Knowledge, Attitudes, and Willingness of Healthcare Workers in Iraq's Kurdistan Region to Vaccinate against Human Monkeypox: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study.

Although human monkeypox infections had not been recorded in the Kurdistan region of Iraq as of August 2023, the rapid growth of cases worldwide and the detection of monkeypox in neighboring Middle Eastern nations call for careful planning and timely response measures. Educating and empowering frontline healthcare workers (HCWs) so that they can act to curb the spread of monkeypox infections are core elements of primary prevention and protecting public health. Therefore, this study aimed to assess HCWs' knowledge and attitudes about monkeypox and their willingness to vaccinate against monkeypox.

Inequalities in mental health service utilisation by children and young people: a population survey using linked electronic health records from Northwest London, UK.

Background: Mental healthcare services for children and young people (CYP) are a very limited resource in the UK. To prevent health inequalities, measures to increase overall capacity must sit alongside measures that ensure utilisation matches need.

Aim: Our aim was to identify subgroups of CYP with unexpectedly low mental health service utilisation, presumably representing unmet need, and to assess whether there is area variation in the socioeconomic gradient of mental healthcare use.

COVID-19 Vaccination Prioritization Strategies in Malaysia: A Retrospective Analysis of Early Evidence.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that can cause extreme acute respiratory syndrome has posed a catastrophic threat to public health. The vaccines had indeed restored optimism and, after more than two years of battling the pandemic, there is renewed hope for the transition to endemicity. At the start of vaccination efforts, when supply shortages of vaccines were inevitable, every nation determined the high-risk population groups to be given priority for the COVID-19 vaccines.

Clinical predictors of efavirenz-based regimen treatment durability: A two-year case-control study of antiretroviral-naïve patients.

Background: While efavirenz-associated adverse drug events (ADEs) were widely established, the clinical relevance is uncertain.

Objectives: We aimed to assess the extent of treatment interruption caused by efavirenz-associated ADEs.

Methods: A case-control study of efavirenz recipients who did, versus did not (control) develop adverse drug events (ADE), and who were matched for baseline CD4 + at a ratio of 1:1.

The Race for Global Equitable Access to COVID-19 Vaccines.

COVID-19 vaccines are possibly the most effective medical countermeasures to mitigate and ultimately bring to a halt the COVID-19 pandemic. As we transition to endemicity, inequitable access to vaccines, and particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), still poses risks of unprecedented disruptions and the emergence of viral mutations, which potentially lead to notorious vaccine-resistant variants. The missteps learned from the previous responses to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and influenza outbreaks founded the hypothetical plan to ensure that vaccine accessibility to LMICs is not impeded.

Risk factors for endocrine complications in transfusion-dependent thalassemia patients on chelation therapy with deferasirox: a risk assessment study from a multi-center nation-wide cohort.

Transfusion-dependent patients typically develop iron-induced cardiomyopathy, liver disease, and endocrine complications. We aimed to estimate the incidence of endocrine disorders in transfusiondependent thalassemia (TDT) patients during long-term iron-chelation therapy with deferasirox (DFX). We developed a multi-center follow-up study of 426 TDT patients treated with once-daily DFX for a median duration of 8 years, up to 18.

The paradoxical effect of IL-6 and implications for the use of Tocilizumab in Covid-19 patients.

In the context of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, patients affected by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) should be more vulnerable to Covid-19, whereas they seem to be protected against severe Covid-19. That paradox has important practical implications for the use of the drug Tocilizumab in Covid-19. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) orchestrates the so-called cytokine storm leading to the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), the life-threatening condition that is responsible for Covid-19 deaths.

Hydrogen peroxide and viral infections: A literature review with research hypothesis definition in relation to the current covid-19 pandemic.

We reviewed the literature concerning the innate response from nasal and oral epithelial cells and their reaction to hydrogen peroxide (HO). Hydrogen peroxide is produced physiologically by oral bacteria and plays a significant role in the balance of oral microecology since it is an important antimicrobial agent. In the epithelial cells, the enzyme superoxide dismutase catalyzes a reaction leading from hydrogen peroxide to the ion superoxide.

