Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on voluntary terminations of pregnancy in an Italian metropolitan area.

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic and national lockdown from 9 March to 4 May 2020 changed social, familial, and sexual relationships, as well as how citizens interact with the health services. How these profound changes have affected sexuality, contraception and voluntary terminations of pregnancy is still largely undescribed. The main objective of this study was therefore to find out whether the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown affected the demand for legal abortion.

Structural Health Monitoring: An IoT Sensor System for Structural Damage Indicator Evaluation.

In the last decades, the applications of structural monitoring are moving toward the field of civil engineering and infrastructures. Nevertheless, if the structures have damages, it does not mean that they have a complete loss of functionality, but rather that the system is no longer in an optimal condition so that, if the damage increases, the structure can collapse. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), a process for the identification of damage, periodically collects data from suitable sensors that allow to characterize the damage and establishes the health status of the structure.

Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections in pregnant patients in an Italian city during the complete lockdown.

Data from both New York and London report a high prevalence of the asymptomatic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in pregnant patients admitted for delivery, raising questions on the possible correlated dangers (ie, contacts with healthcare workers; the possible creation of an intrahospital outbreak at birth; and conflicting evidence on vertical transmission). For this study, results from SARS-CoV-2 screening via nasopharyngeal swab from maternity wards of the four hospitals of Genoa, Italy, were collected during a month of complete lockdown from 1 April to 30 April 2020. Out of 333 tested women, only 9 were symptomatic.

Fused-Deposition-Material 3D-Printing Procedure and Algorithm Avoiding Use of Any Supports.

The three-dimensional printing of complex shapes without using supporting structures is the most attractive factor of merit in current additive manufacturing because it allows to drastically reduce printing time, and ideally nullify postprocessing and waste material. In this work, we present an innovative procedure and algorithm (Print on Air, PoA) for additive manufacturing that, relying on sensing systems embedded into the three-dimensional (3D) printer (e.g.

Participatory evaluation of the quality of health information on the internet: the case of dengue sites.

The world has witnessed a powerful and radical transformation of social, economic and cultural relationships promoted by the Internet. The Internet provides opportunities for access, dissemination and production of information worldwide. Health, for example, stands out as one of the main areas with information of interest to a growing number of users.

Selection of patients with high risk endometrial cancer for surgical staging according to the evaluation of pre- and intraoperative risk factors.

Background: The aim of this paper was to assess the accuracy of frozen sections histological examination and preoperative CA-125 to select patients with high risk endometrial cancer.

Methods: We reviewed women with type I endometrial cancer treated from January 2011 through January 2013 at the same university hospital. Preoperative CA-125 and intraoperative frozen sections were analyzed to select patients at high risk for metastases, according to Mayo Clinic algorithm.

Intra-arterial chemotherapy: a safe treatment for elderly patients with locally advanced breast cancer.

Unlabelled: The feasibility, toxicity and local response rates of intra-arterial chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil, epirubicin and mitomycin in patients over 75 years with locally advanced breast cancer was evaluated.

Patients And Methods: Ten patients were treated by the transfemoral Seldinger technique, with the catheter tip placed into the internal mammary artery. In order to evaluate the vessels perfusing the tumor, blue dye solution was infused before drug administration.

Avoiding axillary dissection in breast cancer surgery: a randomized trial to assess the role of axillary radiotherapy.

Background: The need to dissect axillary nodes in patients with early breast cancer and clinically negative axilla remains controversial. The aim of the study was to assess the role of axillary radiotherapy (RT) in reducing axillary metastases in patients with early breast cancer who did not receive axillary dissection.

Patients And Methods: From 1995 to 1998, 435 patients over 45 years old with breast cancer up to 1.

Management of true splenic artery aneurysms. Two case reports and review of the literature.

Few series of splenic artery aneurysms (SAA) have been reported, but today asymptomatic SAA are detected with increasing frequency. Their importance lies from their potentially fatal consequences as life-threatening hemorrhage. SAA management still remains controversial as reported in this review.

["Tension-free" hernioplasty with prosthesis: comparison of 2 techniques].

The paper evaluates the results of the surgical therapy of primary inguinal hernia in adult subjects performed in our Institution from 1994 to 2000. The Trabucco and Lichtenstein procedures were compared. Two hundred and fifteen patients--123 Trabucco and 92 Lichtenstein--were enrolled in the study.

Peripheral paraneoplastic neuropathy, an uncommon clinical onset of sigmoid cancer. Case report and review of the literature.

A case of a 76-year-old man presenting with weakness of the lower legs and bilateral steppage gait is described. Neurological examination revealed a sensorimotor neuropathy with axonopathy and myelinic aspects. At the time of the diagnostic workup an episode of rectal bleeding occurred.

[Streptococcus pneumoniae: evolution of antibiotic resistance in a pediatric hospital in Córdoba, Argentina].

The wide variety of prevalence of antimicrobial resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae in different countries confirms the importance of determining local patterns of resistance. From 1992 to 2000, we studied the pattern of antimicrobial resistance in S. pneumoniae and its evolution along the years, using 468 strains isolated in the Hospital de Niños de Córdoba.

[An angiogenesis study of Dukes' B colonic tumors].

Purpose: To evaluate the angiogenesis in Dukes' B colon cancer.

Patients And Methods: In 60 patients (age, 39-75 years), the microvessel density and the relationship between the angiogenesis and other histologic features were retrospectively evaluated. In an ongoing prospective study, 25 patients have been enrolled to determine the possible therapeutic implications of VEGF quantitative analysis.

[Stereotactic fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) of nonpalpable breast lesions: cyto-histological correlations].

There are not complete consensus if mammographically guided FNABs of nonpalpable breast lesions can replace open biopsy. To elucidate this problem, we have reviewed the efficacy of stereotactic FNAB in a series of 502 cases of nonpalpable lesions observed in a period from 1990 to 1994, with a immediate cytologic control of adequacy of material. In 144 patients of the lesion is achieved with 4% sterile coal localisation and an open biopsy of the area performed.

Contralateral spontaneous pneumothorax after single lung transplantation for fibrosis.

The authors report the treatment of a case of contralateral spontaneous pneumothorax during single lung transplantation. This is a unusual complication that must be treated to avoid life-threatening problems. There is no consensus of opinion on therapeutic procedures.

[Proposal of a surgical technique to avoid deformities after conservative treatment of T1 tumors of centroinferior quadrants of the breast].

An important aim of breast surgery is to perform a conservative treatment in which both oncological and cosmetic purposes are fulfilled. This is achieved for the T1 tumors of the upper quadrants by means of the elliptical radial quadrantectomy. In the central or inferior quadrants the cosmetic results performing the same technique are poor.

[Use of propofol and buprenorphine for total intravenous anesthesia].

A study was carried out in 47 patients undergoing general surgery and elective gynecological surgery under totally endovenous general anesthesia. For this purpose, propofol and buprenorphine were used in controlled ventilation with oxygen and air, totally excluding the use of nitrous oxide and halogenate vapours. The following parameters were measured to evaluate the state and depth of anesthesia: arterial pressure (systolic, mean, diastolic), heart rate, sweating, lacrimation (Evan's PRST).

[Use of prostheses made of ePTFE in anastomoses of the rat uterine horn].

ePTFE prostheses were used in the microsurgical anastomosis of the rat uterine horn. Handling characteristics of this synthetic material during the performance of anastomosis were tested. Patency rates, infections and local tissue reaction were evaluated after thirty and sixty days.