Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation in the intensive care unit: clinical, functional and quality of life at discharge and 3 months of follow up.

Objective:: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical/functional aspects and quality of life of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients who were discharged after an intensive care unit admission for acute respiratory failure.

Methods:: This prospective study included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients who were admitted to two intensive care units between December of 2010 and August of 2011 and evaluated over three visits after discharge. Thirty patients were included, and 20 patients completed the three-month follow up.

Validation and comparison of simple noninvasive models for the prediction of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C.

Introduction: Although it is standard procedure in the evaluation of liver diseases, biopsy is an invasive method subject to sampling error and intra or inter-observer variability. Thus, surrogate markers of liver fibrosis have been proposed, with variable availability and accuracy.

Aim: Validate and compare the performance of APRI and FIB-4 as predictors of liver fibrosis in HCV patients.

Smoking among patients hospitalized at a university hospital in the south of Brazil: prevalence, degree of nicotine dependence, and motivational stage of change.

Objective: To determine the prevalence and profile of smoking among hospitalized patients at a university hospital in the south of Brazil.

Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study involving patients over 18 years of age hospitalized for over 24 h at the Federal University of Santa Catarina University Hospital, located in the city of Florianópolis, Brazil. The patients were interviewed on two distinct occasions.

Leptospirosis presenting as ascending progressive leg weakness and complicating with acute pancreatitis.

Leptospirosis is a spirochetal bacterial infection of great public health importance. It has a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations which goes from subclinical infection and self-limited anicteric febrile illness (80-90% of all cases) to icteric leptospiropirosis known as Weil's disease. This is a severe disease characterized by hemorrhage, acute renal failure and jaundice.