic Insights and Lessons.
No full textBackground/Objectives: The interest in processing human speech and other human-generated audio signals as a diagnostic tool has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project OSCAR (vOice Screening of CoronA viRus) aimed to develop an algorithm to screen for COVID-19 using a dataset of Portuguese participants with voice recordings and clinical data.
Methods: This cross-sectional study aimed to characterise the pattern of sounds produced by the vocal apparatus in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection documented by a positive RT-PCR test, and to develop and validate a screening algorithm. In Phase II, the algorithm developed in Phase I was tested in a real-world setting.
Results: In Phase I, after filtering, the training group consisted of 166 subjects who were effectively available to train the classification model (34.3% SARS-CoV-2 positive/65.7% SARS-CoV-2 negative). Phase II enrolled 58 participants (69.0% SARS-CoV-2 positive/31.0% SARS-CoV-2 negative). The final model achieved a sensitivity of 85%, a specificity of 88.9%, and an F1-score of 84.7%, suggesting voice screening algorithms as an attractive strategy for COVID-19 diagnosis. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the potential of a voice-based detection strategy as an alternative method for respiratory tract screening
Biochemical Clusters as Substitutes of Bone Biopsies in Kidney Transplant Patients.
No full textBone and mineral metabolism abnormalities are frequent in kidney transplant recipients and have been associated with cardiovascular morbidity. The primary aim of this study was to analyse the association between routine clinically available biochemical evaluation, non-routine histomorphometric bone evaluation, and vascular disease in kidney transplanted patients. A cross-sectional analysis was performed on 69 patients, 1-year after kidney transplantation. Laboratory analysis, radiography of hands and pelvis, bone biopsy, bone densitometry, and coronary CT were performed. One-year post-transplantation, nearly one-third of the patients presented with hypercalcemia, 16% had hypophosphatemia, 39.3% had iPTH levels > 150 pg/mL, 20.3% had BALP levels > 40 U/L, and 26.1% had hypovitaminosis D. Evaluation of extraosseous calcifications revealed low Adragão and Agatston scores. We divided patients into three clusters, according to laboratory results routinely used in clinical practice: hypercalcemia and hyperparathyroidism (Cluster1); hypercalcemia and high BALP levels (Cluster2); hypophosphatemia and vitamin D deficiency (Cluster 3). Patients in clusters 1 and 2 had higher cortical porosity (p = 0.001) and osteoid measurements, although there was no difference in the presence of abnormal mineralization, or low volume. Patients in cluster 2 had a higher BFR/BS (half of the patients in cluster 2 had high bone turnover), and most patients in cluster 1 had low or normal bone turnover. Cluster 3 has no differences in volume, or turnover, but 60% of the patients presented with pre-osteomalacia. All three clusters were associated with high vascular calcifications scores. Vascular calcifications scores were not related to higher bone mineral density. Instead, an association was found between a higher Adragão score and the presence of osteoporosis at the femoral neck (p = 0.008). In conclusion, inferring bone TMV by daily clinical biochemical analysis can be misleading, and bone biopsy is important for assessing both bone turnover and mineralization after kidney transplantation, although hypophosphatemia combined with vitamin D deficiency is associated with abnormal mineralization. The presence of hypercalcemia with high levels of PTH or high levels of BALP, or hypophosphatemia and vitamin D deficiency should remind us to screen vascular calcification status of patients.Clinical Research: ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT02751099
Os Efeitos das Variações Meteorológicas na Incidência de Vertigem Posicional Paroxística Benigna
No full textIntrodução e Objetivos: Os sintomas vestibulares estão entre os motivos de observação mais comuns no serviço de urgência. A Vertigem Posicional Paroxística Benigna (VPPB) é um dos diagnósticos mais frequentemente observados nestes doentes e acarreta um considerável impacto nos cuidados de saúde. O nosso objetivo é avaliar a incidência semanal e sazonal da VPPB e estudar a possível relação entre a incidência da VPPB e as variações climáticas ocorridas ao longo do ano de 2021, na área
metropolitana de Lisboa.
Material e Métodos: Estudo retrospetivo de doentes adultos (18 anos ou mais), com diagnóstico de VPPB no Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Central, entre janeiro e dezembro de 2021. As variáveis meteorológicas para o mesmo período foram recolhidas dos dados oficiais da área metropolitana de Lisboa, nomeadamente temperatura atmosférica, pressão atmosférica, humidade, nebulosidade, número de horas diárias de sol e radiação solar.
Resultados: Um total de 178 doentes foram diagnosticados com VPPB; 62 eram homens (34,8%) e 116 mulheres (65,2%). Foi encontrado um padrão sazonal na incidência de VPPB, com menor número de doentes diagnosticados com VPPB nos meses de verão (p = 0,0002). Existiu uma associação negativa e estatisticamente significativa entre a temperatura atmosférica (r = -0,5215, p = 0,000063), o número de horas de luz solar (r = -0,4024, p = 0,002847) e a radiação solar (r = -0,4463, p = 0,000817) com o
número de doentes com VPPB diagnosticados por semana. Foi encontrada associação positiva e significativa entre nebulosidade e a incidência de VPPB (r = 0,537, p = 0,000034). Não foi encontrada associação estatisticamente significativa entre pressão atmosférica (r = -0,0366, p = 0,798015) ou humidade (r = 0,2525, p = 0,068707) com a incidência de VPPB.
Conclusões: A incidência da VPPB diminui nos meses de verão, quando a temperatura atmosférica, a radiação solar e o número de horas de luz solar são maiores e a nebulosidade é menor
Mixed Neuroendocrine-Non-Neuroendocrine Neoplasms of the Rectum: A Case Report.
No full textIntroduction: Mixed neuroendocrine-non-neuroendocrine neoplasms (MiNEN) represent roughly 1-2% of all colorectal malignancies. Given the rareness and heterogeneity of these mixed tumors, recognition and accurate diagnosis remain a challenge. In the absence of established guidelines, they are treated according to the standard of care for pure neuroendocrine carcinomas or adenocarcinomas from similar sites of origin.
Case presentation: We herein report a case of a rectal MiNEN in a 55-year-old male. He underwent colonoscopy for rectal bleeding and mucus emission, which revealed a vegetating lesion located approximately 8 cm from the anal verge, corresponding to a moderately differentiated low-grade adenocarcinoma of the rectum. Computed tomography scan and magnetic resonance imaging uncovered the presence of lung, lymph node, and subcutaneous implant metastases. The biopsy of the cutaneous implant showed neuroendocrine carcinoma Ki-67 90%. The patient underwent systemic chemotherapy.
Conclusion: High-grade MiNEN tumors are the most commonly encountered in clinical practice and have an aggressive biological behavior. Little is known about the genetic drivers of this neoplasm and its pathogenesis remains controversial. Clinical and pathological awareness of this rare entity is a key step to design future targeted therapies and improve treatment options. The aim of this case report is to further our understanding regarding the clinical presentation, radiological features, pathology, management, and prognosis of MiNEN