Publications by authors named "Jose Rafael Tovar"
Diagnosing dengue in endemic areas remains problematic because of the low specificity of the symptoms and lack of accurate diagnostic tests. This study aimed to develop and prospectively validate, under routine care, dengue diagnostic clinical algorithms. The study was carried out in two phases.
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- Due to rising dengue cases in endemic regions, accurate diagnosis is crucial, but current clinical methods show variable effectiveness in practice.
- A study was conducted in Colombia to create clinical algorithms for dengue diagnosis using Bayesian methods that integrate symptoms, signs, and blood test data.
- The developed algorithms showed improved sensitivity when including blood count parameters, although overall diagnostic accuracy remains challenging, highlighting ongoing issues in dengue diagnosis.
Background: Trauma characteristics and its management is influenced by socioeconomic context. Cardiac trauma constitutes a challenge for surgeons, and outcomes depend on multiple factors including initial care, characteristics of the wounds, and surgical management.
Methods: This is a retrospective cross-sectional case series of patients with penetrating cardiac injuries (PCI) from January 1999 to October 2009 who underwent surgery in a trauma referral center in Bogotá, Colombia.
Risk factors for adolescent pregnancy in Bogotá, Colombia, 2010: a case-control study.
Rev Panam Salud Publica
September 2014
Objective: To identify risk factors for adolescent pregnancy among female students in Bogotá, Colombia.
Methods: This was a retrospective study of cases and controls matched by age, identified by means of a survey on the sexual behavior of adolescent students in Bogotá (Encuesta sobre el Comportamiento Sexual de los Adolescentes Escolarizados en Bogotá) conducted in the first semester of 2010. All 272 cases and 544 randomly-selected controls were taken from 39 044 total records.