. Telecontrol approaches for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) management aim to enhance patient outcomes. This pilot study assessed whether the Rheumatoid Arthritis Impact of Disease (RAID) approach could be used during teleconsultations to monitor RA disease activity through a web-based platform called iARPlus (Innovative Approach in Rheumatology).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo investigate the relationships among neuropathic pain (NP), pain catastrophizing (PC), and central sensitization (CS) in relation to functional status and radiological damage in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). This cross-sectional study included knee OA patients derived from an observational cohort. The Spearman correlation test was used to analyze the relationship between the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) and the PainDetect Questionnaire (PDQ), Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI), and Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough observational studies have linked vitamin D deficiency to diabetes, it is unknown if taking vitamin D supplements can reduce the chance of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The purpose of this systematic review is to determine whether vitamin D supplementation lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used to search for studies based on pre-established inclusion and exclusion criteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGouty arthritis is one of the most common forms of inflammatory arthritis and has brought a significant burden on patients and society. Current strategies for managing gout primarily focus on long-term urate-lowering therapy. With the rapid advancement of point-of-care testing (POCT) technology, continuous monitoring of gout-related biomarkers like uric acid (UA) or inflammatory cytokines can provide rapid and personalized diagnosis for gout management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRobotic cholecystectomy (RC) using the da Vinci surgical system has been introduced as a potential alternative to the gold standard laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) for gallbladder removal. This systematic review aims to evaluate and compare the postoperative outcomes (operative time, bile leak, and postoperative complications) and cost-effectiveness between da Vinci RC and LC. A comprehensive search of electronic databases, including EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and PubMed, used Medical Subject Headings terms and Boolean operators to identify relevant studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFQuality control (QC) samples are commonly used in metabolomics approaches for three main reasons: (i) the initial conditioning of the column; (ii) the correction of analytical drift especially between batches; and (iii) the evaluation of measurement precision. In practice, there are several ways to prepare and conserve QC samples. The most common in untargeted metabolomics is to pool samples after or before extraction, in order to obtain pooled QC samples accounting, respectively, for analytical variance or for both analytical and sample preparation variances.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransgend Health
October 2024
Purpose: Our aim is to review transgender people in terms of education, religion, financial security, quality of life (QOL), sexual orientation, behaviors, relationships, access to health care, and gender-affirming therapies in the Middle East region.
Methods: Electronic databases were used. Eligible studies were those targeting transgender people exclusively in Middle Eastern countries.
This article aims to provide an overview of areas impacting adolescent well-being, offering input and sensible parenting tips. The article is structured into 5 key components that are critical in adolescent life including social media use, nutrition and physical activity, discipline, mental health, and sexual health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Geographic origin may represent a variable capable of influencing health status. This study aims to investigate the presence of differences of disease severity in Italian patients with fibromyalgia from different macro-regions.
Methods: This retrospective, cross-sectional study involved patients included in the Italian Fibromyalgia Registry.
Importance: Colchicine has many drug-drug interactions with commonly prescribed medications. Only pharmacokinetic studies have provided data on colchicine drug-drug interactions.
Objective: To evaluate the clinical tolerability of colchicine according to the presence or absence of a drug-drug interaction.
The comprehensive detection of new psychoactive substances, including synthetic cannabinoids along with their associated metabolites in biological samples, remains an analytical challenge. To detect these chemicals, untargeted approaches using appropriate bioinformatic tools such as molecular networks are useful, albeit it necessitates as a prerequisite the identification of a node of interest within the cluster. To illustrate it, we reported in this study the identification of synthetic cannabinoids and some of their metabolites in seized e-liquid, urine, and hair collected from an 18-year-old poisoned patient hospitalized for neuropsychiatric disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Individuals with a uterus experience menopause, the cessation of menses, on average at age 51 years in the United States. While menopause is a natural occurrence for most, over 85% of women experience multiple interfering symptoms. Menopausal women face health disparities, including a lack of access to high-quality healthcare and greater disparities are experienced by women who are black, indigenous, and people of color.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSymptoms of fibromyalgia (FM) fluctuate and vary in severity. The current study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) and acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) in FM patients over a 24-month period and to investigate the mediating function of pain catastrophizing subdomains in unfavorable relationships with disease severity levels in patients with FM. Patients were evaluated at baseline, after 12 months, and after 24 months, using different patient-reported measures (FIQR, FASmod, PSD, and PCS) to distinguish different levels of FM disease severity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To evaluate the impact of the diagnostic delay on fibromyalgia (FM) severity.
Methods: Data were retrospectively extracted from a large database of patients with FM belonging to the Italian Fibromyalgia Registry (IFR) residents on the Marche Region. The diagnosis of FM was formulated according to the 2016 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria.
Prevalence of diabetes in Arab region has significantly increased, resulting in a significant economic burden on healthcare systems. This surge can be attributed to obesity, rapid urbanization, changing dietary habits, and sedentary lifestyles. The Arab Diabetes Forum (ADF) has established localized recommendations to tackle the region's rising diabetes prevalence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: The aim of this paper is to identify factors associated with interstitial lung disease (ILD) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and build an algorithm to better define this association for a personalised application in clinical practice.
Methods: A total of 78 SSc patients underwent HRCT to assess ILD. Demographic, clinical and laboratory variables were collected, focusing on those associated either directly or indirectly with lung involvement.
Endocr Metab Immune Disord Drug Targets
September 2024
Background: A far more common disease than Cushing's syndrome is subclinical hypercortisolism or mild autonomous cortisol secretion (MACS), with an overall prevalence of 0.2-2%.
Objective: This review aims to shed light on the prevalence, screening and diagnostic criteria, comorbidities, and management of Mild Autonomous Cortisol Secretion (MACS).
Using an open-source operant feeding device (FED3), we measured food-seeking nose poking behavior in mice. When the mice were exposed to 4 h restricted feeding at night, all mice exhibited robust food anticipatory nose poking starting ~4 h before scheduled mealtime. When the light-dark cycle was advanced by 6 h, mice exhibited two distinct bouts of anticipatory poking, one corresponding to actual mealtime which continued at the same time of day, and one corresponding to predicted mealtime which shifted parallel with the light-dark cycle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To assess primary care physicians' (PCPs) perception of the need for serious illness conversations (SIC) or other palliative care interventions in patients flagged by a machine learning tool for high 1-year mortality risk.
Methods: We surveyed PCPs from four Brigham and Women's Hospital primary care practice sites. Multiple mortality prediction algorithms were ensembled to assess adult patients of these PCPs who were either enrolled in the hospital's integrated care management program or had one of several chronic conditions.
Background: Given the protective effect of nurturing caregivers and families for child and adolescent mental health, there is a need to review and synthesize research evidence regarding the effectiveness of parenting and family interventions in low and middle-income countries, including humanitarian settings. To advance practice, further understanding of the active ingredients of such interventions and implementation factors that lead to effectiveness are essential.
Method: This systematic review, an update from a previous review, included studies on any parenting or family intervention for children and adolescents aged 0-24, living in a low- or middle-income country, that quantitatively measured child or adolescent mental health outcomes.