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  • McHugh Christiansen posted an update 2 weeks, 6 days ago

    RESULTS 257 patients were included. Mean age was 59 years, 46% were females, and 52% had private insurance vs 7% with Medicaid and 41% with Medicare. The most commonly performed procedure was lumbar fusion (31.9%). Mean LOS after surgery was 4.8 days and 18% had prolonged LOS >7 days. Age, insurance type, marriage status, and surgical procedure were significantly associated with LOS and discharge disposition. The final model had an area under the curve of 89% with good discrimination. A web based calculator was developed https//jhuspine1.shinyapps.io/RehabLOS/ CONCLUSION This study established a novel pilot calculator to identify those patients most likely to be discharged to rehabilitation facilities and to predict LOS after spine surgery. Our calculator had a high predictive accuracy of 89% compared to others in the literature. With validation this tool may ultimately facilitate streamlining of the postoperative period to shorten LOS, optimize resource utilization, and improve patient care. BACKGROUND CONTEXT Patients undergoing lumbar spinal surgery may experience considerable pain in the early postoperative period, and poor pain control after multilevel lumbar spinal fusion surgery is frequently associated with multiple complications and delayed discharge from hospital. PURPOSE The current study evaluated the efficacy and safety of preemptive analgesia with intrathecal morphine (ITM) in patients undergoing multilevel posterior lumbar spinal fusion surgery. STUDY DESIGN Double-blinded, randomized, controlled trial. PATIENT SAMPLE Ninety-two patients aged between 18 and 80 years who were scheduled to undergo elective lumbar laminectomy (L3-S1) and dual-level fusions. OUTCOME MEASURES The primary endpoint was the degree of postoperative pain at rest and during movement evaluated using a 10-point visual analogue scale. The secondary outcomes included the consumption of analgesics, the patient-assessed postoperative and satisfaction scores, adverse effects, time to first ambulation, and length of hpostoperative patient-controlled intravenous analgesia consumption, with no increase in adverse effects. OBJECTIVE Clinical characteristics appear limited in their ability to predict course of anxiety disorders, therefore we explored the predictive value of biological parameters on course of anxiety disorders. METHODS 907 persons with an anxiety (panic, social phobia, generalised anxiety) disorder with a baseline and two-year follow-up measure were selected from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA). Previously, three course trajectories were distinguished which vary in terms of symptom severity and chronicity. Baseline clinical parameters like anxiety severity, anxiety duration, and disability were limited in their ability to predict the two-year course. This study explored whether metabolic syndrome, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis functioning, inflammation markers, and neuroplasticity were indicators of two-year course and whether these parameters improved the model containing the most predictive clinical parameters only. RESULTS Baseline diastolic blood pressure of persons with chronic moderate symptoms was significantly higher than of persons with non-chronic mild symptoms (odds ratio [OR] = 1.18, 95% confidence interval [CI95%] 1.01 to 1.38). Baseline high-density lipid cholesterol of persons with severe chronic symptoms was significantly lower than of persons with non-chronic mild symptoms (OR = 0.77, CI95% 0.62 to 0.96). The predictive ability of both parameters was however low with concordance statistics of 0.55 and 0.57 respectively. Addition of biological parameters did not improve the predictive ability of the model containing the clinical parameters. CONCLUSIONS In addition to clinical characteristics, biological parameters did not improve the predictive ability of the model for course trajectory of anxiety disorders. Prediction of course trajectory in anxiety disorders remains difficult and warrants further research. There is a vast and rapid increase in the applications of graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) in the biomedical field, including drug delivery, bio-sensing, and diagnostic tools. Among all the applications, the GO and rGO-based scaffolds are a very promising system that have attracted attention because of their great clinical projection in tissue regeneration therapies. Copanlisib mouse Both GO and rGO have shown a strong impact on the proliferation and differentiation of implemented stem cells, but still need to overcome several challenges, such as cytotoxicity, biodistribution, biotransformation or immune response. However, there are still controversial hypothesises regarding the mechanisms involved in these issues that should be clarified in order to improve the applications of these compounds. 3D-scaffolds can help in solving some of those limitations when moving into preclinical studies in regenerative medicine. In this review, we will describe the application of GO and rGO within 3D scaffolds in bone, cardiac and neural regenerative medicine after analyzing the aforementioned challenges. In December 2019, a novel coronavirus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), emerged from China causing pneumonia outbreaks, first in the Wuhan region of China and then spread worldwide because of its probable high transmission efficiency. Owing to the lack of efficient and specific treatments and the need to contain the epidemic, drug repurposing appears to be the best tool to find a therapeutic solution. Chloroquine, remdesivir, lopinavir, ribavirin and ritonavir have shown efficacy to inhibit coronavirus in vitro. Teicoplanin, an antibiotic used to treat staphylococcal infections, previously showed efficacy to inhibit the first stage of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) viral life cycle in human cells. This activity is conserved against SARS-Cov-2, thus placing teicoplanin as a potential treatment for patients with this virus. BACKGROUND Colistin use in children is rising in accordance with the surge of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (MDR-GNB). In adults, colistin loading dose is recommended to achieve the therapeutic level within 12-24 hours. We aimed to describe pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters of a loading dose versus a recommended initial dose of intravenous colistimethate sodium (CMS) in pediatric patients. METHODS A prospective, open-label, PK study was conducted in pediatric patients aged 2 – 18 years with normal renal function. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either CMS loading dose (LD group) of 4 mg of colistin base activity (CBA)/kg/dose or standard initial dose (NLD group) of 2.5 mg (12-h interval) or 1.7 mg (8-h interval) of CBA/kg/dose. Serial blood samples were collected. Plasma concentration of formed colistin was measured by LC-MS/MS method. PK parameters were reported. Acute kidney injury (AKI) was monitored by serum creatinine and urine NGAL. RESULTS Twenty children were enrolled. The median (interquartile range) age and body weight were 8.