Tidal Volume Challenge to Assess Volume Responsiveness with Dynamic Preload Indices During Non-Cardiac Surgery: A Prospective Study.

: The aim of this study is to assess whether changes in Pulse Pressure Variation (PPV) and Stroke Volume Variation (SVV) following a VtC can predict the response to fluid administration in patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia with protective mechanical ventilation. : A total of 40 patients undergoing general surgery or vascular surgery without clamping the aorta were enrolled. Protective mechanical ventilation was applied, and the radial artery was catheterized in all patients.

Visual Analogue Scale for the Evaluation of Olfactory and Gustatory Dysfunction of COVID-19 Patients in Northwestern Greece.

Background The visual analogue scale (VAS) has been used as a diagnostic tool for the evaluation of the severity of olfactory and gustatory dysfunction (OGD) caused by SARS-CoV2 infection. The main objective of the present study was the evaluation of OGD with VAS in COVID-19-positive patients in Northwestern Greece and its possible association with the patients' self-reported symptoms of olfactory and gustatory dysfunction. Methods The presence of olfactory and gustatory symptoms and their severity were assessed by questionnaire along with the use of specific odorants and tastant ingredients, in three time periods: prior to COVID-19, during COVID-19 (initial diagnosis) and post-COVID-19 disease (at four weeks from disease onset).

Point of care transthoracic echocardiography for the prediction of post - spinal anesthesia hypotension in elderly patients with cardiac diseases and left ventricular dysfunction : Inferior vena cava and post-spinal anesthesia hypotension in elderly patients.

In elderly patients with cardiac diseases, changes in cardiovascular physiology diminish cardiovascular reserve and predispose to hemodynamic instability after spinal anesthesia; hence, such patients could be at risk of postoperative complications. Additionally, transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is used in clinical practice to evaluate cardiovascular hemodynamics. Therefore, we hypothesized that echocardiographic measurements could display significant diagnostic power in the prediction of post - spinal anesthesia hypotension in elderly patients with cardiac diseases and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LV-EF).

Predicting the need for mechanical ventilation and mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients who received heparin.

Although several studies have utilized AI (artificial intelligence)-based solutions to enhance the decision making for mechanical ventilation, as well as, for mortality in COVID-19, the extraction of explainable predictors regarding heparin's effect in intensive care and mortality has been left unresolved. In the present study, we developed an explainable AI (XAI) workflow to shed light into predictors for admission in the intensive care unit (ICU), as well as, for mortality across those hospitalized COVID-19 patients who received heparin. AI empowered classifiers, such as, the hybrid Extreme gradient boosting (HXGBoost) with customized loss functions were trained on time-series curated clinical data to develop robust AI models.

Clinical Symptoms in Hospitalized and Self-Quarantined Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Northwestern Greece - Association with Olfactory and Gustatory Dysfunction.

We aimed to assess the relation of chemosensory dysfunction with the reported symptoms in two subgroups of patients in Northwestern Greece: the first one included patients with moderate to severe symptomatology who needed hospitalization and the second one, patients with mild symptoms who recovered at home. We used a questionnaire to select information about patient demographics, medical history and reported symptoms during infection. Three hundred COVID-19 positive patients who were identified via RT-PCR test in the University Hospital of Ioannina, Greece, were included in the present study, of which 150 recovered at home and the remaining 150 needed hospitalization.

The Impact of Age and Gender and Their Association with Chemosensory Dysfunction, in Hospitalized and Self-Quarantine Patients with Covid-19 Infection, in Epirus, Greece.

Olfactory and gustatory dysfunction that relates with the infection from severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has already improved. The relation between chemosensory dysfunction and age and gender in covid-19 positive patients is the main objective of the present study. We used a questionnaire to select information about medical history, patient demographics and reported symptoms during infection.

ICU admission and mortality classifiers for COVID-19 patients based on subgroups of dynamically associated profiles across multiple timepoints.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is consistently causing profound wounds in the global healthcare system due to its increased transmissibility. Currently, there is an urgent unmet need to identify the underlying dynamic associations among COVID-19 patients and distinguish patient subgroups with common clinical profiles towards the development of robust classifiers for ICU admission and mortality. To address this need, we propose a four step pipeline which: (i) enhances the quality of multiple timeseries clinical data through an automated data curation workflow, (ii) deploys Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBNs) for the detection of features with increased connectivity based on dynamic association analysis across multiple points, (iii) utilizes Self Organizing Maps (SOMs) and trajectory analysis for the early identification of COVID-19 patients with common clinical profiles, and (iv) trains robust multiple additive regression trees (MART) for ICU admission and mortality classification based on the extracted homogeneous clusters, to identify risk factors and biomarkers for disease progression.