1,720,967 research outputs found
Is Google Trends a reliable tool for digital epidemiology? Insights from different clinical settings
Full text linkInternet-derived information has been recently recognized as a valuable tool for epidemiological investigation. Google Trends, a Google Inc. portal, generates data on geographical and temporal patterns according to specified keywords. The aim of this study was to compare the reliability of Google Trends in different clinical settings, for both common diseases with lower media coverage, and for less common diseases attracting major media coverage. We carried out a search in Google Trends using the keywords "renal colic", "epistaxis", and "mushroom poisoning", selected on the basis of available and reliable epidemiological data. Besides this search, we carried out a second search for three clinical conditions (i.e., "meningitis", "Legionella Pneumophila pneumonia", and "Ebola fever"), which recently received major focus by the Italian media. In our analysis, no correlation was found between data captured from Google Trends and epidemiology of renal colics, epistaxis and mushroom poisoning. Only when searching for the term "mushroom" alone the Google Trends search generated a seasonal pattern which almost overlaps with the epidemiological profile, but this was probably mostly due to searches for harvesting and cooking rather than to for poisoning. The Google Trends data also failed to reflect the geographical and temporary patterns of disease for meningitis, Legionella Pneumophila pneumonia and Ebola fever. The results of our study confirm that Google Trends has modest reliability for defining the epidemiology of relatively common diseases with minor media coverage, or relatively rare diseases with higher audience. Overall, Google Trends seems to be more influenced by the media clamor than by true epidemiological burden
Clinical presentation and epidemiology of brain tumors firstly diagnosed in adults in the Emergency Department: a 10-year, single center retrospective study
No full textClinical presentation and epidemiology of brain tumors firstly diagnosed in adults in the Emergency Department: A 10-year, single center retrospective stud
Incidence of acute-onset atrial fibrillation correlates with air temperature. Results of a nine-year survey
No full textAbstractSome diseases, such as renal colic, stroke, and myocardial infarction, correlate with seasonality and microclimatic variations. Although evidence is limited and controversial, a correlation between acute-onset atrial fibrillation (AAF) and seasonality has been previously reported. In order to elucidate the possible correlations between weather and incidence of AAF in a country with a temperate climate, the influence of day-by-day climate changes was analyzed based on the number of visits for AAF (defined as onset of symptoms within 48h) in a large urban Emergency Department (ED) of northern Italy. All the episodes of AAF were retrieved from the hospital’s electronic database during a period of 3287days (January 2002 to December 2010). Only the cases whose onset occurred within 48h from the ED visit were selected. The total number of ED visits was 725,812 throughout the observational period. Among these, 3633 AAF cases were observed, 52% of which were males. A slight but significant negative linear correlation was found between the number of AAFs and the daily temperature (R=−0.60; p=0.001). No correlation was found between the number of AAFs and the daily humidity (R=−0.07; p=0.2)
Serum bilirubin value predicts hospital admission in carbon monoxide-poisoned patients. Active player or simple bystander?
No full textOBJECTIVES: Although carbon monoxide poisoning is a major medical emergency, the armamentarium of recognized prognostic biomarkers displays unsatisfactory diagnostic performance for predicting cumulative endpoints.
METHODS: We performed a retrospective and observational study to identify all patients admitted for carbon monoxide poisoning during a 2-year period. Complete demographical and clinical information, along with the laboratory data regarding arterial carboxyhemoglobin, hemoglobin, blood lactate and total serum bilirubin, was retrieved.
RESULTS: The study population consisted of 38 poisoned patients (23 females and 15 males; mean age 39±21 years). Compared with discharged subjects, hospitalized patients displayed significantly higher values for blood lactate and total serum bilirubin, whereas arterial carboxyhemoglobin and hemoglobin did not differ. In a univariate analysis, hospitalization was significantly associated with blood lactate and total serum bilirubin, but not with age, sex, hemoglobin or carboxyhemoglobin. The diagnostic performance obtained after combining the blood lactate and total serum bilirubin results (area under the curve, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.81-0.99; p<0.001) was better than that obtained for either parameter alone.
