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Friday 01 May 2020
The largest observational study so far examining the prognostic role of CVDs in COVID19 patients
Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Cardiovascular Disease, Drug Therapy, and Mortality in Covid-19
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Friday 01 May 2020
Καλό Μήνα !
Significance
In patients with coronavirus disease 2019, a large number of T lymphocytes and mononuclear macrophages are activated, producing cytokines such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), which bind to the IL-6 receptor on the target cells, causing the cytokine storm and severe inflammatory responses in lungs and other tissues and organs. Tocilizumab, as a recombinant humanized anti-human IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody, can bind to the IL-6 receptor with high affinity, thus preventing IL-6 itself from binding to its receptor, rendering it incapable of immune damage to target cells, and alleviating the inflammatory responses.
In patients with coronavirus disease 2019, a large number of T lymphocytes and mononuclear macrophages are activated, producing cytokines such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), which bind to the IL-6 receptor on the target cells, causing the cytokine storm and severe inflammatory responses in lungs and other...
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Friday 01 May 2020
Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin related QT prolongation
This cohort study examines the association of hydroxychloroquine or hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin with QT prolongation in adult patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019.
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Friday 01 May 2020
Background: The diagnosis of sarcoidosis is not standardized but is based on three major criteria: a compatible clinical presentation, finding nonnecrotizing granulomatous inflammation in one or mo...
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Friday 01 May 2020
An interesting case of CWP diagnosed 30 years later...
A 56-year-old man was referred to our specialist unit after presenting to his primary care clinic with a dry cough and breathlessness on exertion that were slowly worsening. He had been a smoker for 7 years but quit over a decade earlier. Also, he had worked for 8 years in underground coal mines, in...
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Friday 01 May 2020
A physician shared his early successes with an alternative approach to ventilation for COVID-19 patients. But many are wary of abandoning decades of research-backed practices for this new approach.
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Friday 01 May 2020
Cytokine storms may affect the severity of COVID-19 cases by lowering T cell counts, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Immunology. Researchers studying coronavirus cases in China found that sick patients had a significantly low number of T cells, a type of white blood cell that play...
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Friday 01 May 2020
Typical management of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning includes oxygen supplementation to decrease CO levels. However, evidence for hyperbaric oxygen has
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Friday 01 May 2020
Rationale: Acute exacerbation during the course of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis causes a poor prognosis. Coagulation abnormalities and endothelial damage are involved in its pathogenesis. Thrombom...
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Friday 01 May 2020
Acute antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in 285 patients with COVID-19.
Within 19 days after symptom onset, 100% of patients tested positive for antiviral immunoglobulin-G (IgG). Seroconversion for IgG and IgM occurred simultaneously or sequentially. Both IgG and IgM titers plateaued within 6 days after seroconversion. Serological testing may be helpful for the diagnosis of suspected patients with negative RT–PCR results and for the identification of asymptomatic infections.
A cross-sectional study of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and a longitudinal follow-up study of patients with COVID-19 suggest that SARS-CoV2-specific IgG or IgM seroconversion occurs within 20 days post symptom onset.
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Thursday 30 Apr 2020
NIH guidelines for Treatment of Covid-19 disease: Except in the context of a clinical trial, the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel recommends against the use of the following drugs for the treatment of COVID-19: The combination of hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin (AIII) because of the potential for toxicities.
Get information about therapeutic options currently under investigation for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
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Thursday 30 Apr 2020
Authors’ conclusion: Cloth masks may be a simple, economic and sustainable alternative to surgical mask as a means of source control of SARS-CoV-2 for general community. No evidence behind this but read as food for thought...
A hot debate is taking place on the use of face masks (including cloth and surgical) as a prevention tool in the community vis-à-vis the recent World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. To shed light on this important topic we reviewed relevant literature focused on the key words “infectio...
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Thursday 30 Apr 2020
A new observational study from the United States indicates that vitamin D insufficiency may play a significant role in the progression of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The research titled 'Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe COVID-19' is available on the preprint server medRxiv.Study sh...
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Thursday 30 Apr 2020
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is defined as illness caused by a novel coronavirus now called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2; formerly called 2019-nCoV), which was first identified amid an outbreak of respiratory illness cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. [...
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Thursday 30 Apr 2020
More debate in the role of smoking in Covid-19
Despite the main complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection regard lung involvement, the prevalence of current smoking in COVID-19 patients is very low even if one might have anticipated that opposite. Thus, the epidemiological data seem to question the role of coexisting active smoking as a risk factor for COVID-19 pneumonia.
We have read with interest the paper by Leung et al . recently published in European Respiratory Journal [1], reporting a higher expression of the protein ACE-2 in the small airways epithelia of smokers and COPD patients with putatively important implications for COVID-19 patients since ACE-2 has be...
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Thursday 30 Apr 2020
Most lung-cancer screening and evaluation of incidentally detected lung nodules can be delayed for several months during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an expert panel.
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Wednesday 29 Apr 2020
Some evidence of Remdesivir efficacy in Covid-19 from an NIH trial
Gilead said a government-run study of remdesivir, perhaps the most closely watched experimental drug to treat Covid-19, showed the medicine is effective.
