Clinical evaluation of a digital stethoscope with simultaneous phonocardiography and electrocardiography in cats.

A smartphone-based technology combining a digital stethoscope (DS) with simultaneous phonocardiography (PCG) and 1-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) is available. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the DS for the detection of heart disease in cats considering transthoracic echocardiography as gold standard. The study is prospective and observational inlcuding 42 client-owned cats.

Infection-Associated Flares in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is characterised by generalised immune dysfunction, including infection susceptibility. Infection-associated flares (IAFs) are common and might rapidly self-resolve, paralleling infection resolution, but their specific clinical phenotype is poorly understood. Therefore, we screened 2039 consecutive visits and identified 134 flares, defined as a loss of the lupus low disease activity state (LLDAS), from 1089 visits at risk spanning over multiple follow-up years, yielding an average yearly LLDAS deterioration rate of 17%.

Distinctive clinical traits of lupus-related myocarditis: a multicentre retrospective study.

Objectives: Cardiovascular involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is frequent but little is known about possible distinctive traits of SLE-related myocarditis (myoSLE) in comparison to patients with SLE (onlySLE) or myocarditis alone (onlyMyo).

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed comparing patients with myoSLE (n = 25) from three centres with consecutive patients with onlySLE (n = 279) and onlyMyo (n = 88). SLE patients were dichotomised by disease duration ≤1 vs >1 year into recent onlySLE/early myoSLE vs longstanding onlySLE/late myoSLE.

Sustainability in Internal Medicine: A Year-Long Ward-Wide Observational Study.

Population aging and multimorbidity challenge health system sustainability, but the role of assistance-related variables rather than individual pathophysiological factors in determining patient outcomes is unclear. To identify assistance-related determinants of sustainable hospital healthcare, all patients hospitalised in an Internal Medicine Unit (n = 1073) were enrolled in a prospective year-long observational study and split 2:1 into a training (n = 726) and a validation subset (n = 347). Demographics, comorbidities, provenance setting, estimates of complexity (cumulative illness rating scale, CIRS: total, comorbidity, CIRS-CI, and severity, CIRS-SI subscores) and intensity of care (nine equivalents of manpower score, NEMS) were analysed at individual and Unit levels along with variations in healthcare personnel as determinants of in-hospital mortality, length of stay and nosocomial infections.

Histone-Specific CD4 T Cell Plasticity in Active and Quiescent Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess whether circulating histone-specific T cells represent tools for precision medicine in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Methods: Seroprevalence of autoantibodies and HLA-DR beta (DRB) 1 profile were assessed among 185 patients with SLE and combined with bioinformatics and literature evidence to identify HLA-peptide autoepitope couples for ex vivo detection of antigen-specific T cells through flow cytometry. T cell differentiation and polarization was investigated in patients with SLE, patients with Takayasu arteritis, and healthy controls carrying HLA-DRB1*03:01 and/or HLA-DRB1*11:01.