Publications by authors named "Pascual R Valdez"

Article Synopsis
  • New variants of SARS-CoV-2, changes in public health measures, and decreased immunity in high-risk groups are leading to predictions of increased hospitalizations and intensive care admissions, highlighting a need for effective Early Warning Scores (EWSs) to predict patient complications within 24-48 hours.* -
  • The developed COVID-19 Early Warning Score (COEWS) relies on easily accessible laboratory parameters, distinguishing it from existing models like NEWS2, and assesses risk in both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.* -
  • The COEWS model incorporates key lab results, transforming predictive coefficients into individual scores that help identify patients at risk of mechanical ventilation or death; its predictive performance shows promising results with a discrimination score of
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The aim of this study was to analyze whether the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine reduces mortality in patients with moderate or severe COVID-19 disease requiring oxygen therapy. A retrospective cohort study, with data from 148 hospitals in both Spain (111 hospitals) and Argentina (37 hospitals), was conducted. We evaluated hospitalized patients for COVID-19 older than 18 years with oxygen requirements.

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Background: South America's substance use profile, poverty, income inequality, and cocaine-supplier role make it a unique place for substance use research. This study investigated the burden of disease attributable to amphetamine use disorder, cannabis use disorder (CAD), cocaine use disorder, and opioid use disorder (OUD) in South America from 1990 to 2019, on the basis of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019.

Methods: GBD 2019 estimated the incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLL), years of life lived with disability (YLD), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to substance use disorders in each of the 12 South American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela).

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SARS-CoV-2 infection usually manifests as an acute respiratory syndrome, characterized by fever, cough, sore throat and dyspnea. Nonetheless, since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, less frequent initial symptoms were reported, as the sudden appearance of hiccups (singultus). We describe a clinical case of a 62-year-old male with a medical history of arterial hypertension, diabetes and chronic cardiac insufficiency, who complained of persistent hiccups as initial manifestation of COVID-19, followed by respiratory symptoms.

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Article Synopsis
  • New SARS-CoV-2 variants, breakthrough infections, waning immunity, and low vaccination rates are causing increased hospitalizations and deaths, highlighting the need for better resource allocation tools in hospitals, especially in resource-limited areas.
  • The CODOP tool, developed using machine learning, predicts the clinical outcomes of hospitalized COVID-19 patients by analyzing 12 clinical parameters, demonstrating high accuracy levels (AUROC: 0.90-0.96) before clinical resolution.
  • CODOP's effectiveness is consistent across different virus variants and vaccination statuses, and it includes online calculators for efficient patient triage, validated through extensive testing in Latin America.
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Background: While there is a long history of measuring death and disability from injuries, modern research methods must account for the wide spectrum of disability that can occur in an injury, and must provide estimates with sufficient demographic, geographical and temporal detail to be useful for policy makers. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study used methods to provide highly detailed estimates of global injury burden that meet these criteria.

Methods: In this study, we report and discuss the methods used in GBD 2017 for injury morbidity and mortality burden estimation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Injuries significantly impact global health, with the number of injury deaths rising from approximately 4.26 million in 1990 to about 4.48 million in 2017, despite a decline in age-standardized mortality rates.
  • The Global Burden of Disease study measured both fatal and non-fatal injuries through years of life lost (YLLs) and years lived with disability (YLDs), which were combined into disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
  • While overall injury incidence increased, age-standardized DALYs decreased, indicating a need for ongoing research focused on injury prevention, better data collection, and improving access to medical care in high-burden areas.
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Background: Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study's objective is to describe unintentional drowning using GBD estimates from 1990 to 2017.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates how sociodemographic factors relate to injury-related health outcomes worldwide, specifically analyzing disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from injuries across 195 countries from 1990 to 2017.
  • - Findings show that while most injury causes display a trend of decreasing DALY rates with higher Socio-demographic Index (SDI), certain injuries like road injuries, interpersonal violence, and self-harm deviate from this trend, indicating complex underlying factors.
  • - The research highlights the importance of understanding these injury patterns to improve health strategies and intervention efforts at both national and global levels, especially since not all injuries follow the same developmental trajectory.
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Article Synopsis
  • Past research highlights that fires and hot substances are significant global health risks, causing morbidity and mortality that necessitate better preventative strategies and healthcare access.
  • Using the Global Burden of Disease 2017 framework, the study calculated various health metrics related to fire-related injuries across 195 countries from 1990 to 2017.
  • Findings indicate that while global mortality rates from these injuries have declined, there is considerable regional variation, with middle and lower-income areas being more affected and requiring improved safety resources and healthcare infrastructure.*
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Since 2000, many countries have achieved considerable success in improving child survival, but localized progress remains unclear. To inform efforts towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2-to end preventable child deaths by 2030-we need consistently estimated data at the subnational level regarding child mortality rates and trends.

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