Hegelundfrancis0399
The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to spread rapidly, and patients with diabetes are at risk of experiencing rapid progression and poor prognosis for appropriate treatment. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), which includes accurately tracking fluctuations in glucose levels without raising the risk of coronavirus exposure, becomes an important strategy for the self-management of diabetes during this pandemic, efficiently contributing to the diabetes care and the fight against COVID-19. Despite being less accurate than direct blood glucose monitoring, wearable noninvasive systems can encourage patient adherence by guaranteeing reliable results through high correlation between blood glucose levels and glucose concentrations in various other biofluids. This review highlights the trending technologies of glucose sensors during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (2019-2020) that have been developed to make a significant contribution to effective management of diabetes and prevention of coronavirus spread, from off-body systems to wearable on-body CGM devices, including nanostructure and sensor performance in various biofluids. The advantages and disadvantages of various human biofluids for use in glucose sensors are also discussed. Furthermore, the challenges faced by wearable CGM sensors with respect to personalized healthcare during and after the pandemic are deliberated to emphasize the potential future directions of CGM devices for diabetes management.
Pleural effusion, defined as an abnormal accumulation of fluid in pleural space, can be of two types transudative and exudative. The primary aim of the study was to assess the predictive accuracy of procalcitonin (PCT) and pentraxin-3 (PTX-3) in comparison to other biochemical markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), and adenosine deaminase (ADA) in the differential diagnosis of pleural effusions.
A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on patients with pleural effusion. Multiple comparisons and receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) analyses were made to evaluate the diagnostic significance of biochemical markers.
Sixty-six patients with exudative pleural effusion classified as malignant, tuberculous, and parapneumonic effusions (malignant pleural effusion [MPE], tuberculous [TPE], and parapneumonic [PPE]) were included. Significant differences in pleural fluid levels in both PCT (p-value 0.001) and PTX-3(p-value 0.001), as well as serum levels of PCT (p-value 0.001), were observed between the three groups. ROC analysis showed both PTX-3 and PCT having favorable discrimination ability with high sensitivity (≥90%) and specificity to predict PPE from TPE and MPE.
Evaluation of serum and pleural fluid PCT and levels of PTX-3 in the pleural fluid may be used as an early biomarker to differentiate the etiology of pleural effusion.
Evaluation of serum and pleural fluid PCT and levels of PTX-3 in the pleural fluid may be used as an early biomarker to differentiate the etiology of pleural effusion.
The prevalence, clinical characteristics and prognosis of pleural effusions (PEs) associated with ovarian cancer (OC) have seldom been addressed systematically, as in the current investigation.
All records of consecutive women with a newly diagnosed OC in our institution over a 13-year period were retrospectively reviewed. Features of PEs on CT scans, pleural fluid analyses, need for definitive therapy of PEs, and the influence of PEs on the overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were evaluated.
PEs were observed in 81 (43%) of 189 women with OC, either at presentation of cancer (55 patients) or during the course of the disease (26 patients). The causes of PEs were malignancy (55.5%), unknown (37%), or surgery-related (7.4%). The sensitivity of the cytologic diagnosis of malignant PEs was 79.1%. Sixty percent of malignant PEs required pleurodesis or indwelling pleural catheters for symptomatic relief. The presence of ascites strongly predicted PE development (odds ratio 43.2). Women with PEs fared much worse compared with those without PEs, in terms of OS (26.7 vs. 90.4months), PFS (9.8 vs. 55.3months) and tumor recurrences (86.4 vs. 43%). In multivariate analyses, PE remained as a relevant independent variable associated with poor outcome (hazard ratio 9.73 for OS, and 3.87 for PFS). find more Notably, PEs small enough to preclude tapping, and thus of unknown origin, had a similar bad prognosis as malignant PEs.
OC patients with PEs experience decreased survival, including those with trace effusions not amenable to tapping.
OC patients with PEs experience decreased survival, including those with trace effusions not amenable to tapping.
Platinum salts are commonly used in hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) for digestive tract cancer treatment. During HIPEC with oxaliplatin for peritoneal metastases (PMs) treatment, the ovaries are directly exposed to the drug, questioning about ovarian resection and the potential impact of the drug on ovarian functionality, especially in young women of childbearing age. The goal of this work is to understand unwanted damages to the ovaries during HIPEC therapy by the determination of the concentration and distribution of platinum in ovaries in order to address its potential toxicity.
Mass spectrometry imaging techniques, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP MS), were used to study the penetration of oxaliplatin in ovaries after HIPEC treatment.
MALDI-MS allowed the localization of an oxaliplatin-derivative (
456.2) at the periphery of the ovaries. The quantitative LA-ICP MS maps confirmed the localization of elemental platinum as well as in the central part of ovaries from patients who received a previous platinum salt-based chemotherapy.
LA-ICP MS images showed that platinum diffusion was extended in cases of previous systemic treatment, questioning about platinum derivatives gonado-toxicity when combining the two treatments.
LA-ICP MS images showed that platinum diffusion was extended in cases of previous systemic treatment, questioning about platinum derivatives gonado-toxicity when combining the two treatments.
