Medicina
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Multicenter Study
[Descriptive analysis of 4776 patients admitted to medical clinic services for COVID-19. Results of the Argentine Multi-Center Registry - REMA-COVID-19].
A multicenter registry that included adults hospitalized for COVID-19 was carried out in various provinces of Argentina, from March to October 2020. The objectives were to describe the epidemiological characteristics, clinical manifestations, treatments, complications and risk factors, need for admission to critical care units and mortality. The registry included information on 4776 patients in 37 health centers in Argentina. ⋯ The most frequent complications in critical care were: cardiovascular events (54.1%), septic shock (33.3%), renal failure (9.7%) and pneumonia associated with mechanical ventilation (12.5%). Overall mortality was 12.3%. Old age, dementia and COPD behaved as independent predictors of mortality (p < 0.001, 0.007 and 0.002 respectively) in the multivariate analysis.
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Case Reports
Benefit of video-assisted thoracic surgery in the emergency of a complicated postpartum diaphragmatic hernia.
Diaphragmatic hernia during pregnancy or puerperium are rare entities that, in the event of a complication, represent a life-threatening emergency for both mother and the unborn child. Resolution in many cases requires a combined access through the thoracic and abdominal cavity to manage the complications of necrosis and/or perforation of an abdominal viscera. ⋯ Even more, the minimally invasive access by video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) is not widely referenced in the literature despite its clear benefits of this technique in the recovery of patients, even in emergencies. We present the case of a postpartum right diaphragmatic hernia, complicated by necrosis of the colonic wall, treated by combined VATS approach and laparotomy in the emergency.
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Invasive fungal infections (IFI) are among the main infectious complications in patients with hematological malignancies and with hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), causing high morbidity and mortality and significantly increasing the healthcare cost and hospital stay. The epidemiology of IFIs has changed in recent decades, with filamentous fungi, particularly Aspergillus spp., being the main etiological agents. There are multiple risk factors for having an IFI; however, the most important are profound and prolonged neutropenia and severe cellular immunodeficiency. ⋯ They can be used as a AFP strategy in different settings, presenting advantages and disadvantages that must be taken into account in each case. For this, national and international scientific societies have issued recommendations for the indication of AFP. Aspects related to the different antifungals' clinical efficacy are analyzed considering the population at risk, the potential disadvantages, timing, and form of administration.
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Observational Study
[SARS-COV-2 infection in patients with hematological malignancies and transplants].
SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with hematological malignancies and hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) can be severe and with significant mortality. We carried out a prospective and observational study to describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics and outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with hematological malignancies and HSCT. Twenty adult patients were included with a median age of 58 years and a median Charlson score of 3. ⋯ Twenty percent and 15% had complications and hospital infections, respectively, and had prolonged hospitalization expressed as median days of it. The 30-day mortality was 10%. SARS-CoV-2 infection in our population had a considerable clinical and epidemiological impact.
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Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) represents a major health issue and ≈20% of the patients require in-hospital attention. The main objective of the study was to determine clinical-imaging features of CAP episodes requiring hospitalization. The secondary objectives were to determine the diagnostic yield of microbiological analyses and the medical complications. ⋯ The most frequently isolated microorganisms were influenza virus in 37 (10.9%) episodes and Streptococcus pneumoniae in 11 (3.2%). Most of the hospitalized CAP patients were elderly with consolidative radiological patterns. The causal agent could be identified in less than a quarter of the patients, with the influenza test being the method with the highest diagnostic yield.