scholarly journals Extrapulmonary tuberculosis among immigrants in a low-TB burden and high immigrant receiving city of northern Italy

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 73-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariachiara Di Nuzzo ◽  
Alessandro Trentini ◽  
Anastasio Grilli ◽  
Lorenzo Massoli ◽  
Enrico Biagi ◽  
...  

Introduction: The constantly increasing immigration flows are influencing tuberculosis (TB) epidemiology in several European countries as well as in Italy. Extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) incidence rate is not decreasing and, among immigrants, it occurs in a remarkable number of cases. This study aimed to provide further insights regarding EPTB among natives and immigrants in a low TB burden and high immigrant receiving setting. Methodology: A total of 217 TB cases admitted to the University-Hospital of Ferrara from 2009 through 2015 were enrolled in the study. Clinical and demographical data including age, gender, origin, single comorbidities such as HIV status, chronic viral disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, neoplasm, and multimorbidity were analyzed. Results: Of the 217 cases enrolled, 60.0% were immigrants and 40.0% natives, 68.7% presented pulmonary TB and 31.3% EPTB. By binary logistic regression, we observed that female gender (O.R. (95% C.I.): 1.95 (1.08-3.50), p < 0.05), Asian origin (5.70 (2.00-16.24), p < 0.001) and multimorbidity (6.42 (2.37-17.41), p < 0.001) were significantly associated to the development of EPTB compared to PTB. Nodal TB was the most common site of reactivation (56.5% among immigrants and 27.3% among natives). Conclusions: The data we found could be useful in increasing EPTB medical suspicion and decreasing EPTB diagnostic delay in low TB burden and high immigrant receiving settings.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edoardo Vincenzo Savarino ◽  
Paola Iovino ◽  
Antonella Santonicola ◽  
Matteo Ghisa ◽  
Giorgio Laserra ◽  
...  

Eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases (EGIDs) are chronic gastrointestinal conditions requiring corticosteroid and immunosuppressive therapy for disease control. Patients with EGIDs usually report impaired quality of life. We aimed to report the clinical and psychological impact of COVID-19 infection in EGID patients. In this prospective web-based study we invited all consecutive EGID patients attending the University Hospital of Salerno (Campania) and Padua (Veneto) to fill an ad hoc COVID-19 survey. Moreover, a telemedicine service for direct consultation was organized. Data regarding the occurrence and perception of COVID-19 infection as well as clinical information were recorded. The study population included 102 EGID patients (mean age 36.6 years, 34 females), of whom 89 had eosinophilic esophagitis, nine had gastroenteritis, and four had colitis. No patient was diagnosed with COVID-19 or had recurrence of his/her primary disease. All of them were adherent to therapy and preventive measures adoption. Most patients were worried because of COVID-19 and social preventing measures but did not consider themselves at major risk or susceptible to COVID-19 or other infections due to their chronic condition or therapy. Female gender and low education level were associated to a higher psychological perception of COVID-19 compared to lockdown status or other demographic and clinical factors (p < 0.05). Overall, COVID-19 had a limited clinical impact on patients with EGIDs. The degree of education and sex, but not the fact of living in a lockdown area, influenced the perception of SARS-CoV-2 infection.


Author(s):  
Andrea Borho ◽  
Ekaterini Georgiadou ◽  
Theresa Grimm ◽  
Eva Morawa ◽  
Andrea Silbermann ◽  
...  

In 2016, the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy of the University Hospital of Erlangen started conducting training for professional and voluntary aid workers. In total, 149 aid workers took part in the training courses, of which 135 completed the corresponding questionnaires. Engagement motivators, perceived distress in refugee work and training needs were examined. Moreover, depressive symptoms, the prevalence of traumatic experiences and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder were explored. Participants named helping others as the highest motivating factor for their work with refugees and communication problems as the main burden. Thirteen aid workers (10.1%) showed clinically relevant depressive symptoms. In total, 91.4% of refugee aid workers had experienced at least one traumatic event personally or as a witness but only three (3.6%) fulfilled the psychometric requirements of a PTSD diagnosis. These three participants all belonged to the professional aid workers (6.3%). More severe symptoms of depression were significantly associated with female gender (β = 0.315, p = 0.001), higher perceived burdens of refugee work (β = 0.294, p = 0.002), and a larger number of experienced traumatic events (β = 0.357, p < 0.001). According to our results, we recommend psychological trainings and regular screenings for psychological stress in order to counteract possible mental illnesses.