CONCLUSION: Although it remains unclear whether total serum bilirubin acts as an active player or a bystander, we conclude that the systematic assessment of bilirubin may, alongside lactate levels, provide useful information for clinical decision making regarding carbon monoxide poisoning
Visits for alcohol-related problems in a large urban Emergency Department. Results of a 15-year survey
No full textAlcohol abuse is associated with a high burden of morbidity and mortality. Nevertheless, definitive epidemiological data on alcohol-related visits in the emergency department (ED) is substantially lacking. This study was aimed to analyze the epidemiological patterns and temporal trends of alcohol-related visits in the local ED, and assessing the healthcare burden of cases needing hospital admission. All patients visited for alcohol-related problems between the years 2002-2016 were anonymously identified from the hospital database. All cases were classified according to the main cause leading to ED, age and gender, time of presentation, disposition. Overall, 8014 cases were identified (2249 women and 5765 men). Women were younger than men. The overall trend during the study period was characterized by a constant increase in the number of alcohol-related ED admissions. A significant number of subjects had multiple alcohol-related visits. A total number of 747 patients were visited twice, 259 three times and 107 four times. A mostly nocturnal pattern of ED presentation was observed in both genders, peaking between midnight and 2 AM, and an increased number of visits was recorded during the weekends. The vast majority of patients (64%) could be discharged within 6 hours, but a considerable number needed longer observation and treatment in the ED. Overall, 7551 patients were discharged from the ED, whilst 462 patients needed hospital admission, 179 for traumatic injuries and 283 for non-traumatic causes. The decreasing age of subjects admitted to the ED with alcohol-related problems should now be regarded as a public healthcare issue
Dizziness and syncope in young people: keep your mind open! Case report and literature review of the challenging differentiation between arrythmogenic right ventricular cariomyopathy/dysplasia (ARCV/D) and cathecolaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT)
Full text linkA paradigmatic case of aborted sudden cardiac death (SCD) in a young man is discussed, mirroring the challenge of diagnosing the various conditions potentially underlying this dramatic condition. Based on the clinical characteristics of our case, presenting some overlapping clinical features common to both the diseases, the discussion will be focused on Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia (CPVT) and Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy/Dysplasia (ARVC/D). Epidemiological, genetic, diagnostic and therapeutic aspect will be discussed
Influence of air temperature variations on incidence of epistaxis
No full textObjective: Epistaxis is the most common ear, nose, and throat emergency observed in the emergency department (ED). An increased frequency of this condition has been observed during cooler months, but the results of available studies are controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the seasonality and association of epistaxis presentations to a large urban ED with variations of air temperature and humidity.Methods: This study was a retrospective case series. Information on all the patients who presented for epistaxis in the ED of the Academic Hospital of Parma during the years 2003-2012 and ages >= 14 years were retrieved from the hospital data base, excluding those attributable to trauma. The chronologic data of all visits were associated with climate data (air temperature and humidity) by univariate linear regression analysis.Results: Among the 819,596 ED patients seen throughout the observational period, 5404 were admitted for epistaxis. Of these, 5220 were discharged from the ED, whereas 184 (3.4%) needed hospital admission. A strong seasonality of epistaxis was observed, with a peak during winter. A strong negative correlation was also found between the daily number of epistaxes and the mean daily temperature in the whole population as well as in patient subgroups (those undergoing anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapy, or those with hypertension, inherited bleeding disorders, liver cirrhosis, or advanced malignancy). A weaker correlation was also found between air humidity and epistaxis but only in certain subgroups.Conclusions: The results of this study provided a contribution to improve our understanding of the epidemiology of epistaxis and for specific health policies that should also be planned by considering the seasonality of nosebleed
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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