Search

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic substantially affected the lives of persons with inherited neuromuscular disorders (INMD), causing disruption in clinical and support services. While several studies have investigated mental health, distress and psychosocial resources in the general population during the pandemic, little is known about the experience of persons with INMD. Methods This study was aimed to fill this gap by jointly investigating both psychopathological symptoms and psychosocial resources – specifically, resilience and perceived social support – among persons with INMD during the pandemic, taking into account demographic and clinical factors. Between April and December 2020, 59 participants with INMD (aged 15–59, 71.2% M) completed a questionnaire collecting demographic and clinical data, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the Resilience Scale for Adults, and the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment. Results Overall, participants showed good levels of resilience and perceived social support. A minority of participants reported clinically relevant psychopathological symptoms, 28.81% for anxiety and depression. Most psychopathological symptoms were negatively correlated with resilience (-0.347

The study analyzed the effect multidimensional poverty of farm families in Madagali and Michika local government areas of Adamawa State, Nigeria after the Boko Haram Insurgncy of 2014. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of the farm families and examined the multidimensional poverty status of the farm families in the study area. Multistage and simple random sampling techniques were employed in drawing 100 respondents from various communities. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty indices. Results showed that majority (57.58%) of the farm families were females, 47.89% were aged between 20 to 29 years, 79.8% were married, 55.56% had SSCE/GCE/Teachers Grade ii, 69.47% had farming as primary occupation, 33.33% had trading as secondary occupation, 61.46% had between N1100 – 10000 as income from primary source, 56.47% had between N1100 – N10000 as income from secondary source, 95% of the respondents owned land, 91.92% owned house. Majority (48.96%) of the respondents roofed their houses with thatch while 61.22% had mud as the wall material of their house. Majority (89.55%) of the respondents used firewood as cooking fuel, 49.47% leaved in a single room apartment, 63.53% had borehole as main source of drinking water, 46.24% used uncovered pit latrine and 71% of the household leaved without electricity. Monthly income of respondents, farm size and age of household head were the determinants of food security in the study area. The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) headcount ratio/poverty incidence (α = 0) was 0.78. The study analyzed that there were cases striking multidimensional poverty issues in the study area which call for immediate government intervention in the study area.

Coronary fistulas are rare, having been described for the first time by Krauss in 1865 in postmortem. They are commonly asymptomatic and can be caused by congenital or acquired malformations. We present the case of a 65-year-old patient who was treated for squamous cell lung cancer with chemoimmunotherapy and presented with angina. The coronary angiography showed a coronaro-bronchial fistula that arises from a branch of the right coronary artery and is associated with lung cancer.

Worldviews are culturally derived assumptions that influence individual and collective behaviors, values, and representations of reality. The study of mental functions is not exempt from this influence, as reflected in scientific theories, methodological approaches, and empirical studies. Despite acknowledging the interplay of mental processes with developmental, environmental, and cultural dimensions, psychological research is still primarily based on quantitative methods, and on the conceptualization of mental phenomena as unfolding along polarized continua. A lively epistemological debate surrounds this approach, especially underscoring the risk of blurring the distinction between constructs derived from statistical models and real-life processes and experiences. Based on this debate and on recent empirical evidence derived from the positive psychology literature, this paper is aimed at proposing an integrated view of mental health, as a holistically patterned, contextually imbedded, and dynamic phenomenon changing over time and across life events, with harmony, harmonization and dynamic balance as core qualities. The heuristic potential of investigating the qualitative configuration patterns of mental health dimensions across individuals and groups, beyond their position along a quantitative continuum, is outlined. The development of more integrated approaches and methodologies to investigate mental health as a harmonization process, taking into account personal, contextual and developmental features, would be aligned with evidence derived from the integration of traditional nomothetic and ideographic approaches, and other life sciences. However, the development of a transdisciplinary line of research requires further inputs from different epistemological views, as well as higher attention to the potential contribution of different philosophical traditions.

A 3-year-old girl presented with recurrent exotropia following primary strabismus surgery. Careful fundus examination of the left eye revealed loss of the foveal reflex and presence of a subtle grayish mass with overlying white fluff. Optical coherence tomography through the lesion revealed disorganization of inner and outer retinal layers with accompanying epiretinal gliosis. Together, these findings were suggestive of combined hamartoma of the retina and retinal pigment epithelium (CHRRPE). No syndromic association was found. CHRRPE is a rare retinal tumor that usually presents with visual loss, strabismus, or follows an asymptomatic course. Retinal tumors must be kept in mind whenever loss of foveal reflex occurs concurrently with strabismus.

