Physical health complaints among healthcare workers engaged in the care of critically ill COVID-19 patients: A single tertiary-care center prospective study from Japan.

Background: Healthcare workers (HCWs) who manage patients with the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are at an increased risk and fear of contracting the infection themselves. Hospitals must reduce both the physical and mental burden of HCWs on the front lines and ensure their safety. No prospective study has focused on the physical health complaints among HCWs engaged in the care of critically ill COVID-19 patients.

Reduction of oxidative stress a key for enhanced postoperative recovery with fewer complications in esophageal surgery patients: Randomized control trial to investigate therapeutic impact of anesthesia management and usefulness of simple blood test for prediction of high-risk patients.

Background: Oxidative stress may be an integral determinant of surgical stress severity. We examined whether the preoperative level of derivatives of reactive oxygen metabolites (d-ROMs), an oxidative stress biomarker based on total hydroperoxides in circulating blood, is predictive of increased risk of delayed recovery and complications after surgery, as well as the effects of anesthesia management on postoperative recovery in light of oxidative stress.

Methods: Patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I-II) scheduled for a radical esophagectomy (n = 186) were randomly selected to receive inhalational sevoflurane (n = 94) or intravenous propofol (n = 92) anesthesia.

Detection of prolonged regional myocardial systolic dysfunction after exercise-induced myocardial ischemia by strain echocardiography with high frame rate tissue Doppler echocardiography.

Background: Strain echocardiography has enabled quantification of regional myocardial systolic function objectively and is less influenced by tethering effects and cardiac translational artifact than Doppler tissue imaging. Although strain echocardiography has been applied for the detection of inducible ischemia during dobutamine stress, it has not been fully applied to exercise stress echocardiography (ESE) because of technical difficulties. Prolonged myocardial systolic dysfunction after exercise-induced ischemia has been shown previously.

[Usefulness of transthoracic freehand three-dimensional echocardiography for the evaluation of mitral valve prolapse].

Background: Two-dimensional (2D) echocardiography is routinely used in evaluating patients with mitral valve prolapse but requires a systematic examination for accurate assessment of the involved lesion of mitral valve prolapse, because the sonographer is required to mentally reconstruct two-dimensional images into three dimensions. Recently, freehand three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography has been introduced in the clinical setting for three-dimensional visualization of the mitral valve apparatus.

Objectives: To evaluate the accuracy of the freehand 3D echocardiography system in assessing the involved lesion in patients with mitral valve prolapse.