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In this paper, we reported a 27-year-old man presenting with Henoch-Schönlein purpura in an acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) patient with Kaposi sarcoma. He died from sepsis-related organ failures in the hospital. Relevant literature was also discussed to illustrate this disease., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology.)

Central venous catheters (CVCs) are important for maintenance of childhood leukemia treatment but CVCs may develop complications. The aim of this study was to retrospectively evaluate the CVC-related complication rate, complication types, and outcome in children with acute leukemia. Complications developing in 310 CVCs (ports n=250, Hickman catheters n=60) inserted in 262 patients were evaluated. A total of 225,296 catheter days were screened. Median (range) CVC in-dwelling time was 661.5 (1 to 2636) days. In total, 157 complications developed of which 91 (58%) were infectious complications, 35 (22.3%) were vascular, 19 (12.1%) were surgical, and 12 (7.6%) were mechanical. Hickman catheters had a higher complication rate and were more prone to mechanical complications ( P <0.01) but there was no difference for other complications. A lower absolute neutrophil count at insertion was observed in children with infectious complications ( P <0.01). Seventy-eight of 136 catheters (57.3%) had to be removed prematurely. The overall complication rate was 0.65 per 1000 catheter days. In multivariate analysis, relapse leukemia, Hickman catheter and low absolute neutrophil count increased complication risk by 4.00, 1.97, and 1.92 times, respectively. Five (1.9%) deaths occurred because of catheter complications. Safe use of CVCs can be improved by early detection of complications and an experienced catheter care team., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) should be treated in order to eliminate hepatitis C virus in the world. The aim of this study was to compare direct-acting antivirals treatment of hepatitis C virus for PWID and non-PWID in a real-life setting., Methods: We performed a prospective, non-randomized, observational multicenter cohort study in 37 centers. All patients treated with direct-acting antivirals between April 1, 2017, and February 28, 2019, were included. In total, 2713 patients were included in the study among which 250 were PWID and 2463 were non-PWID. Besides patient characteristics, treatment response, follow-up, and side effects of treatment were also analyzed., Results: Genotype 1a and 3 were more prevalent in PWID-infected patients (20.4% vs 9.9% and 46.8% vs 5.3%). The number of naïve patients was higher in PWID (90.7% vs 60.0%), while the number of patients with cirrhosis was higher in non-PWID (14.1% vs 3.7%). The loss of follow-up was higher in PWID (29.6% vs 13.6%). There was no difference in the sustained virologic response at 12 weeks after treatment (98.3% vs 98.4%), but the end of treatment response was lower in PWID (96.2% vs 99.0%). In addition, the rate of treatment completion was lower in PWID (74% vs 94.4%)., Conclusion: Direct-acting antivirals were safe and effective in PWID. Primary measures should be taken to prevent the loss of follow-up and poor adherence in PWID patients in order to achieve World Health Organization's objective of eliminating viral hepatitis.

Background: The number and proportion of elderly patients living with chronic hepatitis C are expected to increase in the coming years. We aimed to compare the real-world efficacy and safety of direct-acting antiviral treatment in elderly and younger Turkish adults infected with chronic hepatitis C., Methods: In this multicenter prospective study, 2629 eligible chronic hepatitis C patients treated with direct-acting antivirals between April 2017 and December 2019 from 37 Turkish referral centers were divided into 2 age groups: elderly (≥65 years) and younger adults (&lt;65 years) and their safety was compared between 2 groups in evaluable population. Then, by matching the 2 age groups for demographics and pretreatment risk factors for a non-sustained virological response, a total of 1516 patients (758 in each group) and 1244 patients (622 in each group) from the modified evaluable population and per-protocol population were included in the efficacy analysis and the efficacy was compared between age groups., Results: The sustained virological response in the chronic hepatitis C patients was not affected by the age and the presence of cirrhosis both in the modified evaluable population and per-protocol population (P = .879, P = .508 for modified evaluable population and P = .058, P = .788 for per-protocol population, respectively). The results of the per-protocol analysis revealed that male gender, patients who had a prior history of hepatocellular carcinoma, patients infected with non-genotype 1 hepatitis C virus, and patients treated with sofosbuvir+ribavirin had a significantly lower sustained virological response 12 rates (P &lt; .001, P = .047, P = .013, and P = .025, respectively)., Conclusion: Direct-acting antivirals can be safely used to treat Turkish elderly chronic hepatitis C patients with similar favorable efficacy and safety as that in younger adults.

Objective: Malaria is an infection disease caused by plamodium parasite. Sporadic cases have not been observed since 2011, but imported cases still present owing to travel. In this study, we aimed to evaluate labotauary and clinical findings patients with malaria who were hospitalized and treated in our hospital., Methods: Between January 2012-November 2018, a total of 31 adult patients was evaluated retrospectively, in terms of their epidemiological, physical examination and laboratory findings, complaints, countries they traveled to, prophylaxis and treatment that they received. Data of the patients were taken from the hospital’s database., Results: A total of 31 cases were diagnosed as having malaria. The causative microorganism was P. falciparum in 54.83% (17/31) of the patients, P. vivax in 32.25% (10/31), and P. falciparum-P. vivax co-infection in 12.9% (4/31) of the patients. Co-infections were excluded from the study. None of the cases had used prophylactic drugs for prevention of malaria. All of the cases suffered from chills with fever. The most frequently encountered pathologic laboratory findings were thrombocytopenia and leucopenia. Antibiotics had been initiated in 51.85% (14/27) of the patients with non-specific diagnoses. Rapid antigen test was used in 8148% (22/27) of cases. None of cases needed intensive care., Conclusion: It is important to inform persons who plan to visit malaria endemic areas about malaria and to make them take appropriate prophylaxis against malaria. Although P. falciparum which has a high mortality rate may be considered in the first plan, P. vivax , treatment of which is different due to risk of relapse, should not be overlooked.

