Ferritin, inflammation, and iron deficiency in acute heart failure: evidence from the EDIFICA cohort.

Background: Ferritin is commonly used to evaluate iron stores and guide therapeutic decisions regarding intravenous iron supplementation. However, in the context of AHF, inflammation-driven upregulation of ferritin might disrupt its correlation with iron stores, restricting iron bioavailability and potentially amplifying the inflammatory response.

Aim: This study aims to assess the clinical and prognostic associations of ferritin levels in an AHF cohort and to determine whether the prognostic value of ferritin is influenced by the presence of infection, inflammatory activation, and other markers of iron deficiency.

Office- versus home-based evaluation of quality of life in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction: A randomized study.

Background: Heart failure (HF) patients often experience poor health-related quality-of-life (HR-QoL). The Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) is frequently used for assessing HR-QoL in HF. Whether KCCQ scores vary in a clinical meaningful manner according to the setting (home vs office) where patients respond to the questionnaire is currently unknown.

Relaxin-2, pathophysiological insights and outcomes in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: Findings from the NETDiamond cohort.

Aims: The role of relaxin-2 as a circulating marker in heart failure (HF) with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is poorly understood. We aimed to characterize relaxin-2 circulating levels in a population of chronic HFpEF patients and their association with long-term prognosis.

Methods: Relaxin-2 serum levels were measured in 85 chronic HFpEF patients from a prospective cohort study (NETDiamond).

[Autism Spectrum Disorder in Infancy and Early Childhood: The Model of the Centro de Estudos do Bebé e da Criança for Diagnosis and Therapeutic Intervention].

Introduction: The Centro de Estudos do Bebé e da Criança in Hospital Dona Estefânia has organized a multidisciplinary model for children under three with suspected autism spectrum disorder, thus implementing the recent guidelines established by the Directorate General for Health. The aim of this study is to describe this model and case series.

Material And Methods: A retrospective descriptive study of observed children with suspected ASD.

[Mental retardation: case series of Dona Estefânia Hospital child development centre].

Mental retardation (MR) consists of a sub average general intellectual functioning (IQ < 70) that is associated with significant limitations in adaptative functioning which begins before age 18 years (DSM IV). It's our intention to characterize the children's population with MR observed at the Dona Estefânia Hospital Development Center, trough a retrospective study of the children which were assessed between January 2005 and June 2007. Epidemiologic data, like the severity of DM, organic aetiologies, co-morbidity and therapeutical and educational intervention, were the parameters evaluated.

Mothers of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: relationship among parenting stress, parental practices and child behaviour.

This study focuses on mothers of children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and sets out (1) to characterize dimensions of both parental functioning (parenting stress and parental practices) and child characteristics (behaviour) and (2) to determine predictors of parenting stress, namely parental rearing practices or perceived behaviour of the child, in order to plan intervention with the families. Fifty-two mothers of children diagnosed with ADHD and aged 6-12 years participated in the study. The Portuguese versions of the Parenting Stress Index (Abidin and Santos 2003), EMBU-P (Canavarro and Pereira 2007) and Child Behaviour Checklist (Albuquerque et al.