Back pain in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: frequency and risk factors.

Purpose: Although back pain is commonly reported in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), factors that influence the presence and severity of back pain in AIS, including curve-specific variables, have not been well studied. This study aims to describe the prevalence and severity of back pain in AIS patients and determine the extent to which patient characteristics, including curve-specific factors, are associated with a higher risk of back pain in AIS.

Methods: The study was a retrospective medical records review of adolescents (aged 10-17 years) diagnosed with AIS between 01/01/2018 and 12/31/2021 at an academic tertiary children's hospital.

Advanced Breast Cancer Guidelines in Latin America: Assessment, Adaptation, and Implementation of Fifth Advanced Breast Cancer Consensus Guidelines.

Purpose: As the fifth international consensus on advanced breast cancer (ABC5) established guidelines for the management of this disease, the aim of this article was to present the applicability of the consensus recommendations and to generate knowledge to improve access.

Methods: Sixty-one recommendation statements were selected and discussed by 15 breast cancer experts from Latin America (LA). After the discussion, the level of consensus was determined through a vote.

Ibero-American Expert Consensus on Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck Treatment in Patients Unable to Receive Cisplatin: Recommendations for Clinical Practice.

Cisplatin is the standard of treatment for squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) that has demonstrated efficacy, either in locally advanced disease when combined with radiotherapy at high doses, or in metastatic/recurrent disease when combined with other agents. However, the usual toxicities related to cisplatin, such as neurotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, ototoxicity, and hematologic toxicities, especially when high doses have been administered, have important implications in the patients' quality of life. The decision to administer cisplatin depends on several patient factors, such as age, performance status, weight loss, comorbidities, previous toxicities, chronic viral infection, or even the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Characteristics and outcomes of thymomas in Latin America: Results from over 10 years of experience (CLICaP-LATimus).

Background: Thymomas are a group of rare neoplasms of the anterior mediastinum. The objective of this study was to describe the demographics, clinical characteristics and treatment approaches in Latin America.

Methods: This was a retrospective multicenter cohort study including patients with histologically proven thymomas diagnosed between 1997 and 2018.

Integrative taxonomy reveals the historically poorly defined armoured catfish Hypostomus variipictus (Ihering 1911), from the upper rio Paraná basin, Brazil (Siluriformes, Loricariidae).

In a recent expedition to the rio Grande basin, a tributary of the rio Paraná in southern Brazil, individuals of the armoured catfish genus Hypostomus with a peculiar and beautiful colour pattern composed of pale vermiculations on the head and four to five horizontal stripes on the flanks were collected. Initially, the specimens were identified as a colour morph of the pale-spotted H. margaritifer.

Acute kidney injury in patients with Covid-19 in a Brazilian ICU: incidence, predictors and in-hospital mortality.

Introduction: There is little data in the literature on acute kidney injury (AKI) in Covid-19 cases, although relevant in clinical practice in the ICU, especially in Brazil. Our goal was to identify the incidence of AKI, predictive factors and impact on hospital mortality.

Method: Retrospective cohort of patients with Covid-19 admitted to the ICU.

Noninferiority of heart failure nurse titration versus heart failure cardiologist titration. ETIFIC multicenter randomized trial.

Introduction And Objectives: Beta-blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors), angiotensin-II-receptor-blockers (ARB), and mineralocorticoid-receptor antagonists decrease mortality and heart failure (HF) hospitalizations in HF patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction. The effect is dose-dependent. Careful titration is recommended.

Personalizing Precision Oncology Clinical Trials in Latin America: An Expert Panel on Challenges and Opportunities.

The participation of patients in precision oncology trials needs to fulfill molecular-based selection criteria. This strongly limits accrual, and as a consequence, screening successes have decreased, costs have increased, and fewer subjects are enrolled. To achieve narrowed targets, studies have been forced to be multicenter and multinational to reach a larger pool of candidates.

Additional malignancies in patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST): incidence, pathology and prognosis according to a time of occurrence-based classification.

Background: The aim of the study is to clarify if a classification based on the time of occurrence of associated malignancies in GIST patients can help in the understanding of the clinical controversies observed in these patients.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed all the patients diagnosed with GIST tumors between January 1999 and October 2016. They were divided into GIST patients associated with other tumors (A-GIST) and those not associated (NA-GIST).

Clinical and pathological features of "small" GIST (≤2 cm). What is their prognostic value?

Introduction: Small GIST (<2 cm) are tumors whose biological behavior is benign and frequently involutes. Despite their increasing incidence, few studies have addressed the characteristics of these GIST. The aim of this work is to clarify the management of this entity.

Mitochondrial D-loop nucleotide diversity in Astyanax (Osteichthyes, Characidae) from the upper Paraná and upper Paraguay River basins.

The morphological discrimination between the species Astyanax altiparanae and A. asuncionensis of the upper Paraná River and Paraguay River basins, respectively, has always been difficult. Two D-loop haplogroups of A.

Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) in the presence of coronary aneurysms.

This is the case of a patient with coronary aneurysms, who underwent CABG for surgical exclusion of these aneurysms, followed by implant of the bypass grafts to the arteries affected, with satisfactory short-term and long-term results.

