Background: The USA struggled in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but not all states struggled equally. Identifying the factors associated with cross-state variation in infection and mortality rates could help to improve responses to this and future pandemics. We sought to answer five key policy-relevant questions regarding the following: 1) what roles social, economic, and racial inequities had in interstate variation in COVID-19 outcomes; 2) whether states with greater health-care and public health capacity had better outcomes; 3) how politics influenced the results; 4) whether states that imposed more policy mandates and sustained them longer had better outcomes; and 5) whether there were trade-offs between a state having fewer cumulative SARS-CoV-2 infections and total COVID-19 deaths and its economic and educational outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The Memorial Sloan Kattering Frailty Index (MSK-FI) and the Skeletal Muscle Index (SMI) have recently gained attention as markers of frailty and decreased physiologic reserve, and are promising as predictors of adverse postoperative outcomes in patients undergoing oncologic surgery. The objective of this study was to establish the prognostic accuracy of these indexes in a cohort of patients with colorectal cancer subjected to surgical intervention.
Methods: We performed an observational study including all patients older than 60 years, subjected to colorectal cancer surgery between January 2010 and May 2020, and stratified our cohort based on the presence of frailty, as defined by MSK-FI ≥ 3.
Importance: Some individuals experience persistent symptoms after initial symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection (often referred to as Long COVID).
Objective: To estimate the proportion of males and females with COVID-19, younger or older than 20 years of age, who had Long COVID symptoms in 2020 and 2021 and their Long COVID symptom duration.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Bayesian meta-regression and pooling of 54 studies and 2 medical record databases with data for 1.
The literature suggests that being subject to a stressful life and victimization may negatively affect mental health, and that women and men seem to differ in these variables. Nevertheless, neither the mediating role of victimization experiences in the relationship between stress and mental health, nor the moderated role of sex have been explored. A sample of 826 adults, aged from 18 to 77 years old, completed a set of self-reported questionnaires (69.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndian J Surg Oncol
June 2022
Retrospective impact evaluation of frailty as measured by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Frailty Index (MSK-FI) on outcomes in older women surgically treated for advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Women ≥ 60 years with stage IIIC/IV EOC who underwent primary debulking surgery (PDS) or interval debulking surgery (IDS) were included. Medical records were reviewed for patients' characteristics and outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: While much of the attention on the COVID-19 pandemic was directed at the daily counts of cases and those with serious disease overwhelming health services, increasingly, reports have appeared of people who experience debilitating symptoms after the initial infection. This is popularly known as long COVID.
Objective: To estimate by country and territory of the number of patients affected by long COVID in 2020 and 2021, the severity of their symptoms and expected pattern of recovery.
Liver function tests help in the follow-up of postoperative patients with iatrogenic bile duct injury. There is not clear evidence regarding their predictive role on anastomosis dysfunction. We describe our experience with postoperative liver function tests and a predictive model of long-term patency after repair.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWra is the most common LIA in white population. The incidence of Wra antigen in Spanish population has been estimated to be 1 in 785 in blood donors, while anti-Wra was found in 2.7 % and 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) is an experimental treatment against SARS-CoV-2. Although there has so far been no evidence of transmission through transfusion, pathogen reduction technologies (PRT) have been applied to CCP to mitigate risk of infectious disease. This study aims to assess the impact of methylene blue (MB) plus visible light PRT on the virus-neutralising activity of the specific antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission substantially affected health services worldwide. To better understand the impact of the pandemic on childhood routine immunisation, we estimated disruptions in vaccine coverage associated with the pandemic in 2020, globally and by Global Burden of Disease (GBD) super-region.
Methods: For this analysis we used a two-step hierarchical random spline modelling approach to estimate global and regional disruptions to routine immunisation using administrative data and reports from electronic immunisation systems, with mobility data as a model input.