Objective: The aim of the study is to make a review of the literature about bladder malakoplakia. Material and Methods: We searched articles on the PUBMED web-literature database with the following keywords: “vesical malakoplakia” and “bladder malakoplakia”. In the literature we found 254 articles. At final we have excluded 219 articles, including in our study only 35 articles. Results: The overall average age found was 50.85 years. The average age of men was 43.22 years, while that of women was 53.37 years. 75% of the patient cases were women and 25% were men. Regarding comorbidities, in 5.55% of the cases were missing whereas 47.22% of the patients suffered from recurrent urinary tract infection (UTI) and 19.44% from immune system disorders. Urine culture was positive in 69.44% with E.coli being isolated in 92% of cases. Hydroureteronephrosis was present in 44.44% of the cases: left in 6.25% of cases, right in 18.75% and bilateral in 75%. The mean serum creatinine of patients with hydroureteronephrosis was 5.11 (1-21) mg/dl. The most frequent site of the lesion was the vesicoureteral junction (VUJ) (42.31%), followed by the trigone (38.46%). 30.56% of patients were treated with antibiotic and surgery (transurethral resection of bladder, partial or radical cystectomy), less frequent options were antibiotics alone and surgery alone. The recurrence rate was 15%. Conclusions: Malakoplakia is a disorder usually related to other affections, like UTI and immunodepression, and it seem to be caused by an abnormal macrophage function. In almost half of the described cases of isolated bladder malakoplakia, hydroureteronephrosis and renal failure were present.Treatment is not standardized, but both medical and surgical therapies are effective to avoid recurrence.

Now that access of large domestic mammals to high-field MRI becomes more common, techniques initially implemented for human patients can be used for the structural and functional study of the brain of these animals. Among them, susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) is a recent technique obtained from gradient echo (GE) imaging that allow for an excellent anatomical tissue contrast and a non-invasive assessment of brain iron content. The goal of this study was to design an optimal GE SWI imaging protocol to be used in dogs undergoing an MRI examination of the brain in a 3-Tesla scanner. This imaging protocol was applied to ex vivo brains from four dogs. The imaging protocol was validated by visual inspection of the SWI images that provided a high anatomical detail, as demonstrated by their comparison with corresponding microscopic sections. As resolvable brain structures were labeled, this study is the first to provide an anatomic description of SWI images of the canine brain. Once validated in living animals, this GE SWI imaging protocol could be easily included in routine neuroimaging protocols to improve the diagnosis of various intracranial diseases of dogs, or be used in future comparative studies aiming at evaluating brain iron content in animals.

In bladder cancer (BC), the evaluation of lymph node (LN) involvement at preoperative imaging lacks specificity. Since neoangiogenesis is paired with lymphatic involvement, this study aims to evaluate the presence of perivesical venous ectasia as an indirect sign of LN involvement, together with other conventional CT findings. All the patients who underwent radical cystectomy (RC) for BC between January 2017 and December 2019 with available preoperative contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) within 1 month before surgery were included. Patients without available pathological reports (and pTNM stage) or who underwent neoadjuvant treatments and palliative RC were excluded. Two readers in blind assessed the nodal shape and hilum, the short axis, and the contrast enhancement of suspicious pelvic LNs, the Largest Venous Diameter (LVD) efferent to the lesion, and the extravesical tumor invasion. In total, 38 patients (33 males) were included: 17 pT2, 17 pT3, 4 pT4; pN+: 20/38. LN short axis > 5 mm, LN enhancement, and LVD > 3 mm were significantly correlated with N+ at pathology. LVD > 3 mm had a significantly higher sensitivity and specificity (≥90%, AUC = 0.949) and was an independent predictor (p = 0.0016).

