Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency medical resources : An observational multicenter study including all hospitals in a major urban center of the Rhein-Ruhr metropolitan region.

Background: With the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak hospitals prepared for increasing numbers of patients without knowing how patient populations were evolving and what resources would be required. The present study aimed to analyze the impact of the local COVID-19 pandemic on emergency resources of all hospitals in a major urban center (Mönchengladbach) in Germany.

Methods: This observational multicenter study involved all acute care hospitals (n = 4).

Non-destructive analysis of extracellular matrix development in cardiovascular tissue-engineered constructs.

In the field of tissue engineering, there is an increasing demand for non-destructive methods to quantify the synthesis of extracellular matrix (ECM) components such as collagens, elastin or sulphated glycosaminoglycans (sGAGs) in vitro as a quality control before clinical use. In this study, procollagen I carboxyterminal peptide (PICP), procollagen III aminoterminal peptide (PIIINP), tropoelastin and sGAGs are investigated for their potential use as non-destructive markers in culture medium of statically cultivated cell-seeded fibrin gels. Measurement of PICP as marker for type I collagen synthesis, and PIIINP as marker of type III collagen turnover, correlated well with the hydroxyproline content of the fibrin gels, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.