Oral Corticosteroid Abuse and Self-Prescription in Italy: A Perspective from Community Pharmacists and Sales Reports before and during the COVID-19 Era.

(1) Background: Corticosteroids are commonly used for a variety of conditions, but their use might come with significant side effects. Self-medication practices increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially favoring corticosteroid misuse. Studies on this topic are lacking, thus we aim to characterize the misuse of corticosteroids in Italy through pharmacists' perspectives and sales reports.

The effect of sucralfate-containing ointment on quality of life in people with symptoms associated with haemorrhoidal disease and its complications: the results of the EMOCARE survey.

Background And Aim: A rectal ointment containing 3% of sucralfate and herbal extracts (calendula, witch hazel leaf (hamamelis), chamomile), became available in Italy in 2019 for the treatment of symptoms associated with haemorrhoidal disease. This survey evaluated the effect of the mentioned sucralfate ointment, on quality of life (QoL) and symptom frequency in participants seeking treatment for haemorrhoidal disease from community pharmacies in Italy.

Methods: EMOCARE was a multicentre prospective survey conducted at community pharmacies in Italy.

Community Pharmacist's Role in Detecting Low Back Pain, and Patient Attitudes-A Cross-Sectional Observational Study in Italian Community Pharmacies.

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most frequent diseases for which patients seek advice in a community pharmacy. The study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of the administration by community pharmacists of questionnaires to assess the LBP intensity and disability degree in patients entering community pharmacies and the attitudes they have toward pain management by pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies.

Methods: An explorative, cross-sectional, observational, and quantitative study was performed.

Successful anticoagulation for treatment of a giant left atrial thrombus.

We report the discovery at transthoracic echocardiography of a very large, sessile formation in the left atrium in a 77-year-old woman with permanent non-valvular atrial fibrillation who did not receive anticoagulant therapy. After six weeks of anticoagulation by subcutaneous low-molecular-weight heparin, a control echocardiogram demonstrated an almost complete resolution of the mass without systemic embolisation. This case highlights the success, without complications, of a medical anticoagulant therapy for giant left atrial thrombus.

Benthic foraminifera response and geochemical characterization of the coastal environment surrounding the polluted industrial area of Portovesme (South-Western Sardinia, Italy).

To study the benthic foraminifers' response to heavy metal pollution and analyse the geochemical parameters, samples of surface sediments were collected in 2005 and 2006 from a polluted coastal zone shorefront to the industrial complex of Portoscuso-Portovesme (Sulcis, South-Western Sardinia). The samples came from the upper 1-2 cm of the undisturbed sediments in water less than 2m deep, along coastline (about 8.5 km in length) proximal to emerged alluvial plain.

[Apicectomy and replantation. Report of a clinical case].

The AA. report a case treated with cyst-enucleation, apicaectomy and tooth replantation and then prosthetic management, which they control for the last twenty years, and beyond initial expectations, they could establish an astonishing result indeed.

[Clinico-statistical survey of neoplasms of the oral cavity in a Sardinian population].

The AA. examine 14,987 bioptic investigations comings from Anatomy and Pathologic Histology Institute of Cagliari University relieved during the period 1936-1968 (twenty-eight years). They stop on main data giving prominence to: incidence of stomatologic cases, of benignant and malignant tumours, of inflammatory and precancerous states in the mouth.

[Ossifying fibroma of the upper jaw of probable periosteal origin].

The AA. describe a case of bone producing fibroma rising in a young patient after the drawing of a tooth. Histological reports, effected with different methods, confirmed this diagnosis.

[Paradoxical fluoride phenomena in a Sardegna district].

The authors in epidemiologic research on dental caries of primary-school children in a village having optimufluorotic water, put in evidence fluorine paradox phenomena founding high percentual of cariopatic subjects.

[About odontomas].

The AA., after to have passed in review etiopathogenetic interpretations of odontomas and symptomatology, report 12 cases, from Odontostomatologic Clinic of Cagliari, dwelling on one of them especially, where the two epithelial and connective components, made evident microscopically, let foresee probable reductions either connective eithen epithelial component.