Impacts of a Re-designed Care Path for Back Pain Directing Patients to Physiotherapists: A Pre-Post Intervention Study.

Objective: To evaluate impact of directing patients with back pain for first visit to a physiotherapist on sick leaves, healthcare utilization, and patient satisfaction.

Methods: Pre-post intervention study of 70,138 patients treated in Poland for back pain: 27,034 before the care pathway redesign and 43,104 after.

Results: After the redesign, all per-patient measures (mean ± SD) significantly decreased over the 12-month follow-up: sick leaves number from 0.

May Measurement Month 2018: an analysis of blood pressure screening campaign results from Poland.

Hypertension remains the most important cardiovascular risk factor in Poland. May Measurement Month is a global initiative organized by the International Society of Hypertension aimed at raising awareness of hypertension and the need for blood pressure (BP) screening and demonstrating the potential of the opportunistic BP measurements. An opportunistic cross-sectional survey of volunteers aged ≥18 was carried out in 146 sites in May 2018.

Do we know more about hypertension in Poland after the May Measurement Month 2017?-Europe.

Elevated blood pressure (BP) is a worldwide burden, leading to over 10 million deaths yearly. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global initiative organized by the International Society of Hypertension aimed at raising awareness of hypertension and the need for BP screening. An opportunistic cross-sectional survey of volunteers aged ≥18 was carried out in May 2017.

Clinical significance of antiphospholipid protein antibodies. Receiver operating characteristics plot analysis.

Objective: To investigate the utility of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis in determining the strength of association between various antiphospholipid and anti-protein cofactor antibodies (aPA) and thrombosis, pregnancy morbidity, and thrombocytopenia.

Methods: Clinical and laboratory variables were retrospectively studied in 204 patients: 160 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 22 with lupus-like syndrome (SLE-LS), and 22 with primary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Laboratory evaluation included detection of lupus anticoagulant (LAC) and measurement of IgG and IgM anticardiolipin (aCL), antiphosphatidylserine (aPS), antiphosphatidylinositol (aPI), anti-beta 2 glycoprotein I (a beta 2GPI), and antiprothrombin (aPT) antibodies.