Even though the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is slowly developing into a conventional infectious disease, the long-term effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus infection are still not well understood. One of the problems is that many COVID-19 cases develop acute kidney injuries. Still, it is heavily debated whether SARS-CoV-2 virus enters and actively replicates in kidney tissue and if SARS-CoV-2 virus particles can be detected in kidney during or post-infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCirculation
January 2024
Background: There is ambiguity whether frail patients with atrial fibrillation managed with vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) should be switched to a non-vitamin K oral anticoagulant (NOAC).
Methods: We conducted a pragmatic, multicenter, open-label, randomized controlled superiority trial. Older patients with atrial fibrillation living with frailty (≥75 years of age plus a Groningen Frailty Indicator score ≥3) were randomly assigned to switch from international normalized ratio-guided VKA treatment to an NOAC or to continued VKA treatment.
Background: Patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) receive anticoagulant therapy with vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) to prevent recurrent thrombosis. VKA treatment requires strict monitoring with an international normalized ratio (INR). It is known that lupus anticoagulants (LAs) can lead to elevated INR results with point-of-care-testing (POCT) devices, which could result in inadequate adaptation of anticoagulant therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Clinical guidelines recommend non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) over vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) for stroke prevention in most patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Frail elderly were under-represented in the landmark NOAC-trials, leaving a knowledge gap on the optimal anticoagulant management (VKA or NOAC) in this increasing population. The aim of the Frail-AF (FRAIL-AF) study is to assess whether switching from international normalised ratio (INR)-guided VKA-management to a NOAC-based treatment strategy compared with continuing VKA-management is safe in frail elderly patients with AF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe study the first experimental collisions of two incoherent self-focused counterpropagating Airy beams in a nonlinear crystal. Their interactions demonstrate that the self-focusing dynamics of the Airy beams can be spatially controlled by the counterpropagating Airy beam. By tuning the misalignment and the size of the beams, we can control the output position of the self-focused Airy beam and switch to multiple outputs.
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