Recurrent tuberculosis from 1992 to 2004 in a metropolitan area.

The proportion of recurrent tuberculosis (TB) cases caused by re-infection has varied widely in previous studies. The aim of the present study was to determine the relative frequency of relapse and exogenous re-infection in patients with second episodes of TB, using DNA fingerprinting. A population-based retrospective longitudinal descriptive study was conducted in Madrid (Spain) during 1992-2004.

Cryptococcal meningitis in a patient treated with infliximab.

Infliximab, a tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitor, is increasingly used for the therapy of different inflammatory conditions. We report the first case of cryptococcal meningitis in a patient treated with infliximab and other immunosuppressive agents, and review a further 5 reported cryptococcal infections. All of them involved fungal pneumonia.

Prospective study of postoperative complications after total thyroidectomy for multinodular goiters by surgeons with experience in endocrine surgery.

Objectives: (1) To show that total thyroidectomy (TT) can be performed in multinodular goiter (MG) by surgeons with experience in endocrine surgery with a definitive complication rate of 1% or less; and (2) to analyze the risk factors for complications in these patients.

Summary Background Data: There is current controversy over the role of TT in the treatment of MG; although there are potential benefits, high rates of complications are not acceptable in surgery for a benign pathology.

Patients And Method: A prospective study was conducted on 301 MGs meeting the following criteria: (1) bilateral MG; (2) no prior cervical surgery; (3) operation by surgeons with experience in endocrine surgery; (4) no associated parathyroid pathology; (5) no initial thoracic approach; and (6) minimum follow-up of 1 year.

Recurrent papillary thyroid cancer: analysis of prognostic factors including the histological variant.

Objective: To analyse the factors that influence the development of recurrent papillary thyroid carcinoma, including the histological variant.

Design: Retrospective study.

Setting: Teaching hospital, Spain.

Extrathyroid spread in papillary carcinoma of the thyroid: clinicopathological and prognostic study.

Introduction: The extrathyroid spread (ETS) is one of the risk factors that influence mortality and recurrence in patients with papillary carcinoma of the thyroid (PCT). The aim of this study is to analyze the clinical and histologic features and follow-up of a series of patients with ETS undergoing surgery for PCT and to identify patients with a greater risk of presenting with ETS.

Material And Methods: Retrospective study of a series of 200 patients undergoing surgery for PCT, of whom 47 (23.

Tomato plant-water uptake and plant-water relationships under saline growth conditions.

Growth and water uptake both decreases when tomato plants are irrigated with saline water. To determine the relative contribution of physiological traits to these decreases plant fresh and dry weight, leaf area, leaf water (Psi(w)) and osmotic (Psi(Pi)) potentials, gas exchange parameters, stomatal density, leaf chlorophyll and Na content were investigated in the tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) cultivars, Daniela and Moneymaker. Plants were grown in greenhouse, in sand culture, and irrigated with a complete nutrient solution supplied with 0 (control), 35 and 70 mM NaCl over a period of 2 months.

Relation of biochemical, cytologic, and morphologic parameters to the result of gammagraphy with technetium 99m sestamibi in primary hyperparathyroidism.

The aim of this study was to analyze the possible relation of biochemical, cytologic, and morphologic parameters to the results of parathyroid gammagraphy with Tc 99m sestamibi in primary hyperparathyroidism. We studied 46 consecutive patients with primary hyperparathyroidism who were undergoing surgery. All the patients were given a preoperative parathyroid gammagraphy with Tc 99m sestamibi and a complete preoperative biochemical study.

Clinical and histological differences in anaplastic thyroid carcinoma.

Objective: To report our experience in patients with anaplastic thyroid carcinoma and try to establish differences between cases in which the histological study showed that there was an associated thyroid carcinoma and those that were strictly anaplastic or pure.

Design: Retrospective study.

Setting: University hospital, Spain.

Substernal goiter: clinical experience of 72 cases.

The aim of this work was to study the clinical management and surgical approach of substernal goiters. We studied the clinical data, preoperative evaluation, surgical treatment, histopathologic data, complications, and follow-up of 72 patients found to have substernal goiter over a period of 15 years, from a total of 780 patients with goiter who underwent surgery. In this group, 83% were women, and the mean age was 61 years.

Insular carcinoma: an infrequent subtype of thyroid cancer.

Background: Insular carcinoma is a little-known thyroid cancer, characterized by the presence of well-defined nidi of small uniform cells with frequent areas of tumor necrosis and microfollicles with thyroglobulin. It was described by Carcangiu in 1984, but its prognosis is not yet clear.

Study Design: Six of 335 patients undergoing surgery for thyroid carcinoma had the insular type.

Value of repeated fine-needle aspiration cytology and cytologic experience on the management of thyroid nodules.

Although fine-needle aspiration is being currently accepted as the most reliable method to select patients with thyroid nodules for surgery, controversy remains about the accuracy in distinguishing benign nodules. We present our results from 636 fine-needle aspirations performed from 1984 to 1989. Our article focuses on the value of cytologic expertise and repeated punctures for follow-up of benign nodules.