Aims: To assess diabetic patients' knowledge and practices regarding foot care., Methods: This study was conducted as a cross-sectional study in 1030 patients between November 2017 and February 2018.The descriptive survey instrument was developed by the investigators. Survey content and format were based on prior surveys and guidelines. The survey sought socio-demographic characteristics of the patients and the level of knowledge about diabetic foot care practice., Results: 29.5% of patients had bad foot care, 49.6% of patients had moderate foot care and 20.8% of patients had good foot care. There were no significant differences between patient groups in regard to age, gender, foot infection history and having undergone amputation surgery. We found that patients who good at foot care had higher education status (p<0.001), were more likely live in a city (p<0.001), had higher income (p<0.001), had been trained about foot care (p<0.001) and were more likely to have type I DM (p=0.015). Disease duration was longer in those who had good foot care compared to the other groups (p=0.010)., Conclusions: The mean knowledge and practice scores of our patients were moderate, indicating that much is to be done for the education of patients on this matter. We also found that knowledge about the importance of this practice, education status and disease duration had significant influence on the practice of foot-care in patients with DM., (Copyright © 2019 Primary Care Diabetes Europe. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The study aimed to determine the level of knowledge and the sources of information about normal puberty and menstrual patterns in Turkish schoolgirls from İstanbul., Methods: The study sample was comprised of 922 randomly chosen schoolgirls. A questionnaire survey of knowledge of normal pubertal development and menstrual patterns was conducted., Results: The age of the girls ranged between 10 and 17 years and 82.3% had had menarche. The leading source of pubertal information was the mothers (84.2%). There was no statistically significant relationship between the mothers' education level and the level of knowledge of the students about pubertal development (p>0.05). The main source for 18% of students was their teacher, but only 6% had a preference for their teacher providing education on this topic. Students who attained menarche preferred education about puberty to be given by health professionals and to both genders at the same setting (p<0.01). A total of 31.5% of students thought that the first symptom of puberty was acne. Half (50.7%) of the students did not know the time period between the beginning of puberty and menarche. The girls who had attained menarche were more knowledgeable about puberty, largely through their own experience., Conclusion: This study shows that schoolgirls have an insufficient level of knowledge about normal puberty. Education programs must be conducted for students and their parents.

Tumors of the ileocecal valve are rarely mentioned, and are mostly defined radiologically. In this manuscript, we report a case of ileocecal valve adenocarcinoma diagnosed endoscopically. The case is a male patient, 78-years-old, with abdominal pain and weight loss in whom a mass was palpated in the lower right quadrant. Abdominal ultrasound examination followed by colonoscopy and pathological diagnosis revealed adenocarcinoma of the ileocecal valve confirmed by surgical diagnosis. We report this case because of its rarity and because there is no endoscopic image in the medical literature.

Background/aims: Prolapse gastropathy is a clinical syndrome involving the invagination of a part of the gastric mucosa into the lower esophagus resulting in well demarcated hemorrhagic mucosa and sometimes bleeding. The importance of this syndrome is that it has been reported as a cause of hematemesis. As this syndrome is considered to be seen in patients with retching and vomiting and to be one of the causes of upper gastrointestinal bleeding, this study was undertaken to evaluate its frequency and importance in our patients., Methods: The study groups comprised of 941 patients with hematemesis and 54 with recurrent retching and vomiting. Biopsies were obtained from the prolapsing mucosa when detected. Hematoxylin and eosin stained specimens were reviewed by an experienced histopathologist., Results: Prolapse gastropathy was detected in 20 patients (2%), of whom six (0.6%) were in the hematemesis group and 14 (25.9%) in the retching and vomiting group. The location of the lesion was the greater curvature in 10 patients (50%), lesser curvature in seven patients (35%) and anterior wall in three patients (15%). In all six cases from the hematemesis group, bleeding was not related to prolapse gastropathy because other causative lesions were identified. Histologic evaluation of the biopsies revealed acute inflammation, chronic inflammation and submucosal hemorrhage., Conclusions: According to the results of this study, prolapse gastropathy is not a cause of hematemesis. Other causes should be identified when prolapse gastropathy is detected in a patient with hematemesis.

Background/aims: In Turkey, colonoscopy is a procedure generally performed with intravenous sedation and analgesia. Most of the complications of colonoscopy are related to sedation. The aims of this study were to determine the percentage of patients who could successfully undergo nonsedated colonoscopy without sedation and to assess patient tolerance and acceptance., Methods: The study included 120 consecutive patients undergoing colonoscopy by two endoscopists in our endoscopy unit. The procedure routinely began without sedation, which was later given (midazolam and hyoscine butylbromide) only if significant discomfort occurred. Parameters of blood pressure, oxygen saturation and heart rate were measured before and during colonoscopy. After the procedure patients were asked to rate their pain on a four point scale 1=no pain, 2=slight, 3=moderate, 4=severe and they were also asked if they would be willing to undergo colonoscopy again without sedation., Results: Eighty eight percent of all colonoscopies were completed without sedation. Mean PaO2 was 96.46 in nonsedated patients and 93.90 (significant p<0.05) in sedated patients. No difference was found between blood pressure and pulse rate of nonsedated and sedated patients. The mean pain score was 2.0 for the nonsedated patients and 3.8 (significant p<0.05) for the sedated patients. Eighty eight percent of patients stated that they would be willing to undergo colonoscopy without sedation again., Conclusions: In experienced hands, colonoscopy without sedation can be completed successfully in most patients, without any complications and use of extra instrumentation.