Probiotics are microorganisms that confer benefits to the host, and, for this reason, they have been proposed in several pathologic states. Specifically, probiotic bacteria have been investigated as a therapeutic option in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, but clinical results are dishomogeneous. In particular, many probiotic species with different therapeutic schemes have been proposed, but no study has investigated probiotics in monotherapy in adequate trials for the induction of remission. Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) is the more intensively studied probiotic and it has ideal characteristics for utilization in UC patients. The aim of the present study is to investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of LGG administration in an open trial, delivered in monotherapy at two different doses, in UC patients with mild–moderate disease. The UC patients with mild–moderate disease activity (Partial Mayo score ≥ 2) despite treatment with oral mesalamine were included. The patients stopped oral mesalamine and were followed up for one month, then were randomized to receive LGG supplement at dose of 1.2 or 2.4 × 1010 CFU/day for one month. At the end of the study, the clinical activity was evaluated and compared to that at the study entrance (efficacy). Adverse events were recorded (safety). The primary end-point was clinical improvement (reduction in the Partial Mayo score) and no serious adverse events, while the secondary end-points were the evaluation of different efficacies and safeties between the two doses of LGG. The patients with disease flares dropped out of the study and went back to standard therapy. The efficacy data were analyzed in an intention-to-treat (ITT) and per-protocol (PP) analysis. Out of the 76 patients included in the study, 75 started the probiotic therapy (n = 38 and 37 per group). In the ITT analysis, 32/76 (42%) responded to treatment, 21/76 (28%) remained stable, and 23/76 (30%) had a worsening of their clinical condition; 55 (72%) completed the treatment and were analyzed in a PP analysis: 32/55 (58%) had a clinical response, 21 (38%) remained stable, and 2 (4%) had a light worsening of their clinical condition (p < 0.0001). Overall, 37% of the patients had a disease remission. No severe adverse event was recorded, and only one patient stopped therapy due to obstinate constipation. No difference in the clinical efficacy and safety has been recorded between groups treated with different doses of LGG. The present prospective clinical trial demonstrates, for the first time, that LGG in monotherapy is safe and effective for the induction of remission in UC patients with mild–moderate disease activity (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04102852).

This study aimed at investigating the change in social eating problems from diagnosis to 24 months after primary (chemo)radiotherapy and its associations with swallowing, oral function, and nutritional status, in addition to the clinical, personal, physical, psychological, social, and lifestyle dimensions. Adult patients from the NETherlands QUality of life and BIomedical Cohort (NET-QUBIC) treated with curative intent with primary (chemo)radiotherapy for newly-diagnosed HNC and who provided baseline social eating data were included. Social eating problems were measured at baseline and at 3-, 6-, 12-, and 24-month follow-up, with hypothesized associated variables at baseline and at 6 months. Associations were analyzed through linear mixed models. Included patients were 361 (male: 281 (77.8%), age: mean = 63.3, SD = 8.6). Social eating problems increased at the 3-month follow-up and decreased up to 24 months (F = 33.134, p < 0.001). The baseline-to-24 month change in social eating problems was associated with baseline swallowing-related quality of life (F = 9.906, p < 0.001) and symptoms (F = 4.173, p = 0.002), nutritional status (F = 4.692, p = 0.001), tumor site (F = 2.724, p = 0.001), age (F = 3.627, p = 0.006), and depressive symptoms (F = 5.914, p < 0.001). The 6–24-month change in social eating problems was associated with a 6-month nutritional status (F = 6.089, p = 0.002), age (F = 5.727, p = 0.004), muscle strength (F = 5.218, p = 0.006), and hearing problems (F = 5.155, p = 0.006). Results suggest monitoring social eating problems until 12-month follow-up and basing interventions on patients’ features.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic substantially affected the lives of persons with inherited neuromuscular disorders (INMD), causing disruption in clinical and support services. While several studies have investigated mental health, distress and psychosocial resources in the general population during the pandemic, little is known about the experience of persons with INMD. Methods: This study was aimed to fill this gap by jointly investigating both psychopathological symptoms and psychosocial resources – specifically, resilience and perceived social support – among persons with INMD during the pandemic, taking into account demographic and clinical factors. Between April and December 2020, 59 participants with INMD (aged 15–59, 71.2% M) completed a questionnaire collecting demographic and clinical data, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the Resilience Scale for Adults, and the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment. Results: Overall, participants showed good levels of resilience and perceived social support. A minority of participants reported clinically relevant psychopathological symptoms, 28.81% for anxiety and depression. Most psychopathological symptoms were negatively correlated with resilience (-0.347 < r < −.420), but not significantly associated with social support. Consistent with previous studies, regression analyses highlighted that participants with Duchenne muscular dystrophy were more prone to report anxious and depressive symptoms (B = 1.748, p =.028, OR = 5.744), and participants with myotonic dystrophy, attention problems (B = 2.339, p =.006, OR = 10.376). Resilience emerged as a potential predictor of lower anxious-depressive symptoms (B=-1.264, p =.012, OR = 0.283). Conclusions: The findings suggest the importance to investigate psychosocial resources in addition to psychopathology among persons with INMD, and to design interventions supporting resilience as a protective factor for mental health promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]