Computed Tomography-Guided Spinal Biopsy in Suspected Infective Spondylodiscitis: An Institutional Review of Its Utility.

 Infectious spondylodiscitis is a debilitating condition and evidence-based medicine dictates confirming the diagnosis before treatment. Computed tomography-guided spinal biopsy plays a major role and hence we would like to determine its utility in current clinical practice.  The purpose of this study is to determine the percentage of confirmatory positives of CT-guided spinal biopsy in patients who were clinicoradiologically diagnosed with infectious spondylitis.

Readmission rates and predictors of avoidable readmissions in older adults in a tertiary care centre.

Context: Thirty-day readmissions are used to gauge health care accountability, which occurs as part of the natural course of the illness or due to avoidable fallacies during the index admission. The utility of this metric is unknown in older adults from developing countries.

Aim: To ascertain the unplanned 30-day readmission rate and enumerate predictors of avoidable hospital readmission among early (0-7 days) and late (8-30 days) readmissions.

Salivary free light chains and salivary immunoglobulins as potential non-invasive biomarkers in primary Sjögren's syndrome.

Background: B cells contribute significantly to the pathogenesis of primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS). Free light chains (FLCs) are generated during the production of immunoglobulins (Igs) and are surrogates of B cell activity. We hypothesized that salivary FLCs and salivary Igs could represent salivary gland inflammation and therefore, serve as biomarkers in pSS.