Somatic Symptoms Are Associated With Elevated Blood Pressure and Epstein-Barr Virus Antibodies Among Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Introduction: This study tests the hypothesis that self-reported somatic symptoms are associated with biomarkers of stress, including elevated blood pressure and suppressed immune function, among Shuar adults living in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Methods: Research was conducted in three Shuar communities in the Upano Valley of the Ecuadorian Amazon and included the collection of biomarkers and a structured morbidity interview. Participants self-reported somatic symptoms such as headaches, body pain, fatigue, and other bodily symptoms.

Mothering and Mental Health Care: Moral Sense-Making Among Mexican-American Mothers of Adolescents in Treatment.

This article explores the experiences of Mexican American mothers who, confronted with the troubled emotions and behaviors of their adolescent children, felt compelled to seek help from mental health clinicians. Their experience is situated in the context of both psychiatrization, or the tendency to treat social problems as mental illness, and the landscape of contemporary mothering in the U.S.

Rivaroxaban to prevent major clinical outcomes in non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19: the CARE - COALITION VIII randomised clinical trial.

Background: COVID-19 progression is associated with an increased risk of arterial and venous thrombosis. Randomised trials have demonstrated that anticoagulants reduce the risk of thromboembolism in hospitalised patients with COVID-19, but a benefit of routine anticoagulation has not been demonstrated in the outpatient setting.

Methods: We conducted a randomised, open-label, controlled, multicentre study, evaluating the use of rivaroxaban in mild or moderate COVID-19 patients.

Refractory glossopharyngeal neuralgia successfully treated with onabotulinumtoxinA: A case report.

Background: Glossopharyngeal neuralgia is a rare but severe and disabling pain condition often caused by vascular compression of the glossopharyngeal nerve. Treatment is similar to that of trigeminal neuralgia, but some patients may be refractory to both medical and surgical approaches. Here we present a case of refractory glossopharyngeal neuralgia that responded well to onabotulinumtoxinA (BTX-A).

Pulmonary embolism in patients with COVID-19 and D-dimer diagnostic value: A retrospective study.

Background: D-dimer levels are significantly higher in COVID-19 patients with Pulmonary Thromboembolism (PTE) as compared to those without PTE, but its clinical utility is still uncertain.

Purpose: To determine the D-dimer performance for ruling out PTE in patients with COVID-19. We also assessed clinical and laboratory factors associated with the presence of PTE on CT Pulmonary Angiogram (CTPA).

Metaphor and the politics and poetics of youth distress in an evidence-based psychotherapy.

This article explores the relationship between metaphors and emotion in the context of adolescent distress and psychotherapeutic treatment. Drawing on data from an ethnographic study of Mexican American adolescents receiving outpatient treatment for a variety of emotional and behavioral problems, the article examines what I call "prescribed" metaphors deployed in mainstream, manualized child and adolescent Cognitive Behavioral Therapies commonly used in mainstream clinical contexts. I explore the models of emotion communicated to youth by one such metaphor, youth responses to this metaphor, and the potential implications for young people as they take up the underlying models and affective practices embedded in the metaphor.

Developing the Pneumonia-Optimized Ratio for Community-acquired pneumonia: An easy, inexpensive and accurate prognostic biomarker.

Introduction: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is still a major public health problem. Prognostic scores at admission in tertiary services may improve early identification of severity and better allocation of resources, ultimately improving survival. Herein, we aimed at evaluating prognostic biomarkers of CAP and a Pneumonia-Optimized Ratio was created to improve prognostic performance.

Large Bowel Endometriosis Mimicking Colorectal Cancer.

Endometriosis is characterized by the presence of endometrial tissue outside the uterus, with 1-7% prevalence in the female population. It is observed in various locations of the human body, and large bowel endometriosis is the most common extrapelvic site, affecting about 5 to 12% of all women who present endometriosis. This study aimed to report an interesting images related to stenosing large bowel endometriosis that was possible to be diagnosed only by surgical intervention.

A predictive score for COVID-19 diagnosis using clinical, laboratory and chest image data.

Objectives: Differential diagnosis of COVID-19 includes a broad range of conditions. Prioritizing containment efforts, protective personal equipment and testing can be challenging. Our aim was to develop a tool to identify patients with higher probability of COVID-19 diagnosis at admission.

Dealing with the unknown. Functional neurological disorder (FND) and the conversion of cultural meaning.

Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), otherwise known as Conversion Disorder, is characterized by abnormal sensory or motor symptoms that are determined to be "incompatible" with neurological disease. FND patients are a challenge for contemporary medicine. They experience high levels of distress, disability, and social isolation, yet a large proportion of those treated do not get better.

Diagnostic Accuracy of CD64 for Sepsis in Emergency Department.

Introduction: Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response to suspected or confirmed infection. Clinical evaluations are essential for its early detection and treatment. Blood cultures may take as long as 2 days to yield a result and are not always reliable.

Acute tubulointerstitial nephritis with severe renal impairment associated with multisystem IgG4-related disease.