Cryopreservation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) involves slow rate cooling in the presence of a cryoprotectant (DMSO) to avoid the damaging effects of intracellular ice formation. The infusion of DMSO with the thawed product has been related to adverse events. Reduction of DMSO content by washing the HSCs after thawing has been suggested as a method to avoid infusion-related side-effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Understanding potential patterns in future population levels is crucial for anticipating and planning for changing age structures, resource and health-care needs, and environmental and economic landscapes. Future fertility patterns are a key input to estimation of future population size, but they are surrounded by substantial uncertainty and diverging methodologies of estimation and forecasting, leading to important differences in global population projections. Changing population size and age structure might have profound economic, social, and geopolitical impacts in many countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Methylene blue and visible light treatment and quarantine are two methods used to reduce adverse events, mostly infections, associated with the transfusion of fresh-frozen plasma. The objective of this study was to estimate and compare the budget impact and cost-utility of these two methods from a payer's perspective.
Materials And Methods: A budget impact and cost-utility model simulating the risks of hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, cytomegalovirus, a West Nile virus-like infection, allergic reactions and febrile non-haemolytic transfusion reactions achieved using plasma treated with methylene blue and visible light (MBP) and quarantine plasma (QP) was constructed for Spain.
Human babesiosis is a zoonosis primarily transmitted through Ixodes ticks and alternatively by routes such as blood transfusions from asymptomatic donors. We report the first case of human babesiosis caused by Babesia divergens in a patient with HIV. This study also focuses on elucidating the possible transmission route of infection in this patient, who received numerous blood transfusions but showed patent symptoms only after splenectomy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Babesia spp. is an intraerythrocytic parasite that causes human babesiosis and its transmission by transfusion has been extensively demonstrated. The aim of this study was to ascertain the efficacy of an ultraviolet C (UVC)-based pathogen inactivation system in the reduction of Babesia divergens-infected platelet (PLT) concentrates and to determine the parasite's ability to survive in PLT concentrates stored under blood bank conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The objective of this study was to compare the quality of life (QOL) and mental health (MH) of women surviving at least 2 years after treatment for invasive carcinoma of the cervix by radical hysterectomy (RH), chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, or by surgery followed by adjuvant therapy (RH + chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy). The QOL/MH of a control group of women with no history of malignancy was also assessed for comparison with the treated groups.
Methods: The levels of QOL and MH were assessed in 114 Brazilian women (57 patients with an average of 4 years since treatment completion and 57 control subjects).
Aims And Objectives: To maximise involvement of the multidisciplinary team using a model of sexual health management for spinal cord-injured persons.
Background: Regaining sexual function is a priority following spinal cord injury, with the majority of people remaining sexually active with a satisfying sex life. Nevertheless, rehabilitation programmes often focus on activities related to mobility and elimination, with sexual health relegated to a secondary under-resourced position.
Background: The United States, Canada, and Spain perform selective testing of blood donors for Trypanosoma cruzi infection (Chagas disease) to prevent transfusion transmission. The donor, product, and patient characteristics associated with transfusion-transmitted infections are reviewed and the infectivity of components from donors with serologic evidence of infection is estimated.
Study Design And Methods: A systematic review of transfusion-transmitted T.
Background: Screening of blood units for hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA identifies donations collected during the window period (WP) of the acute infection and may improve viral safety of the blood supply. It also leads to the detection of occult hepatitis B infection (OBI).
Study Design And Methods: From January 2005 to December 2006, a total of 383,267 blood units were screened for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and HBV DNA in two transfusion centers in Madrid, using either individual-donation nucleic acid testing (ID-NAT) or minipool (MP-NAT) of eight donations (MP8).
Background: Inactivation of pathogens and white blood cells in platelet (PLT) components with amotosalen and UVA light (INTERCEPT, Cerus Europe BV) has entered clinical practice in European blood centers. A prospective cohort study was implemented to characterize the safety profile of this new PLT component in a broad patient population.
Study Design And Methods: Apheresis or buffy-coat PLT components were leukoreduced, suspended in approximately 35 percent plasma and 65 percent PLT additive solution, and treated with the INTERCEPT process.