European journal of internal medicine
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2024
Hepatic T1-time, cardiac structure and function and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy.
Liver damage frequently occurs in patients with cardiovascular (CV) disease and is associated with adverse clinical outcomes. The associations of liver damage with cardiac structure/function measures and the risk of adverse CV events in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) are poorly known. ⋯ Limited data exist regarding the clinical value of hepatic T1-time in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) undergoing cardiac Magnetic Resonance imaging (MRI). We found that higher hepatic iron-corrected T1-time is associated with worse cardiac size and function, even after accounting for clinical confounders. Over a mean follow-up of 4.5 ± 1.8 years, higher hepatic iron-corrected T1-time was independently associated with a higher risk of hospitalization for heart failure or cardiovascular death. Among stable patients with DCM, the evaluation of liver tissue by cardiac MRI may provide useful clinical information for CV risk stratification.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2024
Effects of a medical admission unit on in-hospital patient flow and clinical outcomes.
the burden of acute complex patients, increasingly older and poli-pathological, accessing to Emergency Departments (ED) leads up hospital overcrowding and the outlying phenomenon. These issues highlight the need for new adequate patients' management strategies. The aim of this study is to analyse the effects on in-hospital patient flow and clinical outcomes of a high-technology and time-limited Medical Admission Unit (MAU) run by internists. ⋯ over two years, a patient-centred and problem-oriented approach in a medical admission buffer unit run by internists has ensured a constant flow of acute patients with positive effects on clinical risk and quality of care reducing medical outliers and in-hospital mortality.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2024
Cardiovascular events after exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Results from the EXAcerbations of COPD and their OutcomeS in CardioVascular diseases study in Italy.
Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can increase the risk of severe cardiovascular events. ⋯ COPD patients in Italy are at high risk of severe cardiovascular events following exacerbations, suggesting the need to prevent exacerbations and possible subsequent cardiovascular events through early interventions and treatment optimization.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2024
Artificial intelligence in scientific medical writing: Legitimate and deceptive uses and ethical concerns.
The debate surrounding the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into scientific writing has already attracted significant interest in medical and life sciences. While AI can undoubtedly expedite the process of manuscript creation and correction, it raises several criticisms. The crossover between AI and health sciences is relatively recent, but the use of AI tools among physicians and other scientists who work in the life sciences is growing very fast. ⋯ Even more impressively, they can learn and adapt as they engage with a growing volume of human language input. They all share neural networks as background mathematical models and differ from old chatbots for their use of a specific network architecture called transformer model [1]. Some of them exceed 100 terabytes (TB) (e.g., Bloom, LaMDA) or even 500 TB (e.g., Megatron-Turing NLG) of text data, the 4.0 version of ChatGPT (GPT-4) was trained with nearly 45 TB, but stays updated by the internet connection and may integrate with different plugins that enhance its functionality, making it multimodal.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2024
C-reactive protein is more suitable than Serum Amyloid A to monitor crises and attack-free periods in Systemic Auto-Inflammatory Diseases.
With their broad presentations and no global biomarker to discriminate crises and attack-free periods, Systemic Auto-Inflammatory Diseases (SAID) are difficult to manage. This study assessed Serum Amyloid A (SAA), C-reactive protein (CRP) and serum calprotectin as potential biomarkers to monitor patients with SAID. ⋯ SAA and CRP can discriminate crisis and attack-free periods in our cohort of SAID patients mainly composed of FMF and USAID patients. However, only CRP can be used regardless of body mass index. It is the first report of common biomarkers for all SAID, including USAID patients, with CRP widely accessible in routine worldwide.