Läkartidningen
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Postpartum hemorrhage is responsible for one fourth of the maternal mortality worldwide. In high resource countries there is an increasing trend in frequency of postpartum hemorrhage and need of blood transfusions. The reason for this increase is probably multifactorial. ⋯ In Sweden the incidence of MT due to obstetric hemorrhage is reported to be 53 per 100 000 deliveries and the majority of the cases are due to placental complications, such as placenta previa and placenta accreta. These placental complications have increased over the past years as a consequence of a higher rate of cesarean deliveries. To reduce the number of deliveries requiring blood transfusion postpartum, prophylactic measures such as identification of women at increased risk, optimizing management of hemorrhage and evaluating the effect of every transfused unit of erythrocytes is important.
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Palliative care was initially developed for patients with a cancer diagnosis and severe symptoms. Despite the ambition to broaden the palliative care approach to include other groups, patients with cancer are still a majority in specialised palliative care. The broader view and development of palliative care has led to an intense debate on existing definitions. ⋯ The proposal was developed in several stages, in collaboration with specialists in palliative care from a total of 88 countries. The IAHPC's definition differs from the WHO's definition in several aspects. Most importantly, the IAHPC's definition takes a reversed perspective and instead of focusing on life-threatening illness as motivating palliative care, the new proposal focuses on serious suffering of a person with severe illness.
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Brain injuries due to abusive head trauma (AHT) in infants are not rare and they are probably under-diagnosed. Retinal hemorrhages (RH) constitute a cardinal symptom of AHT and AHT is the most common cause of RH in infants next to childbirth. ⋯ Bilateral extensive RH that are too numerous to count, multilayered and extending to the peripheral retina in infants < 3 years of age, in combination with brain injury and in absence of leukemia, ruptured brain aneurysm/AVM, fatal head crush or known severe accidental trauma must be considered to be caused by AHT in the absence of any other compelling factors. The ophthalmologist has an important role and a responsibility in describing the pattern of RH and in evaluating the likelihood of the diagnosis in the medical report and in communication with pediatricians and child protection team.
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Frailty is a concept that is better than multimorbidity at identifying older people in need of special multidimensional care. Frailty denotes a state of accelerated biological aging in which the body gradually loses the ability to handle physical, mental and social stress. ⋯ Some of these screening tools can assess the degree of frailty and thereby provide a risk stratification in for example a medical emergency. This can be used to support decisions to offer relevant medical intervention to chronologically old but biologically young people as well as to refrain from treatment in chronologically young but biologically older people.
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The new SARS-CoV-2 virus enters cells via angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). ACE2 counteracts ACE and angiotensin II in the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) and has critical functions in the lung and cardiovascular system. SARS-CoV was found to down-regulate ACE2, leaving angiotensin II unbalanced in affected organs. A similar effect of SARS-CoV-2 could partly explain risk factors and symptoms, and could potentially be treatable.