Articles: disease.
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Meta Analysis
Auricular acupuncture for migraine: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.
Migraines are caused by neurological and vascular dysfunction, with a side or both sides of the head pain recurrent attack, often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, light, and sound allergy as the characteristics, is the clinical common disease, frequently occurring disease. The incidence of migraine is 8.4% to 28% worldwide (highest in Germany), and the lifetime incidence is about 14.0%. About 18.2% for women and 6.5% for men, About 23 percent of families have at least one migraine sufferer. It can occur at any age, and more than half of patients have headaches that interfere with work or school, while nearly a third may miss work or school because of the headache. Therefore, how to relief headache immediately and reduce the impact on life and work, becomes the basic clinical appeal of many patients. Analgesics are the main treatment for migraine in western medicine, many patients, who worried about the side effects of drugs, often take them only when the pain is unbearable, which can only treat the symptoms rather than the root causes. Auricular acupuncture as a form of acupuncture therapy which is proved to be effective in RCTs and very suitable for patients, has been used in patients who suffer from migraine for a long time, therefore a systematic review is necessary to provide available evidence for further study. ⋯ October 2, 2020 osf.io/q6arf. (https://osf.io/q6arf/.).
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Poor ovarian response (POR) is a high-incidence disease of women, which cause in vitro fertilization failure. Various treatment options have been proposed for women with POR to improve their ovarian response, but with little effect. In recent years, there is a wide range of applications of acupuncture in the process of in vitro fertilization. The meta-analysis and systematic review are designed to analyze whether acupuncture is effective for patients with POR. ⋯ PROSPERO CRD42020169560.
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Comparative Study Observational Study
Comparison of clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics between SARS-CoV-2 infection and community-acquired pneumonia caused by influenza virus: A cross-sectional retrospective study.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the most important global public health issue that we currently face. We aimed to explore the clinical features of patients with COVID-19 and compared them with those of hospitalized community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) patients caused by influenza virus during the same period. From Jan 1, to Mar 4, 2020, patients with COVID-19 or CAP caused by influenza virus who were admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University were consecutively screened for enrollment. ⋯ Ground-glass opacity with reticular pattern (63%) and interlobular septal thickening (71%) in chest CT were commonly observed in the COVID-19 group. COVID-19 and CAP caused by influenza virus appear to share some similarities in clinical manifestaions but they definitely have major distinctions. Influenza infection remains a health problem even during COVID-19 pandemic.
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To evaluate the performance of different blood cells-derived indexes in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), lymphocyte to monocyte ratio, platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), and aggregate inflammation systemic index were calculated in 199 consecutive RA patients and 283 sex and age-matched controls (147 healthy donors and 136 patients with other rheumatic diseases). Area under the curve (AUCs), sensitivity and specificity were calculated to evaluate the accuracy of indexes in discriminating between RA and controls. ⋯ The accuracy of the indexes in differentiating RA from healthy donors was significantly higher than that (AUCs < 0.6 for all comparisons) differentiating RA from rheumatic diseases. In RA, SIRI and aggregate inflammation systemic index showed significant association with C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Our results do not support the use of blood cells-derived indexes for the diagnosis of RA, suggesting that they might reflect chronic inflammatory burden in rheumatic diseases rather than, specifically, in RA.
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Plague is an acute, often fulminating infectious disease caused by Yersinia Pestis transmitted by rodents. It is rarely encountered in clinics, although natural plague foci are widely distributed around the world. ⋯ There are 3 main forms of plague: bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic. Humans can be infected by the bites of bacterium-bearing fleas or direct contact of wild animals that died from plague. Human plague can be transmitted by close contact through coughing droplet. Neglected diagnosis of plague could cause severe consequences. Strict surveillance and protection measures should be taken and the public should be alerted about potential risks when epizootic plague is detected.