Mayo Clinic proceedings
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Mayo Clinic proceedings · Aug 2021
ReviewA Proposed Approach for Conducting Studies That Use Data From Social Media Platforms.
The prominence of social media in contemporary society has extended significantly into the health care arena, where both patients and health care providers have used social media platforms to gather, communicate, learn, and share medical content and personal experience in real time. The medical literature has also seen an exponential increase in the number of studies that use data derived from social media coverage of various medical issues and topics. ⋯ We present 6 overarching steps: focus on framing a question that is appropriate for social media evaluation, identification of social media outlet and selection criteria of content, systematic data extraction, assessment of quality of content and sources of bias, analysis of data, and interpretation of study findings. Each step is illustrated with published examples.
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Mayo Clinic proceedings · Aug 2021
Early Diagnosis and Outcome in Patients With Wild-Type Transthyretin Cardiac Amyloidosis.
Whether diagnostic timing in transthyretin (TTR) cardiac amyloidosis (CA) predisposes patients to worse outcomes is unresolved. We aimed to describe the long-term association of diagnostic timing (time from first onset of symptoms consistent with CA leading to medical contact to definitive diagnosis) with mortality in patients with wild-type TTR-CA (ATTRwt-CA). Overall, we reviewed the medical records of 160 patients seen at a tertiary care amyloidosis unit from January 1, 2016, to January 1, 2020 (median [interquartile range] follow-up, 21 [10 to 34] months), and compared them by survival. ⋯ On Cox multivariable analysis, timing was independently associated with all-cause mortality (hazard ratio per month increase, 1.049 [95% CI, 1.017 to 1.083]) together with age at diagnosis, disease stage, New York Heart Association class, and coronary artery disease. In conclusion, diagnostic timing of ATTRwt-CA is associated with mortality. Timely diagnosis is warranted whenever "red flags" are present.