Publications by authors named "Mariana Martinho"

Article Synopsis
  • - Hypereosinophilic syndromes (HES) are rare disorders that cause high levels of eosinophils in the blood, leading to potential damage to various organs, with the skin, lungs, heart, and gut being the most affected.
  • - A 39-year-old woman experienced serious complications from HES, including heart failure and encephalopathy, after being admitted for a blood clot, and was diagnosed with idiopathic HES impacting multiple organs.
  • - Although she initially responded well to high-dose corticosteroids, her failure to adhere to prescribed treatment ultimately led to disease progression and her death, emphasizing the critical need for consistent medical compliance in managing HES.
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  • About one-third of Portuguese patients with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (CHH) have a genetic cause linked to 10 different genes, with a small percentage showing oligogenic inheritance.
  • CHH leads to delayed puberty and infertility due to issues with hormones like GnRH, LH, and FSH.
  • In a study involving 81 patients and 263 controls, genetic screening helped identify pathogenic variants, but many variants classified as uncertain complicate the understanding of the disease causes.
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A 65-year-old man with previous history of smoking, controlled HIV infection, treated hepatitis B infection, and type III cryoglobulinemia, was admitted due to right heart failure symptoms and significant weight loss. Despite being haemodynamically stable, he had periods of 1:1 conduction atrial flutter and presented with respiratory alkalosis and metabolic acidosis, as well as acute kidney and hepatic dysfunction, elevated D-dimer and cardiac markers. He underwent imaging with chest computed tomography and echocardiogram that confirmed pulmonary embolism and most notably revealed a significant sized cardiac mass causing almost complete obstruction of the right chambers, with no cleavage plane with the myocardial walls and tricuspid valve.

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Introduction: Gestational diabetes (GD) is a risk factor for neonatal hypoglycaemia (NH), but other factors can increase this risk.

Objectives: To create a score to predict NH in women with GD.

Methods: Retrospective study of women with GD with a live singleton birth between 2012 and 2017 from the Portuguese GD registry.

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Background: Atrioventricular block (AVB) secondary to transient causes can recover with its correction. However, studies assessing predictors of recovery and long-term recurrence are lacking.

Methods: Patients with advanced or complete AVB who had a reversible cause admitted in a single expert center were retrospectively studied.

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Background: Primary intimal sarcomas of the heart are extremely rare and have a dismal prognosis. Their management represents a complex clinical challenge since complete surgical resection is the only reliable possibility of cure but is only possible in 50% of patients. In non-resectable disease, anthracycline-based therapy is the most effective treatment, but pazopanib may be used in patients unfit to receive anthracyclines.

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Introduction: Reperfusion therapy is generally recommended in acute high-risk pulmonary embolism (HR-PE), but several population-based studies report that it is underused. Data on epidemiology, management and outcomes of HR-PE in Portugal are scarce.

Objective: To determine the reperfusion rate in HR-PE patients, the reasons for non-reperfusion, and how it influences outcomes.

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Introduction And Objectives: The true prevalence of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) after pulmonary embolism (PE) in the Portuguese population remains unknown. We aimed to assess the prevalence and predictors of CTEPH two years after a symptomatic high- (HR) or intermediate-high risk (IHR) PE.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients admitted with PE between 2014 and 2019 to a Portuguese referral center for pulmonary hypertension.

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Background: In acute coronary syndromes (ACS), the optimal revascularization strategy for unprotected left main coronary artery (ULMCA) culprit lesion has been under-investigated. Therefore, we compared clinical characteristics and short- and medium-term outcomes of percutaneous and surgical revascularization in ACS.

Methods And Results: Of 31886 patients enrolled in a multicenter, national, prospective registry study between October 2010 and December 2020, 246 (0.

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Aims: Foetal male sex is associated with adverse perinatal outcomes. However, studies evaluating the impact of foetal sex on perinatal outcomes in women with gestational diabetes (GDM) are scarce. We studied whether male new-born sex is associated with neonatal outcomes, in women with GDM.

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Article Synopsis
  • Thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO), or Buerger's disease, is a rare condition that affects small blood vessels and can lead to blockages in arteries.
  • There's not enough information on how often blood clots happen again in TAO patients or how to best manage long-term blood thinning treatments.
  • The report shares experiences from two patients with recurrent blood clots in their lungs (pulmonary embolism) who had TAO, focusing on the need for ongoing anticoagulation treatment for these individuals.
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  • The study investigated the link between height and glucose intolerance in women with gestational diabetes, focusing on how this relationship varies with body mass index (BMI).
  • Data was collected from the Portuguese GDM registry, involving 7402 women, and results showed that taller women had lower BMI and lower rates of glucose intolerance.
  • The results revealed that for non-obese women, each 1 cm increase in height correlated with a 3% decrease in the risk of developing diabetes or prediabetes postpartum.
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We present a woman in her 60s diagnosed with an intermediate-high risk acute pulmonary embolism and a large, non-serpiginous right atrial (RA) mass. Conservative therapy with unfractionated heparin was started and further assessment of the mass with cardiac MRI suggested thrombus as the most likely diagnosis. Despite 1 month of anticoagulation, mass size remained stable and surgical RA embolectomy and left pulmonary endarterectomy was performed.

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  • Hyperglycaemia during pregnancy can indicate either gestational diabetes or previously undiagnosed diabetes, prompting a study on predicting type 2 diabetes (T2DM) risk in postpartum women.
  • Researchers analyzed data from 4068 pregnant women to identify optimal fasting glycaemia (FTG) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) cut-off values for T2DM and abnormal glucose homeostasis (AGH) using receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
  • The study found that FTG < 99 mg/dL and HbA1c < 5.4% are effective cut-offs for ruling out T2DM, suggesting early testing could help identify undiagnosed diabetes in women after childbirth.
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Background: A single prolactin sampling is recommended for the diagnosis of hyperprolactinemia. We aimed to study the utility of the prolactin serial sampling and to determine the best cut-offs associated with persistent hyperprolactinemia.

Methods: Retrospective study of hyperprolactinemic patients [referral prolactin (rPRL)] that underwent prolactin serial samplings.

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Aim: Metformin use in gestational diabetes (GDM) is a common practice. Although its use in combination with insulin might be advantageous, it was never formally tested. We studied whether combined treatment was associated with better obstetric or neonatal outcomes compared to insulin alone.

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