1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regula P. Berger ◽  
Alexander Grob ◽  
August Flammer

This study focuses on the importance of social developmental expectations, assessed as emotional and cognitive evaluations regarding the timing and the gender-role conformity of normative developmental tasks. Two central questions were raised. First, to what degree do the timing and the gender-role conformity affect the adults' expectations? Second, how much does the adults' own gender-role orientation (GRO), classified as traditional vs. liberal, affect their expectations? A 4 (timing modus) × 2 (developmental task) × 2 (gender-role conformity)-factorial design was administered to a sample of 140 adults of both sexes, 20 to 81 years old. Coping in time and with gender-role typical career received the most approval. Typical developmental tasks were more approved by persons with a traditional than with a liberal GRO. However, the evaluation of non-typical developmental tasks was not affected by the GRO. The possibility of a shift in normative expectations toward more liberal, diverse, and self-defined female gender-roles is discussed.


VASA ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thalhammer ◽  
Aschwanden ◽  
Jeanneret ◽  
Labs ◽  
Jäger

Background: Haemostatic puncture closure devices for rapid and effective hemostasis after arterial catheterisation are a comfortable alternative to manual compression. Implanting a collagen plug against the vessel wall may become responsible for other kind of vascular injuries i.e. thrombotic or stenotic lesions and peripheral embolisation. The aim of this paper is to report our clinically relevant vascular complications after Angio-Seal® and to discuss the results in the light of the current literature. Patients and methods: We report the symptomatic vascular complications in 17 of 7376 patients undergoing diagnostic or therapeutic catheterisation between May 2000 and March 2003 at the University Hospital Basel. Results: Most patients presented with ischaemic symptoms, arterial stenoses or occlusions and thrombotic lesions (n = 14), whereas pseudoaneurysms were extremely rare (n = 3). Most patients with ischaemic lesions underwent vascular surgery and all patients with a pseudoaneurysm were successfully treated by ultrasound-guided compression. Conclusions: Severe vascular complications after Angio-Seal® are rare, consistent with the current literature. There may be a shift from pseudoaneurysms to ischaemic lesions.


1993 ◽  
Vol 32 (05) ◽  
pp. 365-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Timmeis ◽  
J. H. van Bemmel ◽  
E. M. van Mulligen

AbstractResults are presented of the user evaluation of an integrated medical workstation for support of clinical research. Twenty-seven users were recruited from medical and scientific staff of the University Hospital Dijkzigt, the Faculty of Medicine of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and from other Dutch medical institutions; and all were given a written, self-contained tutorial. Subsequently, an experiment was done in which six clinical data analysis problems had to be solved and an evaluation form was filled out. The aim of this user evaluation was to obtain insight in the benefits of integration for support of clinical data analysis for clinicians and biomedical researchers. The problems were divided into two sets, with gradually more complex problems. In the first set users were guided in a stepwise fashion to solve the problems. In the second set each stepwise problem had an open counterpart. During the evaluation, the workstation continuously recorded the user’s actions. From these results significant differences became apparent between clinicians and non-clinicians for the correctness (means 54% and 81%, respectively, p = 0.04), completeness (means 64% and 88%, respectively, p = 0.01), and number of problems solved (means 67% and 90%, respectively, p = 0.02). These differences were absent for the stepwise problems. Physicians tend to skip more problems than biomedical researchers. No statistically significant differences were found between users with and without clinical data analysis experience, for correctness (means 74% and 72%, respectively, p = 0.95), and completeness (means 82% and 79%, respectively, p = 0.40). It appeared that various clinical research problems can be solved easily with support of the workstation; the results of this experiment can be used as guidance for the development of the successor of this prototype workstation and serve as a reference for the assessment of next versions.


1995 ◽  
Vol 34 (01/02) ◽  
pp. 75-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Appel ◽  
O. Golaz ◽  
Ch. Pasquali ◽  
J.-C. Sanchez ◽  
A. Bairoch ◽  
...  

Abstract:The sharing of knowledge worldwide using hypermedia facilities and fast communication protocols (i.e., Mosaic and World Wide Web) provides a growth capacity with tremendous versatility and efficacy. The example of ExPASy, a molecular biology server developed at the University Hospital of Geneva, is striking. ExPASy provides hypermedia facilities to browse through several up-to-date biological and medical databases around the world and to link information from protein maps to genome information and diseases. Its extensive access is open through World Wide Web. Its concept could be extended to patient data including texts, laboratory data, relevant literature findings, sounds, images and movies. A new hypermedia culture is spreading very rapidly where the international fast transmission of documents is the central element. It is part of the emerging new “information society”.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Stättermayer ◽  
F Riedl ◽  
S Bernhofer ◽  
A Stättermayer ◽  
A Mayer ◽  
...  

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