Postgraduate medical journal
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For years, the dog, man's best friend, was the most widely employed scent-detector tool for civilian and military purposes. Recently, many studies highlighted the role of canine olfactory ability in the medical field, specifically in detecting different infectious, metabolic and neoplastic conditions. The objective of this literature review is to clarify the rationale behind dog's ability to detect diseases, to assess the possible application for COVID-19 detection and to discuss the evidence available on the matter. ⋯ And since COVID-19 positive persons have a specific volatilome different from non-infected persons, they can be recognised by the dogs, by sniffing different body fluids consequently aiding in the diagnosis of COVID-19. Possible applications of dogs as COVID-19 detectors will be an easy real-time mobile diagnostic aid with low cost and good performance. More evidence is needed to be able to describe standardised measures concerning the best fluid to test, testing procedure, time of possible detection according to disease evolution, risks associated with the dog exposure and to translate the good results in study setting into the real-life operational one.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Comparison of an e-learning package with lecture-based teaching in the management of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT): a randomised controlled study.
To compare the impact of an e-learning package with theoretical teaching on the ability of both graduate and undergraduate medical students to learn the management of supraventricular tachycardia. ⋯ E-learning seems to be the preferred method of learning and the method that confers longer retention time for both postgraduate and undergraduate medical students.
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Increasing evidence indicated that infection factors play important roles in stroke development. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection was positively associated with atherosclerosis and hypertension which are stroke risk factors. Therefore, we aimed to explore the relationship between HCMV infection and stroke using the data of US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). ⋯ We found a strong association between HCMV and stroke in women from the nationally representative population-based survey. This provide additional motivation for undertaking the difficult challenge to reduce the prevalence of stroke.
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Physicians continuously make tough decisions when discharging patients. Alerting on poor outcomes may help in this decision. This study evaluates a machine learning model for predicting 30-day mortality in emergency department (ED) discharged patients. ⋯ Although not frequent, patients may die following ED discharge. Machine learning-based tools may help ED physicians identify patients at risk. An optimised decision for hospitalisation or palliative management may improve patient care and system resource allocation.
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Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAMed) is a worldwide social media movement designed to accelerate and democratise the sharing of medical knowledge. This study sought to investigate the content shared through FOAMed during the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. ⋯ #FOAMed tweets during the COVID-19 pandemic included a broad range of resources, advice and support. Despite the geographical, language and disciplinary variation of contributing users and the lack of organisational structure uniting them, this social media medical community has been able to construct, share and use emerging technical knowledge through a time of extraordinary challenge and uncertainty for the global medical community.