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Introduction: Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is a coagulation disorder that is on the rise due to lifestyle changes. Patients with DVT are at risk for developing a life-threatening complication, pulmonary embolism which urges the importance of its early diagnosis. The Gold standard modality for its early diagnosis is invasive which is Venography. Other modalities like compression ultrasound and duplex imaging are noninvasive but operatordependent and not routinely available during evening and night shift hours. D-Dimer is a simple, noninvasive, cost-effective, and easily available diagnostic test that can be helpful in diagnosis. The objective of this study is to compare the sensitivity of D-Dimers with Doppler ultrasound for the diagnosis of deep venous thrombosis. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional comparative (validation) study in which 65 admitted patients with a high risk of DVT on Well's criteria for clinical diagnosis were enrolled by non-probability convenience sampling from March to August 2018. Both D-Dimer and Doppler ultrasounds were performed on all suspected patients of DVT. Results: Amongst 65 cases, 60 (92.3%) had positive Dimer results compared to 65 (100.0%) with the Doppler ultrasound. The difference between the two diagnostic modalities was statistically significant (p-value = 0.02). The sensitivity of D-dimers was 92.3% however specificity, PPV, and NPV were 0% as none of the cases was negative on ultrasound Doppler. Conclusion: The D-dimer test is a conveniently performed, cost-effective test with a sensitivity of more than 90% in the current study and can be useful for Emergency and critical care departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine the prevalence of depression amongst the transgender community and assess the relationship of socio-demographic features with depression. Study design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Study duration: Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Pakistan. Oct to Dec 2016 Materials and Methods: The studied population accounted for one hundred and forty-two transgender persons. The psychometric assessment was done with Beck depressive inventory II (BDI-II) to evaluate depressive symptoms. The sample was categorized as having no, mild, moderate, and severe depressive symptoms. The presence of depressive symptoms was also studied for its relationship with the age of the persons, smoking habits, financial status, illicit substances use, and educational history in the transgender community of Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Results: Among the 142 studied participants mean age was found 39.55 ± 6.18. Among them 45.1% didn't have symptomatology suggestive of Depression, However, 31.7% had mild symptoms, 12.7% had moderate and 10.6% were having severe symptoms suggestive of depression. Using Binary logistic regression, it was concluded that the presence of symptoms suggesting depression was having a significant association with the use of illicit substances. Conclusion: The study revealed a high prevalence of depressive symptoms in the transgender of Rawalpindi/Islamabad. The use of Illicit substances like tobacco, cannabis, opiates, and alcohol should be prohibited and those using these should be routinely screened for the presence of other mental health issues to timely diagnose and treat them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study was conducted assess the frequency of suicide attempt among the transgender population and analyse the relationship of depression and other socio-demographic factors with the suicide attempt Cross-sectional study Methods: The sample population comprised of one hundred and forty-eight transgender people of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Suicidal attempt was assessed by the simple question that “Have you ever performed an action with the intent to take your own life in your life time?” Answer of yes or no was recorded. Hamilton rating scale for Depression (HAM-D) was used to look for the presence of depression among the target population. Relationship of the age, smoking, family income, illicit substance use and depression was studied with the presence of suicidal attempt among these transgender population of twin cities of Pakistan. Results: A total of 148 transgender people were included in the final analysis. Mean age of the study participants was 38.24±3.18. Out of these, 70.9% had no suicidal attempt in their whole life while 29.1% had one or more suicidal attempts during the course of their life. Twelve had more than one suicidal attempt while 19 had attempt in last one year. Fifty-five did not showed depression while 93 had depression on HAM-D. With binary logistic regression we found that presence of depression and low income had significant association with the presence of suicidal attempt among the target population. Conclusion: This study showed a high prevalence of suicidal attempts among the transgender population of twin cities of Pakistan. Routine screening for mental health problems should be performed on this high-risk group and adequate employment resources should be generated in order to enable them to earn their livelihood and prevent them from making attempts to take their own life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The global burden of chronic airway diseases represents an important public health concern. The role of oxidative stress and inflammation in the pathogenesis of these diseases is well known. The aim of this study is to evaluate the behavior of both inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers in patients with chronic bronchitis, current asthma and past asthma in the frame of a population-based study. Methods: For this purpose, data collected from the Gene Environment Interactions in Respiratory Diseases (GEIRD) Study, an Italian multicentre, multicase-control study, was evaluated. Cases and controls were identified through a two-stage screening process of individuals aged 20-65 years from the general population. Out of 16,569 subjects selected from the general population in the first stage of the survey, 2259 participated in the clinical evaluation. Oxidative stress biomarkers such as 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG), 8-isoprostane and glutathione and inflammatory biomarkers such as Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide (FENO) and white blood cells were evaluated in 1878 subjects. Results: Current asthmatics presented higher levels of FENO (23.05 ppm), leucocytes (6770 n/µL), basophils (30.75 n/µL) and eosinophils (177.80 n/µL), while subjects with chronic bronchitis showed higher levels of GSH (0.29 mg/mL) and lymphocytes (2101.6 n/µL). The multivariable multinomial logistic regression confirmed high levels of leucocytes (RRR = 1.33), basophils (RRR = 1.48), eosinophils (RRR = 2.39), lymphocytes (RRR = 1.26) and FENO (RRR = 1.42) in subjects with current asthma. Subjects with past asthma had a statistically significant higher level of eosinophils (RRR = 1.78) with respect to controls. Subjects with chronic bronchitis were characterized by increased levels of eosinophils (RRR = 2.15), lymphocytes (RRR = 1.58), GSH (RRR = 2.23) and 8-isoprostane (RRR = 1.23). Conclusion: In our study, current asthmatics show a greater expression of the inflammatory profile compared to subjects who have had asthma in the past and chronic bronchitis. On the other hand, chronic bronchitis subjects showed a higher rate of expression of oxidative stress biomarkers compared to asthmatic subjects. In particular, inflammatory markers such as circulating inflammatory cells and FENO seem to be more specific for current asthma, while oxidative stress biomarkers such as glutathione and 8-isoprostane appear to be more specific and applicable to patients with chronic bronchitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]