The Recurrence of Onychocryptosis when Treated with Phenolization: Does Phenol Application Time Play a Role? A Follow-Up Study on 622 Procedures.

Introduction: Chemical matricectomy using phenol (CMP) is a recognized treatment option for onychocryptosis. However, the appropriate phenol application time to achieve nail matrix destruction is still unknown. Optimal ablation leads to low recurrence rates.

The effects of six-day SSRI administration on diurnal cortisol secretion in healthy volunteers.

Rationale: Hyperactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has been widely reported in depression, and evidence suggests that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) might exert their therapeutic effects through altering cortisol secretion.

Objective: This study assessed the effects of SSRI administration on diurnal cortisol secretion in healthy volunteers.

Methods: Sixty-four healthy men and women were randomised to receive either 10 mg escitalopram or placebo for six days in a double-blind fashion.

New technological devices for the assessment of systemic inflammation in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Purpose Of Review: The prediction of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events is of strategic importance for the primary prevention of one of the big killers in the world. Predictive models have a history of decades, but still the desired accuracy is not reached by any of the existing models. The inclusion of inflammatory factors in the models did not increase their accuracy.

Measuring high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T blood concentration in population surveys.

Introduction: The blood test for high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (HS-CTnT) has been proposed as a marker of cardiovascular risk in the general population, as it is associated with subsequent incidence of cardiovascular events and mortality. We aimed at evaluating the feasibility of HS-CTnT testing within large nationally-representative population surveys in which blood samples are collected during household visits, shipped using the standard civil postal service, and then frozen for subsequent analyses.

Methods: The Health Survey for England (HSE) consists of a series of annual surveys beginning in 1991.

The interaction between systemic inflammation and psychosocial stress in the association with cardiac troponin elevation: A new approach to risk assessment and disease prevention.

We have previously shown that there is a complex and dynamic biological interaction between acute mental stress and acute release of inflammatory factors into the blood stream in relation to heart disease. We now hypothesize that the presence of chronic psychosocial stress may modify the weight of single test results for inflammation as a predictor of heart disease. Using a cross-sectional design, 500 participants free from heart disease drawn from the Whitehall II study in UK in 2006-2008 were tested for plasma fibrinogen as an inflammatory factor, financial strain as a marker of chronic psychosocial stress, coronary calcification measured using computed tomography, and for plasma high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (HS-CTnT) as a marker of cardiac risk.

Psychosocial job characteristics, wealth, and culture: differential effects on mental health in the UK and Thailand.

Background: Most research on the influence of psychosocial job characteristics on health status has been conducted within affluent Western economies. This research addresses the same topic in a middle-income Southeast Asian country, enabling comparison with a Western benchmark.

Methods: We analysed and compared the Health Survey for England conducted in 2010 and the Thai Cohort Study data at 2005 baseline for workers aged 35-45 years.

The mediation of coronary calcification in the association between risk scores and cardiac troponin T elevation in healthy adults: Is atherosclerosis a good prognostic precursor of coronary disease?

Background: Conventional cardiac risk scores may not be completely accurate in predicting acute events because they only include factors associated with atherosclerosis, considered as the fundamental precursor of cardiovascular disease. In UK in 2006-2008 (Whitehall II study) we tested the ability of several risk scores to identify individuals with cardiac cell damage and assessed to what extent their estimates were mediated by the presence of atherosclerosis.

Methods: 430 disease-free, low-risk participants were tested for high-sensitivity cardiac troponin-T (HS-CTnT) and for coronary calcification using electron-beam, dual-source, computed tomography (CAC).

The association between fibrinogen reactivity to mental stress and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T in healthy adults.

