COVID-19 Disease in Syrian Patients With Cancer: Clinical Manifestations, Laboratory Findings, Treatment, and Outcomes.

Purpose: This study aims to describe the clinical manifestations, laboratory findings, treatment, and outcomes of patients with cancer with COVID-19 infection in Syria. The primary objective was to identify the overall survival (OS) time, and the secondary objectives were to identify factors associated with severe COVID-19 infection.

Methods: This multicenter retrospective study was undertaken at four hospitals in Damascus, Syria, between March 28, 2020, and March 29, 2021.

Vitamin D status and parathyroid hormone levels in relation to bone mineral density in apparently healthy Syrian adults.

Unlabelled: Vitamin D deficiency was highly prevalent in this study. More than half of the participants with vitamin D level less than 5 ng/mL had secondary hyperparathyroidism, which implicated a major bone health concern. After adjustment for potential predictors, parathyroid hormone (PTH) explained about 3 % of the variance in total hip bone mineral density (BMD).

Osteoporosis knowledge and attitudes: a cross-sectional study among female nursing school students in Damascus.

Summary: This study was conducted to determine the level of osteoporosis knowledge and beliefs among nursing college students in Damascus. A worrying deficit of knowledge was found. They believed osteoporosis to be a serious disease but did not feel susceptible to or concerned about it.

Patient attitudes towards medical students at Damascus University teaching hospitals.

Background: The cooperation of patients and their consent to involve medical students in their care is vital to clinical education, but large numbers of students and lack of experience as well as loss of privacy may evoke negative attitudes of patients, which may sometimes adversely affect the clinical teaching environment. This study aimed to explore the attitudes of patients towards medical students at Damascus University hospitals, and to explore the determinants of those attitudes thus discussing possible implications applicable to clinical teaching.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at three teaching hospitals affiliated to the Faculty of Medicine at Damascus University.

Effects of early growth on blood pressure of infants of British European and South Asian origin at one year of age: the Manchester children's growth and vascular health study.

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate early influences of postnatal growth on blood pressure (BP) in healthy, British-born South Asian and European origin infants. We tested the hypotheses that South Asian infants would be smaller in all body dimensions (length and weight) with higher relative truncal skinfold thickness at birth, and that increased (central) adiposity and accelerated growth up to 1 year would be associated with higher BP in both ethnic groups.

Patients And Methods: Five hundred and sixty infants were followed prospectively from birth to 3 and/or 12 months with measures of anthropometry and resting BP, compared against a UK 1990 growth reference, and analysed using regression methods.

Analysis of 92 mitral pulmonary autograft replacement (Ross II) operations.

Objective: The study objective was to find a mitral valve substitute that does not require lifelong anticoagulation and is not affected by tissue degeneration in the long term.

Methods: Between July 14, 1997, and August 8, 2004, a total of 92 patients with irreparable mitral valve disease underwent mitral valve replacement with the pulmonary autograft encased within a Dacron tubing for support. In 4 patients, the autograft had to be sacrificed at the initial operation.

Maternal and neonatal influences on, and reproducibility of, neonatal aortic pulse wave velocity.

Aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV), a noninvasive measure of vascular stiffness, is an independent predictor of cardiovascular disease both before and in overt vascular disease. Its characteristics in early life and its relationship to maternal factors have hardly been studied. To test the hypothesis that infant aPWV was positively related to maternal anthropometry and blood pressure (BP) at 28 weeks gestation, after adjusting for neonatal anthropometry and BP, 148 babies born in Manchester were measured 1 to 3 days after birth.

Adiponectin in umbilical cord blood is inversely related to low-density lipoprotein cholesterol but not ethnicity.

Context: Adiponectin is a recognized protective risk marker for cardiovascular disease in adults and is associated with an optimal lipid profile. The role of adiponectin at birth is not well understood, and its relationship with the neonatal lipid profile is unknown. Because ethnic disparities in cardiovascular risk have been attributed to low adiponectin and its associated low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), investigation at birth may help determine the etiology of these risk patterns.