A Bilateral Diaphragmatic Paralysis Post-COVID-19 Infection: A Case Report and a Review of the Literature.

The diaphragm is the essential respiratory muscle, and damage can significantly impede a human's capacity for blood oxygenation. During inspiration, the diaphragm domes permit the pleural cavity to expand. Whenever this process is disrupted, it results in decreased thoracic expansion and, as a result, hypoventilation.

Application of Extracorporeal Apheresis in Treatment of COVID-19: a Rapid Review.

Spread of a novel coronavirus infection in 2019 caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus has become a real threat to public health all around the world. The new pandemic required the mobilization of all resources for effective treatment of COVID-19 patients. Extracorporeal apheresis methods were suggested as an addition to the therapy of severe COVID-19 patients, especially when there is a threat of cytokine storm.

Intensive care units with low versus high volume of myocardial infarction: clinical outcomes, resource utilization, and quality metrics.

Background: The volume-outcome relationship associated with intensive care unit (ICU) experience with managing acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains inadequately understood.

Methods And Results: Within a multicenter clinical ICU database, we identified patients with a primary ICU admission diagnosis of AMI between 2008 and 2010 to evaluate whether annual AMI volume of an individual ICU is associated with mortality, length-of-stay, or quality indicators. Patients were categorized into those treated in ICUs with low-annual-AMI volume (≤50th percentile, <2 AMI patients/month, n=569 patients) versus high-annual-AMI volume (≥90th percentile, ≥8 AMI patients/month, n=17 553 patients).

Inferior vena cava filters: a concise review.

Venous thromboembolic disease is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Anticoagulation has been the mainstay of treatment and prevention. Unfortunately, anticoagulation frequently fails or is contraindicated.

Differences in treatment and in outcomes between idiopathic and secondary forms of organizing pneumonia.

Organizing pneumonia is a major reparative response of the lung tissue to an acute injury and is a pathological hallmark of an entity called bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP). It can be idiopathic and called cryptogenic organizing pneumonia (COP) or be secondary to various conditions such as infections, drugs, connective tissue disorders, and radiation. Fifty-seven patients with pathologically confirmed BOOP were identified and were classified as having either COP or secondary BOOP on the basis of whether there was an identifiable cause.

The 6-min walk and peak oxygen consumption in advanced heart failure: aerobic capacity and survival.

Background: This study sought to determine to what extent the 6-min walk (6MW) distance in advanced heart failure predicts aerobic capacity and provides comparable information regarding survival. Peak oxygen uptake ( VO(2)) and the 6MW both describe function and predict outcome over a wide range of heart failure, but their determinants and implications may differ within a narrower clinical spectrum. This study compared 6MW with aerobic capacity both at peak exercise and during low-level cycling.

Excessive oxygen deficit during low-level exercise in heart failure.

Although peak oxygen consumption is reduced in patients with symptomatic heart failure, the degree of limitation during routine activity often appears greater or lesser than expected from peak capacity. This study was undertaken to determine whether abnormalities could be detected during the initiation of steady-state low-level exercise, approximating routine activity, which were distinct from limitation in peak capacity. We sought to determine whether a delay in the integrated response to the increased metabolic demand caused by exercise, assessed by the oxygen deficit incurred between exercise initiation and the achievement of steady-state oxygen uptake, was present in heart failure.

Prognostic usefulness of positive or negative exercise stress echocardiography for predicting coronary events in ensuing twelve months.

Stress echocardiography is useful in diagnosing myocardial ischemia in patients with significant coronary artery disease. This study examines the correlation between the results of exercise stress echocardiography and cardiac event rates within 12 months after testing in patients referred for evaluation of possible myocardial ischemia. Cardiac events, defined as myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass surgery, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty or death, were tabulated for 360 patients with > or = 12 months of follow-up, or a cardiac event within 12 months of follow-up, or both.

Exercise capacity for survivors of cardiac transplantation or sustained medical therapy for stable heart failure.

Cardiac transplantation is predicted to improve survival for patients with severe symptoms of heart failure and ejection fraction of 20% or less, but the exercise capacity after cardiac transplantation is less than normal. Patients responding to vasodilators and diuretics have progressive improvement in exercise capacity despite low ejection fraction. We hypothesized that among patients currently considered appropriate for transplantation who could nonetheless subsequently be stabilized on medical therapy tailored to hemodynamic goals, survivors after 6 months of sustained medical therapy would demonstrate exercise capacity comparable to that of survivors of transplantation.

Tumor killing by human alveolar macrophages and blood monocytes. Decreased cytotoxicity of human alveolar macrophages.

Tumor killing by human alveolar macrophages (AM) might be an important mechanism of pulmonary defense against neoplastic disease. We compared AM and blood monocytes (Mo) for the ability to kill 2 neoplastic targets, A549 human lung adenocarcinoma cells and P815 mastocytoma cells. Blood monocytes were able to kill both targets, whereas AM killed neither.

Human alveolar macrophages: HLA-DR-positive macrophages that are poor stimulators of a primary mixed leukocyte reaction.

Previous studies demonstrated that alveolar macrophages (AM) from most normal human volunteers failed to stimulate the antigen-induced proliferation of peripheral blood T lymphocytes although greater than 90% of AM expressed HLA-DR antigens. The current studies establish that AM also fail to induce allogeneic peripheral blood mononuclear cells to proliferate in a mixed leukocyte reaction (MLR). Suppressive activity by AM was not an explanation for their failure to induce an MLR.

Bronchoalveolar cells from sarcoid patients demonstrate enhanced antigen presentation.

The recognition of foreign antigens by T lymphocytes in association with lung antigen-presenting cells may be critical in the initiation of the mononuclear alveolitis and granuloma formation of pulmonary sarcoidosis. However, it has been shown that bronchoalveolar cells (BAC) from normal volunteers function poorly as antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, the ability of sarcoid BAC to serve as accessory cells for antigen-dependent autologous T cell proliferation, as measured by tritiated thymidine uptake, was compared with that of normal BAC.