Publications by authors named "S T S Kovacs"

Background: Respect for patient autonomy, the principle that patients are capable to make informed decisions about medical interventions, is fundamental in present-day medicine. However, if a patient's request is medically not indicated, the practitioner faces an ethical dilemma represented by the conflict of the principles of patient autonomy, beneficence, and maleficence. Adjacent to topics such as medical assistance in dying and healthy limb amputation, this ethical dilemma also manifests in the care of the maxillofacial region (the oral cavity and its surroundings), an area crucial to esthetic appearance, but also to everyday functions including mastication, speech, and facial expression, all of which are related to well-being.

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Background: COVID-19 has put a huge strain on the healthcare systems worldwide, requiring unprecedented intensive care resources. There is still an unmet clinical need for easily available biomarkers capable of predicting the risk for severe disease. The main goal of this prospective multicenter study was to identify biomarkers that could predict ICU admission and in-hospital mortality.

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Malignant melanoma is a difficult-to-treat skin cancer with increasing incidence worldwide. Although type-I interferon (IFN) is no longer part of guidelines, several melanoma patients are treated with type-I interferon (IFN) at some point of the disease, potentially affecting its genetic progression. We run genome-wide copy number variation (CNV) analysis on previously type-I IFN-treated (n = 17) and control (n = 11) visceral metastases of melanoma patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the vitamin D metabolite ratio (VMR) as a potential better indicator of vitamin D deficiency compared to 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (24,25(OH)D), aiming to show its stronger correlation with parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels and mortality.
  • It analyzed serum samples from 204 older adults, demonstrating that VMR had the strongest negative correlation with PTH levels and was associated with higher mortality rates in patients with low levels.
  • The results suggest that VMR could be a more reliable biomarker for assessing functional vitamin D deficiency, supporting its potential use in clinical practice.
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