Background: Plasma fibrinogen is considered as a positive mediator between mental stress and cardiovascular disease because it is an acute-phase protein released in response to mental stress and a coagulation factor. However those three factors have never been studied together within a single integrated framework, using cardiac troponin T as a marker of cardiovascular risk.

Methods: 491 disease-free men and women aged 53-76 were tested for fibrinogen levels before, immediately after, and following recovery from standardized mental stress tasks.

The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England.

Background: Socioeconomic status is a recognised determinant of health status, and the association may be mediated by unhealthy behaviours and psychosocial adversities, which, in developed countries, both aggregate in low socioeconomic sectors of the population. We explored the hypothesis that unhealthy behavioural choices and psychological distress do not both aggregate in low socioeconomic status groups in developing countries.

Methods: Our study is based on a cross-sectional comparison between national population samples of adults in England and Thailand.

Low socioeconomic status and psychological distress as synergistic predictors of mortality from stroke and coronary heart disease.

Background: The purpose of this study was to test whether lower socioeconomic status (SES) augments the effect of psychological distress on mortality from stroke or coronary heart disease (CHD).

Methods: We prospectively linked data from 66,500 participants 35 years or older in the Health Survey for England, selected using stratified random sampling from 1994 to 2004, and free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline, with mortality records. The median follow-up time was 7.

The combined association of psychological distress and socioeconomic status with all-cause mortality: a national cohort study.

Background: Psychological distress and low socioeconomic status (SES) are recognized risk factors for mortality. The aim of this study was to test whether lower SES amplifies the effect of psychological distress on all-cause mortality.

Methods: We selected 66 518 participants from the Health Survey for England who were 35 years or older, free of cancer and cardiovascular disease at baseline, and living in private households in England from 1994 to 2004.

Combined protocol for treatment of secondary effects from facial nerve palsy.

Conclusion: Rehabilitation was significantly efficient in both groups of patients with synkinesis, especially in those in whom treatment with botulinum toxin type A (BTX-A) preceded physical rehabilitation.

Objective: To determine the influence of preventive treatment with BTX-A on synkinesis when physical rehabilitation is planned.

Methods: Twenty patients, who recovered from facial palsy with final House-Brackmann (HB) grade II and III, were randomized to assess the efficacy of preventive BTX-A treatment on final synkinesis score after physical rehabilitation.

Inequalities in stroke patients' management in English public hospitals: a survey on 200,000 patients.

Background: According to clinical guidelines, every patient affected by stroke should be given a brain-imaging scan (BIS) - Computerized Tomography or Magnetic Resonance Imaging - immediately after being admitted to hospital.

Aim Of The Study: To describe the variation in use of BIS among English public hospitals and identify any patient groups being excluded from appropriate care.

Methods: We collected hospital administrative data for all patients admitted to any English public hospital with a principal diagnosis of stroke from 2006 to 2009.

Introduction of laparoscopic bariatric surgery in England: observational population cohort study.

Objectives: To describe national trends in bariatric surgery and examine the factors influencing outcome in bariatric surgery in England.

Design: Observational population cohort study.

Setting: Hospital Episode Statistics database.

Open versus minimally invasive esophagectomy: trends of utilization and associated outcomes in England.

Objective: To assess the trends in uptake of minimal invasive esophagectomy in England over the last 12 years (1996/1997-2007/2008) and to compare their clinical outcomes with those after open esophagectomy.

Summary Of Background Data: Around 7400 people are affected each year in the United Kingdom. Prognosis following esophageal resection is, however, poor.

Influence of Meniett® treatment on hearing.

Conclusions: Meniett® treatment was not shown to avoid deterioration of hearing threshold in patients with Meniere's disease (MD), even when achieving a fairly good therapeutic outcome on vertigo control.

Objectives: To describe the effect of Meniett® treatment on hearing threshold in patients with MD.

Methods: From a cohort of 55 patients with diagnosis of definitive MD, who underwent Meniett® treatment over the last decade, 27 were selected for the present study as having at least 2 years from the end of treatment.