Bankbruhn1921
The catastrophic emergency experienced by many countries with the COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the importance of bioethics for decision-making, both at the public health (equitable and effective policies) and at the clinical level. At the clinical level, the issues are the fulfillment of medical care demand with adequate health care teams, infrastructure, and supplies, and to cover critical care demands that surpass the available resources. Therefore, ethically correct approaches are required for the allocation of life sustaining resources. There are recommendations for the allocating life support during disasters based on multiple considerations, including ethical ones. However, the ethical criteria of existing guidelines are variable. Ethical principles usually considered are saving the greatest number of lives, saving the greatest number of years of life and the principle of the life cycle or the goal to give each individual equal opportunity to live through the various phases of life. However, the centrality of the human being and the search for the common good should be considered. Knowledge of public perspectives and moral benchmarks on these issues is essential. A successful assignment effort will require everyone's trust and cooperation. Decision making should be planned and discussed in advance, since in-depth deliberation will be extremely complex during the disaster. Our goal is to help the health care teams to wisely allocate resources in shortage periods.This article analyzes some publications of Ernestina Pérez Barahona (1865-1951), the second Chilean and Latin American female physician. It exposes her concern for the public health and, more precisely, for the problem of the Chilean race. She constantly refers to hygiene in her conferences, articles and books published between 1887 and 1920. Thus, the aim of this review is to recover her production and to inform the readers about her intervention as a medical professional.The Chilean Academy of Medicine designated a group of specialists to evaluate the practice and to propose reforms for organ donation and transplantation, due to the general insufficiencies at the national level with these procedures. In the last six years the mean number of organ transplants in Chile was 340 cases per year while effective cadaveric donors ranged between 6 and 10 per million inhabitants. These averages remained stable during this period and are among the lowest in the region. Our analysis attributed these deficient results mainly to low organ donation and inefficient procurement due to lack of compliance with protocols and little accountability. The committee proposes several measures for improvement. These are a systematic and obligatory report of potential organ donors by all emergency and critical care centers, frequent evaluation of results, empowering of health authorities to correct insufficiencies in organ procurement, education programs for primary, secondary, technical and university students to improve their knowledge about the social significance and solidarity required for transplantation policies and specialized updated training of all health professionals involved. Organ donation and transplantation must be based on clear and fair ethical considerations in order to be accepted by the general public.Hemophagocytic syndrome or hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a highly lethal hyper-inflammatory disorder that leads to a storm of cytokines, hemophagocytosis and multiple organ failure. It can be primary, which is inherited, or secondary. In the latter, virus infections are a frequent trigger, predominantly the family of herpes viruses, such as Epstein-Barr virus. An early treatment is recommended. Until recently there was no consensus about the management of secondary cases. The protocols for the treatment of primary HLH were used, which include cytotoxic agents and corticosteroids. We herein review the current diagnostic and therapeutic approach of HLH, based on a case associated with a reactivation of the Epstein-Barr virus in an immunocompetent adolescent. We highlight the importance of suspecting this disease in patients with a persistent inflammatory response state or with a fever of unknown origin, in order to carry out a timely treatment, with the least toxicity, and appropriate to the characteristics of each individual, which is the current therapeutic trend.Biomarkers in inflammatory bowel disease are an essential tool in clinical practice. They allow a non-invasive evaluation of patients and thus guide decision-making at different stages of the disease, including diagnostic suspicion, severity assessment, relapse prediction, and treatment response. Although biomarkers in blood such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein, are the most commonly used biomarkers, because their low cost and accessibility, they lack specificity. Currently, fecal biomarkers offer greater reliability, applicability, and specificity. Fecal calprotectin is the most commonly used marker. This review discusses the advantages and disadvantages of biomarkers in inflammatory bowel disease, as well as their clinical applications and new biomarkers currently under research.ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) is an extracorporeal life support system in catastrophic lung failure, shock and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, in different age groups, with multiple physiologic features. When the candidate to be submitted is too unstable to be transported to a hospital with ECMO, cannulation before transfer allows stabilization and subsequent transport. The aim of this article is to review the current concepts of extracorporeal support, its indications, national and international experience, and its possible role in the SARS-Cov2 pandemic.Syphilis during pregnancy has a high risk of congenital transmission with disastrous fetal consequences. Penicillin (PNC) is the only effective antimicrobial for the treatment of pregnant women with syphilis. Chilean guidelines do not consider desensitization to PNC in these women. We report two cases of pregnant women aged 32 and 23 years, with immediate allergy to PNC and syphilis who were safely and successfully desensitized using a four-hour intravenous protocol in the critical care unit and who subsequently received benzathine G PNC. An electronic survey was conducted among approximately 100 Clinical Pharmacists (CP) in the country. Of these, 16 answered and 13 reported having experience in drug desensitization, in at least five cases with PNC and none reported deaths or cardiorespiratory arrest. Desensitization to PNC can be carried out safely and in Chile, this alternative should be incorporated to the management of pregnant women with syphilis and immediate allergy to PNC, instead of using erythromycin.
Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) is an instrument to assess child abuse and neglect Aim to adapt and confirm the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the CTQ-SF in Chile.
The CTQ-SF was applied to 89 clinically depressed subjects (77.5% women) who consulted at an outpatient mental health clinic. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), reliability (Cronbach's α) tests, and convergent validity analyses with clinical markers of complex depression were carried out.
The Chilean version of the CTQ-SF demonstrated an acceptable fit to a five-factor model, with adequate psychometric properties. The CFA revealed that a better fit to a five-factor model would be achieved after elimination of two items from the physical neglect scale, the less reliable scale of the questionnaire. The physical abuse scale discriminated between patients with a complex depression versus non-complex depression, and all the CTQ-SF's scales discriminated between patients with high suicide risk and/or history of psychiatric admissions versus those patients without this background.
the Chilean version of the CTQ-SF shows evidence of structural and discriminant validity, and reliability, in a clinical sample. Better alternatives to specifically assess the physical neglect construct should be developed.
the Chilean version of the CTQ-SF shows evidence of structural and discriminant validity, and reliability, in a clinical sample. Better alternatives to specifically assess the physical neglect construct should be developed.
Primary cardiac tumors have a low incidence, and their presentation form and clinical course are not well known.
To describe the characteristics, treatment, follow up and survival of patients with primary cardiac tumors (PCT).
Review of all surgical procedures for PCT performed between 1984 and 2019 in a regional general hospital. The information was obtained from surgical protocols, surgical and pathology databases, medical records and registries of the Chilean National Identification Service. The clinical features of patients, immediate and long term outcomes are described.
Seventy-two surgical procedures for PCT were reviewed. Patients' age was 55 ± 15 years and 60% were women. The most common histological types were myxoma in 49 patients (68%), papillary fibroelastoma in 13 (18%) and sarcoma in 6 (8.3%). Forty-nine (68.1%) were symptomatic and all tumors were found on echocardiography. Fifty-one (71%) were in the left atrium, 10 (14%) in the aortic valve and eight (11%) in the right atrium. The surgical procedures were tumor resection in 48 patients (67%) and resection and repair with patch in 23 (32%). Mean postoperative stay was 6.6 ± 4.4 days, eight patients (11%) had complications and no patient died in the immediate postoperative period. Long term survival was higher in patients with benign PCT as compared with those with malignant tumors.
Most PCTs in this group of patients were benign neoplasms and the most common tumors were myxomas. The main diagnostic method is echocardiography and the prognosis of surgical treatment is excellent when the tumors are benign. (Rev Med Chile 2020; 148 327-335).
Most PCTs in this group of patients were benign neoplasms and the most common tumors were myxomas. The main diagnostic method is echocardiography and the prognosis of surgical treatment is excellent when the tumors are benign. (Rev Med Chile 2020; 148 327-335).
The presence of multiple lymphadenopathies can be a diagnostic challenge.
To describe the clinical, laboratory and imaging characteristics of 19 patients with lymphadenopathies of rheumatologic origin.
Review of medical records of 19 patients aged 16 to 72 years (68%) with lymphadenopathies presumably secondary to a rheumatic disease.
Six patients had systemic lupus erythematosus, six had Sjogren's disease, three had sarcoidosis, two had rheumatoid arthritis, one had IgG4 related disease and one had mixed connective tissue disease. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/su1498.html A lymph node biopsy was performed in 11 patients and in eight a lymphoid follicular hyperplasia was found. Systemic symptoms were reported by 68% of patients. Blood lactate dehydrogenase was elevated only in cases associated with hemolytic anemia. There was no specific or predictable localization of the lymphadenopathies in imaging studies, except in the cases of sarcoidosis. The average size of the lymphadenopathies was 13.5 mm in diameter in short axis and there was no presence of necrosis, calcification, or conglomerate formation.
