Annals of Medicine

OBJECTIVE: To study the long-term outcome differences between acute myocardial infarction (MI) and stable coronary artery disease (CAD) patients treated with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). METHODS: We studied retrospectively patients with MI ( n  = 1882) or stable CAD ( n  = 13117) treated with isolated CABG between 2004 and 2014. Inverse propensity probability weight adjustment for baseline features was used. Median follow-up was 7.9 years. RESULTS: In-hospital mortality (8...

PURPOSE: We aimed to determine whether handgrip strength (HGS)improves type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk prediction beyond conventional risk factors. DESIGN: Handgrip strength was assessed at baseline in 776 individuals aged 60-72 years without a history of T2D in a prospective cohort. Handgrip strength was normalized to account for the effect of body weight. Hazard ratios (HRs) (95% confidence intervals [CI]) and measures of risk discrimination for T2D and reclassification [net reclassification improvement (NRI), integrated discrimination index (IDI)] were assessed...

The development of effective combined anti-retroviral therapy (cART) led to a significant reduction in the death rate associated with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. However, recent studies indicate that considerably more than 50% of all HIV-1 infected patients develop HIV-1-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND). Microglia are the foremost cells infected by HIV-1 in the central nervous system (CNS), and so, are also likely to contribute to the neurotoxicity observed in HAND. The activation of microglia induces the release of pro-inflammatory markers and altered secretion of cytokines, chemokines, secondary messengers, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) which activate signaling pathways that initiate neuroinflammation...

Background Studies have demonstrated the diagnostic efficiency of antibody testing in COVID-19 infection. There is limited data on the IgM/IgG changes in asymptomatic and discharged patients with reoccurring positive nucleic acid test (RPNAT). This study aims to investigate these IgM/IgG changes. Methods There were 111 patients with positive nucleic acid test (NAT) and 40 suspected patients enrolled in the study. The serum SARS-CoV-2 specific IgM/IgG antibody levels were retrospectively analyzed with the disease progress in asymptomatic and RPNAT patients...

Background: The impact of cytomegalovirus infection in elderly subjects remains unclear. This study examined the relationship between humoral immune response to cytomegalovirus (CMV) and all-cause mortality in a cohort of elderly hospitalized patients. Methods: Data were obtained from a random sample of 715 patients (≥ 65 years old) admitted for any cause in a third level hospital. Serum IgG antibody against CMV were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent (ELISA) assay. Results: A total of 480 deaths occurred in seropositive patients ( n  = 671) during a follow-up of 7...

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Introduction: As individuals age,the prevalence of neurocognitive and mental health disorders increases. Current biomedical treatments do not completely address the management of these conditions. Despite new pharmacological therapy the challenges of managing these diseases remain.There is increasing evidencethat the Gut Microbiome (GM) and microbial dysbiosis contribute to some of the more prevalent mental health and neurocognitive disorders, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, bipolar disorder(BP), and dementia as well as the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) through the microbiota-gut-brain axis...

Background : Early detection of disease progression associated with severe COVID-19, and access to proper medical care lowers fatality rates of severe cases. Currently, no studies had systematically examined the variables in detecting severe COVID-19. Method : Systematic searching of electronic databases identified observational studies which recruited participants with confirmed COVID-19 infection who were divided into different groups according to disease severity were identified. Results: To analysis 41 studies with 5064 patients were included...

BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis of head and neck cancer (HNC) will improve patient outcomes. The low incidence of HNC renders its detection challenging for a general practitioner (GP) in primary health care (PHC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: To examine these challenges, our cohort consisted of all patients visiting PHC centres in the City of Helsinki in 2016. We chose 57 ICD-10 codes representing a sign or symptom resulting from a possible HNC and compared data for all new HNC patients...

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the impact of multimorbidity and polypharmacy on the management of atrial fibrillation (AF) patients in clinical practice and assessed factors associated with polypharmacy and oral anticoagulation (OAC) use in AF patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. METHODS: A 14-week prospective study of consecutive non-valvular AF patients was performed in seven Balkan countries. RESULTS: Of 2712 consecutive patients, 2263 patients (83...

