Association of COVID-19 risk factors with systemic fungal infections in hospitalized patients.

Purpose: A new category of systemic co-infections that emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic is known as COVID-19-associated (CA) fungal infections, which include pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA), candidiasis (CAC), and mucormycosis (CAM). We aimed to study the association between patient characteristics of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, COVID-19 comorbidities, and COVID-19 therapies with secondary non-superficial fungal infections.

Methods: We performed descriptive and regression analyses of data from 4,999 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from the University of Kentucky Healthcare (UKHC) system.

Lesion distribution among 281 patients with sporadic neuralgic amyotrophy.

Introduction: The muscles commonly affected by neuralgic amyotrophy (NA) are well known, but the location of the responsible lesions is less clear (plexus versus extraplexus).

Methods: We report the lesion locations in 281 NA patients as determined by extensive electrodiagnostic (EDX) testing.

Results: Our 281 patients had 322 bouts of NA, 57 of which were bilateral, for a total of 379 assessable events.

Electrodiagnostic features of true neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome.

Introduction: We report the electrodiagnostic (EDX) features of 32 patients with surgically verified true neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome (TN-TOS).

Methods: Retrospective record review.

Results: We found uniform EDX evidence of a chronic axon loss process that affected the lower portion of the brachial plexus and disproportionately involved the T1 more than the C8 sensory and motor fibers.

Pitfalls in the electrodiagnostic studies of sacral plexopathies.

This retrospective review characterizes the electrodiagnostic (EDX) features and etiologies of sacral plexopathies (SPs) and discusses difficulties in their identification. The EDX findings of 171 clinically suspected SPs were reviewed using the following criteria: reduced/absent sensory nerve action potentials (SNAPs) of the sural or superficial peroneal nerve, denervation of plexus-innervated muscles, and the absence of paraspinal denervation. Sixty cases localized unequivocally to the sacral plexus.

Plexopathies.

The neural plexuses are intricate networks of nerve fibers interposed between the spinal cord or anterior primary rami proximally and the most proximal portions of peripheral nerves distally. If the lumbar and sacral plexuses are considered as a single entity, then they constitute the largest peripheral nervous system structure. Each of the plexuses varies substantially from the others in its overall vulnerability to injury, the specific types of trauma or disease that most often affects it, and the ease with which it is assessed by the two laboratory diagnostic procedures in current use for doing so: neuroimaging studies and electrodiagnostic examinations.