The IgG4-related disease has a wide clinical spectrum where multiple organs can be affected, and the diagnosis depends on typical histopathological findings and an elevated IgG4 expression in plasma cells in the affected tissue. We describe the clinical presentation and evolution of a patient with acute tubulointerstitial nephritis, severe kidney failure and systemic manifestations such as lymphadenomegaly and chronic pancreatitis. The diagnosis was confirmed by the clinical picture and kidney and lymph node histopathology, in which immunohistochemistry of the lymphoid tissue showed policlonality and increased expression of IgG4, with a IgG4/total IgG ratio > 80%.

Alternative diagnoses based on CT angiography of the chest in patients with suspected pulmonary thromboembolism.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of alternative diagnoses based on chest CT angiography (CTA) in patients with suspected pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) who tested negative for PTE, as well as whether those alternative diagnoses had been considered prior to the CTA.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional, retrospective study involving 191 adult patients undergoing CTA for suspected PTE between September of 2009 and May of 2012. Chest X-rays and CTAs were reviewed to determine whether the findings suggested an alternative diagnosis in the cases not diagnosed as PTE.

Accuracy of tracheal aspirate gram stain in predicting Staphylococcus aureus infection in ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Background: The Gram stain can be used to direct initial empiric antimicrobial therapy when complete culture is not available. This rapid test could prevent the initiation of inappropriate therapy and adverse outcomes. However, several studies have attempted to determine the value of the Gram stain in the diagnosis and therapy of bacterial infection in different populations of patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) with conflicting results.

Self-care and Subjectivity among Mexican Diabetes Patients in the United States.

Type 2 diabetes is considered a public health crisis, particularly among people of Mexican descent in the United States. Clinical approaches to diabetes management increasingly emphasize self-care, which places responsibility for illness on individuals and mandates self-regulation. Using narrative and free-list data from a two-phase study of low-income first- and second-generation Mexican immigrants living with diabetes, we present evidence that self-care among our participants involves emotion regulation as well as maintenance of and care for family.

Risk factors for infection with multidrug-resistant bacteria in non-ventilated patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia.

Objective: To identify risk factors for the development of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria in non-ventilated patients.

Methods: This was a retrospective observational cohort study conducted over a three-year period at a tertiary-care teaching hospital. We included only non-ventilated patients diagnosed with HAP and presenting with positive bacterial cultures.

Biomarkers in community-acquired pneumonia: a state-of-the-art review.

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) exhibits mortality rates, between 20% and 50% in severe cases. Biomarkers are useful tools for searching for antibiotic therapy modifications and for CAP diagnosis, prognosis and follow-up treatment. This non-systematic state-of-the-art review presents the biological and clinical features of biomarkers in CAP patients, including procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, copeptin, pro-ANP (atrial natriuretic peptide), adrenomedullin, cortisol and D-dimers.

Comparing the accuracy of predictors of mortality in ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Objective: Levels of procalcitonin, midregional pro-atrial natriuretic peptide (MR-proANP), C-terminal provasopressin (copeptin), and C-reactive protein (CRP), as well as Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) scores, are associated with severity and described as predictors of outcome in ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). This study sought to compare the predictive value of these biomarkers for mortality in VAP.

Methods: An observational study of 71 patients with VAP.

Adrenal Failure due to Adrenal Metastasis of Lung Cancer: A Case Report.

We report a case of a patient with adrenal failure due to bilateral adrenal metastasis of lung cancer. This is a rare presentation of lung cancer. We review the differential diagnosis of weight loss and how to make diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency.

Speaking through diabetes: Rethinking the significance of lay discourses on diabetes.

The disproportionate prevalence of Type II diabetes mellitus among the poor suggests that, in addition to lifestyle factors, social suffering may be embodied in diabetes. In this article, we examine the role of social distress in narratives collected from 26 Mexican Americans seeking diabetes care at a public hospital in Chicago. By linking social suffering with diabetes causality, we argue that our participants use diabetes much like an "idiom of distress," leveraging somatic symptoms to disclose psychological distress.

Theory and method at the intersection of anthropology and cultural neuroscience.

Anthropologists have become increasingly interested in embodiment-that is, the ways that socio-cultural factors influence the form, behavior and subjective experience of human bodies. At the same time, social cognitive neuroscience has begun to reveal the mechanisms of embodiment by investigating the neural underpinnings and consequences of social experience. Despite this overlap, the two fields have barely engaged one another.

Anthropology and cultural neuroscience: creating productive intersections in parallel fields.

Partly due to the failure of anthropology to productively engage the fields of psychology and neuroscience, investigations in cultural neuroscience have occurred largely without the active involvement of anthropologists or anthropological theory. Dramatic advances in the tools and findings of social neuroscience have emerged in parallel with significant advances in anthropology that connect social and political-economic processes with fine-grained descriptions of individual experience and behavior. We describe four domains of inquiry that follow from these recent developments, and provide suggestions for intersections between anthropological tools - such as social theory, ethnography, and quantitative modeling of cultural models - and cultural neuroscience.

Prognostic value of midregional pro-atrial natriuretic peptide in ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the correlation of midregional pro-atrial natriuretic peptide (MR-proANP) with severity of septic status in patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and the usefulness of MR-proANP for mortality prediction in VAP.

Design: Prospective observational cohort study.

Setting: University Hospital.