Background. Oscillometric pulse wave velocity (o-PWV) represents an attractive, non invasive and non operator-dependent method to estimate arterial stiffness. Tonometric carotid-femoral measurements (cf-PWV),are considered the gold-standard for non-invasive aortic stiffness assessment. To date, no studies in the general population comparing the two methods have been performed. Methods and Results. 1162 subjects were analyzed. O-PWV and cf-PWV showed a mean difference of -0.31m/sec(p ≤ 0.001). No significant differences between cf-PWV and o-PWVs were observed in patients without cardiovascular risk factors...

Objective. To identify predictive factors of unfavourable outcome among patients hospitalized for COVID-19. Methods. We conducted a monocentric retrospective cohort study ofCOVID-19 patients hospitalized in Paris area. An unfavourable outcome was defined as the need for artificial ventilation and/or death. Characteristics at admission were analysed to identify factors predictive of unfavourableoutcome using multivariable Cox proportional hazard models. Based on the results, anomogram to predict 14-day probability ofpooroutcome was proposed...

Background: Comorbidities are commonly seen in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but the clinical implication is not yet well-delineated. We aim to characterize the prevalence and clinical implications of comorbidities in patients with COVID-19. Methods: This is a retrospective multi-center study involving patients admitted between January 16th and March 10th 2020.The composite endpoint was defined as the presence of at least one of the following, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, or the need for mechanical ventilation, or death...

Background: Latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) is a huge reservoir for the deadlier TB disease. Accurate identification of LTBI is a key strategy to eliminate TB. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis approach was used to assess diagnosticpotential of IL-2 for LTBI. Methods: PubMed,Web of Science, the Cochrane Library and Embase were searched. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), area under the summary receiver operating characteristiccurve (AUROC) and hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic curve (HSROC) were estimated by bivariate and HSROC models...

Cardiac troponins (cTn) are currently the standard of carefor the diagnosis of acute coronary syndromes (ACS) in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with chest pain (CP). However, their plasma kinetics necessitatea prolonged ED stay or overnight hospital admission, especially in those presenting early after CP onset. Moreover, ruling out ACS in low-risk patients requires prolonged ED observationor overnight hospital admission to allow serialmeasurements of c-Tn, adding cost. Heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) is a novel marker of myocardial injury with putative advantages over cTn...

PURPOSE: The aim was to investigate whether serum uric acid (SUA) was associated with incident hypercholesterolaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia in middle-aged and older Chinese. METHODS: This prospective cohort study used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. A total of 6,063 participants were included, who were free of hypercholesterolaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia at baseline (2011) and were followed until 2015. Natural cubic spline models were conducted to investigate the dose-response association of SUA with incident hypercholesterolaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia...

Background: Studies on the association between healthy lifestyle and cancer risk are limited among the oldChinese population. Methods: The healthy lifestyle score was derived from smoking, drinking, diet, body mass index and physical activity among 23734 retired employees from the Dongfeng-Tongji Cohort. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to calculate the hazard ratios (HRs) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The rate advancement periods (RAPs) and the population attributable risk percentage (PAR%) were estimated to indicate the benefits of removing risk lifestyle factors...

PURPOSE: Emerging data suggest that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has extrapulmonary manifestations but its renal manifestations are not clearly defined. We aimed to evaluate renal complications of COVID-19 and their incidence using a systematic meta-analysis. DESIGN: Observational studies reporting renal complications in COVID-19 patients were sought from MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Library from 2019 to June 2020. The nine-star Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to evaluate methodological quality...

Statins are the first-line choice in Lipid-lowering therapy to reduce cardiovascular risk. In a continuous attempt to optimise treatment success, there is a need for additional research on genes and related molecular pathways that can determine the efficacy and toxicity of lipid-lowering drugs. Several variations within genes associated with lipid metabolism, including those involved in uptake, distribution and metabolism of statins have been reported. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of genetic variations in the key genes responsible for statins' metabolism and their role in personalised medicine and pharmacogenetic testing (PGx) in patients treated with such drugs...

AIMS: The objective was to evaluate whether sodium intake, assessed with the gold standard 24-h urinary collections, was related to long-term incidence of death, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS: A cohort of 4630 individuals aged 25-64 years collected 24-h urine samples in 1979-2002 and were followed up to 14 years for the incidence of any CVD, coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, heart failure (HF) and DM event, and death. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the association between the baseline salt intake and incident events and adjusted for baseline age, body mass index, serum cholesterol, prevalent DM, and stratified by sex and cohort baseline year...