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Background Cardiothoracic surgeons are facing a big challenge in their surgical practice in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. The attitude towards performing surgery is influenced by the pandemic. Setting special recommendations for safe cardiothoracic surgery is of extreme importance.Methods This was an observational cross-sectional survey that included 77 Egyptian cardiothoracic surgeons. The survey consisted of a self-administered constructed questionnaire with six sections, and was delivered as a Google Forms questionnaire (https://www.google.com/forms/about) that was sent to individuals via social networks and email.Results More than 80% of Egyptian cardiothoracic surgeons believe they and their patients are at risk. Out of all participants, none had actually been infected with COVID-19 but 26% had encountered a positive COVID-19 person in their surgical team. Although 51% were testing patients before surgery, they reported 9 confirmed cases postoperatively. Computed tomography was the most recommended investigation prior to surgery (by 69%). Most had postponed elective surgeries and only one-third of all surgeons recommended performing elective surgeries cautiously with pretesting for COVID-19 and maximizing protective measures, while more than 40% recommended not performing high-risk elective surgeries.Conclusion We are committed to the safety of our patients, ourselves, our staff, and our families. Planning for the new phase of reopening, whether total reopening or step-by-step reopening, should carefully consider how we should utilize our resources, respect social distancing, and prevent exposure to untested patients or health workers who might turn out to be an undetected positive case.

Background Sleep is essential for full mental and physical renewal. Cardiac surgery improves the life expectancy and quality. But unfortunately, some patients lacked that merit as they suffered sleep disturbance. We used validated questionnaire applied to 153 cardiac surgery patients to assess the sleep disturbances after surgery.Results About 70 (45.8%) had valve procedure, 55 (36%) had revascularization, 19 (12.4%) had both procedures and 9 (5.8%) had other procedures. The majority had no post-operative bleeding nor infection. About 78% had sleeping difficulty for one month. About 50% used different medications to fall asleep, mostly analgesics. About 76% slept after 2–6 h irrespective of sleep quality. Some patients had poor sleep quality in the form of nightmares and night terrors.Conclusion Sleep quality was disturbed immediately following cardiac surgery. There was a reduction of night sleep compensated by increased daytime sleepiness. These changes almost reverted one month after surgery.

Aim: To report the results of treatment of type 1 prethreshold retinopathy of prematurity using intravitreal injection of ultra-low dose of ranibizumab (0.1 mg in 0.01 mL).Design: A retrospective observational case series study.Methods: Review of files of eligible infants who received this form of treatment to determine the outcome of treatment and any associated ocular or systemic side effects.Results: The study included 24 eyes of 12 preterm infants with mean gestational age of 29.75 ± 1.54 weeks and mean birth weight of 1074.58 ± 320.59 g. A total of 22 eyes (91.67%) had zone II disease while 2 eyes of one infant (8.33%) had zone I disease. All cases showed regression of the signs of the active retinopathy of prematurity with complete retinal vascularization. None of the cases required retreatment. Three eyes developed ocular complications. Apart from mild feeding intolerance that lasted for 24 h after injection in one infant, none of the cases developed systemic side effects.Conclusion: Intravitreal injection of ultra-low-dose ranibizumab showed promising efficacy and good ocular safety. However, further large-scale studies are required to give stronger evidence about the efficacy and safety of ultra-low-dose ranibizumab.

Cowpea weevil causes losses of 50–90% in cowpea after harvest. Control has relied on toxic agrochemical fumigants that are no longer available or are dangerous and relatively expensive, making its control difficult for most farmers. This study was initiated to investigate alternative control methods to synthetic pesticides, namely the suitable fumigation period and oil concentration of volatile oils of garlic, Allium sativum, were evaluated as a fumigant against adults of the cowpea weevil, Callosobruchus maculatus(Bruchidae: Coleoptera). Fumigation was carried out in small plastic cups (200 mL) and jute sacks (100 g) after several exposure periods (6–24 h). Insect recoveries were observed for 4 d. The volatile oils were tested at concentrations ranging between 0.1% and 20% (v/v). The oils were effective and caused significant mortalities to the test insects in cups at all concentrations tested. Garlic oil vapour penetrated through jute sacks and caused significant mortality to test insects. Recovery cases were negatively correlated to the dose. The 24 h LD50and LD90were 0.036% (equivalent to 175.78 μL volatile oils m−3) and 3.61% (equivalent to 17.63 mL volatile oils m−3), respectively, in the cups and jute sacks. The concentration 10% gave 100% mortality within 24 h of exposure.