A Curriculum for Perioperative Nurse Deployment During a Pandemic.

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic spread around the world, the US Surgeon General called for the cancellation of elective surgeries. At a large academic medical center in the Northeast, there was a resulting surplus of perioperative nurses who were deployed to inpatient units in need of skilled nursing care for a surge of COVID-19 patients. To prepare them for deployment to inpatient units, perioperative leaders developed a core curriculum to ensure that the OR nurses possessed the skills and knowledge required to successfully care for patients outside the OR with the same level of care and compassion that they provided to perioperative patients.

A Protocol for the Safe Use of Hazardous Drugs in the OR.

Hazardous drug (HD) use in the perioperative environment poses unique challenges and risks for exposure that can have adverse consequences for perioperative personnel. The United States Pharmacopeial Convention has implemented new standards to address the safe handling and administration of HDs by health care workers. To comply with these standards and minimize perioperative personnel's occupational exposure to HDs, a multidisciplinary team at an academic medical center in Boston that was performing an increased number and variety of operative and other invasive procedures using antineoplastic agents updated their protocol for the safe use of HDs in the OR.

The Italian Observational Study on Severe Osteoporosis (ISSO): 24-month results on incidence of fractures and adherence to treatment.

Objectives: To estimate the proportion of patients with very severe osteoporosis (those covered by the reimbursement criteria of the Italian National Health Service) experiencing new vertebral and non-vertebral fragility fractures in the first 24 months of a new anti-osteoporosis treatment.

Methods: Prospective observational study in men and post-menopausal women (aged > 21 years) initiating anti-osteoporosis treatment for very severe osteoporosis. Eligibility was based on teriparatide (TPD) reimbursement criteria in Italy: incident of vertebral or hip fracture during anti-resorptive treatment (minimum 1 year), or at least three prevalent severe vertebral fractures, or two prevalent severe vertebral fractures and a historical proximal hip fracture.

Safety culture and care: a program to prevent surgical errors.

Surgical errors are under scrutiny in health care as part of ensuring a culture of safety in which patients receive quality care. Hospitals use safety measures to compare their performance against industry benchmarks. To understand patient safety issues, health care providers must have processes in place to analyze and evaluate the quality of the care they provide.

Modulatory effect of farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FDPS) rs2297480 polymorphism on the response to long-term amino-bisphosphonate treatment in postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Introduction: Polymorphisms of genes encoding enzymes of the mevalonate pathway could modulate the response to amino-bisphosphonate treatment in postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Research Design And Methods: A characterisation of 234 Danish osteoporotic postmenopausal women (as part of the Prospective Epidemiological Risk Factors study (PERF)), treated for at least 2 years with amino-bisphosphonates, with respect to the adenosine/cytosine (A/C) rs2297480 farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FDPS) gene polymorphism, was carried out by PCR-based enzymatic digestion and quantitative PCR allelic discrimination on genomic DNA extracted from blood leukocytes. The association between these polymorphism genotypes and the response of spine and femur bone mineral density (BMD) and of biochemical bone biomarkers to treatment with amino-bisphosphonates was statistically examined.

Control of colon cancer development and progression by selected estrogen receptor modulators.

Estrogens behave as protective agents on the development of colorectal cancer, and hormonal-replacement therapy is associated with an increased survival rate in women with this disease, indicating that estrogenic therapy correlates with a better prognosis. The protective effect of estrogens on Fcolorectal cancer development and progression is presumably related to the expression of estrogen receptors in colon mucosa, with the estrogen receptor-β isoform being the predominant one. This observation suggests that estrogen receptor-β could have an inhibitory effect on colorectal cancer cell proliferation and a regulatory effect on colonic mucosa cell growth, opening the discussion on a pharmacologic approach to colorectal cancer prevention and therapy based on estrogenic compounds.

Expression of cyclooxygenase-2 in osteosarcoma of bone.

Several studies indicate that cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is overexpressed in human malignancies, where it produces high levels of prostaglandins and contributes to tumor growth. In this study we have analyzed the expression of COX-2 in a series of 48 skeletal osteosarcomas of different subtypes by immunohistochemistry. In addition, we examined the effects of the specific COX-2 inhibitor Celecoxib on the growth of the human osteosarcoma cell line SaOS-2.

Estrogen receptor alpha and beta polymorphisms: is there an association with bone mineral density, plasma lipids, and response to postmenopausal hormone therapy?

Objective And Design: A cross-sectional segregation analysis of polymorphisms in the estrogen receptor (ER) genes (Pvull and Xbal in ERalpha, and Alul in ERAbeta with bone mineral density in the lumbar spine and forearm and with lipid profile was performed in 1098 postmenopausal women. Additionally, in a subpopulation of 280 women, who completed 1 year of treatment with estrogen plus progestin, the association between genotypes and the response to treatment in both plasma lipids and bone was investigated. In another untreated subpopulation of 443 women, genotype influence on the prevalence of vertebral fractures and on annual rate of bone loss during a mean follow-up period of 11 years was estimated.

Associated response in bone and lipids during hormone replacement therapy.

Objective: In postmenopausal women, we investigated if the response in bone mineral density (BMD) was associated with the response in the atherogenic lipid profile during hormone replacement therapy.

Methods: We performed an exploratory, post-hoc analysis of data from a prospective double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Healthy postmenopausal women were randomised into five groups, each receiving different combinations of 17 beta-estradiol and gestodene or placebo.