Internal medicine
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Case Reports
Loss of Taste as an Initial Symptom of a "Facial Diplegia and Paresthesia" Variant of Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
Loss of taste is a relatively common symptom of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and has also been considered a rare Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) symptom. We herein report a case of a facial diplegia and paresthesia (FDP) variant of GBS that initially presented as a loss of taste occurring two weeks after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. The patient recovered completely after intravenous immunoglobulin therapy. Clinicians should consider the possibility of post-vaccination FDP manifesting as facial palsy and should be aware that GBS, including the FDP variant, can initially present as an isolated loss of taste.
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Objective The survival advantage of females over males is lost in dialysis patients in many countries. Japanese female hemodialysis patients, however, have a survival advantage over their male counterparts. This study explored causes of death that contribute to sex differences in all-cause mortality in Japanese dialysis patients. ⋯ Death from infectious disease, malignancy, and heart failure contributed to 38.4%, 22.7%, and 12.1%, respectively, of the male-to-female difference in all-cause mortality of dialysis patients. Conclusion Low cardiovascular mortality in younger age categories and low non-cardiovascular mortality in older age categories contributed to the survival advantage of female Japanese dialysis patients. Infectious disease was the greatest contributor to sex differences in all-cause mortality.