Efficacy of early anti-inflammatory treatment with high doses of intravenous anakinra with or without glucocorticoids in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia.

Background: IL-1 plays a pivotal role in the inflammatory response during cytokine storm syndromes.

Objective: Our aim was to analyze the efficacy and safety of early anti-inflammatory treatment (AIT) with intravenous anakinra with or without glucocorticoids in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia.

Methods: We performed a retrospective single-center cohort study of patients admitted for COVID-19 pneumonia from February 26 to April 29, 2020, to assess the efficacy of early AIT with intravenous anakinra (100 mg every 8 hours for 3 days, with tapering) alone or in combination with a glucocorticoid (intravenous methylprednisolone, 1-2 mg/kg daily, with tapering).

Pulmonary embolism prognostic factors and length of hospital stay: A cohort study.

Introduction: Patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) are commonly admitted to hospital for their initial treatment. We aimed to assess the association of length of hospital stay with commonly available clinical variables and their combinations.

Methods: A retrospective multicenter cohort study was conducted on consecutive PE patients admitted to eight Italian centers.

[The utility of assaying the N-terminal of brain natriuretic peptide precursor (NT pro-BNP) to predict the clinical outcome in patients with supraventricular tachyarrhythmias observed and treated in the emergency room].

Many patients arrive at the emergency room (ER) with recent-onset atrial fibrillation or other forms of supraventricular tachyarrhythmia (SV Ta) or tachycardia. The restoration of sinus rhythm (SR) is always desirable and, in addition, can enable many hospitalisations to be avoided, thereby achieving considerable savings in financial and healthcare resources. Even in haemodynamically stable cases, it is clearly useful to be able to evaluate which subjects will benefit most from attempts to restore SR, even when few truly diagnostic means are on hand (such as echocardiography, which is not always promptly available in the ER setting).