Introduction: Anticoagulants play a vital role as part of the antithrombotic therapy of myocardial infarction and are complementary to antiplatelet therapies. In the acute setting, the rationale for their use is to antagonize the ongoing clotting cascade including during percutaneous coronary intervention. Anticoagulation may be an important part of the longer-term antithrombotic strategy especially in patients who have other existing indications (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Telemedicine is firmly established in the healthcare landscape of many countries. Acute respiratory infections are the most common reason for telemedicine consultations. A throat examination is important for diagnosing bacterial pharyngitis, but this is challenging for doctors during a telemedicine consultation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAcute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the Asia-Pacific region, and mortality rates differ between countries in the region. Systems of care have been shown to play a major role in determining AMI outcomes, and this review aims to highlight pre-hospital and in-hospital system deficiencies and suggest possible improvements to enhance quality of care, focusing on Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia as representative countries. Time to first medical contact can be shortened by improving patient awareness of AMI symptoms and the need to activate emergency medical services (EMS), as well as by developing robust, well-coordinated and centralized EMS systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The aim of this study was to determine clinical outcomes of older patients with coronavirus (COVID-19) who received a combination of vitamin D, magnesium, and vitamin B (DMB) compared with those who did not. We hypothesized that fewer patients administered this combination would require oxygen therapy, intensive care support, or a combination of both than those who did not.
Methods: This was a cohort observational study of all consecutive hospitalized patients ≥50 y of age with COVID-19 in a tertiary academic hospital.
The aim of this study is to gain insight into the differences in demographics of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients in Asia-Pacific, as well as inter-country variation in treatment and mortality outcomes. Systematic review of published studies and reports from known registries in Australia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia that began data collection after the year 2000. Supplementary self-report survey questionnaire on public health data answered by representative cardiologists working in these countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHepatic encephalopathy (HE) is an extremely rare cause of focal seizures and is usually a diagnosis of exclusion when more commoner causes such as infection, autoimmune and malignancy have been discounted. The literature reports patients with generalised cerebral oedema and rarely status epilepticus, but these are often in the context of acute liver failure as opposed to chronic liver disease. Here we discuss a case of HE leading to focal neurological deficits and seizures in a 48-year-old woman with a background of chronic alcoholic liver disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMelanin in the nail bed in patients with skin type VI has been suggested to afford some protection against photo-onycholysis. We report a case of a 16-year-old male patient with skin type VI with onycholysis following PUVA treatment for hypopigmented mycosis fungoides. Symptoms resolved with the application of topical steroid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current card sort exercise described by Agius et al. in 2006 provides a tool for patients and their families to characterise the temporal pattern of occurrence of both stereotyped and idiosyncratic prodromal symptoms that serve as early warning signs predicting a relapse. This 'individual relapse signature' is highly specific for bipolar relapse, and aids identification of a relapse such that patients can be channeled into appropriate early intervention pathways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF