Alveolar echinococcosis is a parasitic disease caused by the tapeworm larval stage of Echinococcus multilocularis. This zoonotic disease has not been known to occur in Croatia. We report a confirmed ...case of human alveolar echinococcosis in a patient in Croatia who had never visited a known E. multilocularis-endemic area.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The aim of this study was to characterize and compare changes in subcutaneous fat in the malar, brachial and crural region in a cohort of HIV-infected patients taking antiretroviral therapy. This ...prospective longitudinal study included 77 patients who were selected from the initial cohort evaluated in 2007 and 2008. We examined reversibility of lipoatrophy measured by ultrasound over at least five-year period and factors related to its reversibility. All 46 patients who used stavudine switched from stavudine to another combination. Of 58 patients on zidovudine, 16 (28%) were on a zidovudine based regimen at the second follow up. There was evidence for subcutaneous fat increase in the malar area (p<0.001) and no increase in the brachial and crural areas. Patients who were smokers and had poor adherence to the Mediterranean diet had a thinner malar area at the follow up measurement (p=0.030) and smaller increase in subcutaneous malar fat compared to others (p=0.040). Our study suggested that modest increase of subcutaneous fat in malar area coincided with stopping stavudine and fewer usage of zidovudine. Lifestyle with non-adherence to the Mediterranean diet and smoking were associated with a smaller increase in subcutaneous malar fat. Key words: Lipoatrophy; Antiretroviral therapy; Ultrasound; Mediterranean diet
Tijekom još uvijek prisutne pandemije COVID-19 uočen je problem velikog broja bolesnika s perzistirajućim simptomima nakon akutne infekcije. Postoje brojne definicije ovog sindroma, ali „dugi COVID“ ...(od engl. Long COVID) ili post-akutni COVID definira se kao prisutnost protrahiranih simptoma ili ponovno javljanje simptoma mjesec dana nakon početka akutne bolesti. „Dugi COVID“ dijeli se na „produljeni simptomatski COVID-19“ ako simptomi traju od 4 do 12 tjedana te „post-COVID sindrom“ ako simptomi traju dulje od 12 tjedana nakon infekcije koja klinički i epidemiološki odgovara COVID-19, a ne mogu se pripisati drugoj dijagnozi. Zahvaćen može biti svaki organski sustav, a najčešći simptomi uključuju umor, nedostatak zraka, palpitacije, vrtoglavicu, bol, neurokognitivnu disfunkciju, nesanicu, intoleranciju napora, smanjenu mogućnost obavljanja svakodnevnih aktivnosti i sveukupno smanjenu kvaliteta života. Patofiziologija je multifaktorijalna i sam mehanizam nastanka bolesti nije u potpunosti razjašnjen. Usprkos brojnim studijama, komplikacije, liječenje i prognoza postakutnih posljedica COVID-19 nisu još dovoljno istraženi. S obzirom na raznolikost kliničke prezentacije, liječenje i prevencija zahtijevaju multidisciplinarni pristup bolesti. Potrebna su daljnja istraživanja kako bi se utvrdili čimbenici rizika i patofiziološki mehanizmi i postavili pouzdaniji algoritmi dijagnostičke obrade, liječenja i praćenja bolesnika. U ovom radu prikazujemo pregled dosadašnjih svjetskih spoznaja o „dugom COVID-u“ uz prikaz najčešćih post-COVID radioloških promjena u bolesnika liječenih u Klinici za infektivne bolesti „Dr. Fran Mihaljević“.
Human alveolar echinococcosis (HAE), caused by the metacestode stage of
, has emerged in many European countries over the last two decades. Here, we report the first data on the new HAE focus with ...increasing incidence in central Croatia, describe its clinical presentation and outcomes in diagnosed patients, and provide an update on the prevalence and geographic distribution of
in red foxes. After the initial case in 2017 from the eastern state border, from 2019 to 2022, five new autochthonous HAE cases were diagnosed, all concentrated in the Bjelovar-Bilogora County (the county incidence in 2019 and 2021: 0.98/10
, in 2022: 2.94/10
/year; prevalence for 2019-2022: 4.91/10
). The age range among four female and two male patients was 37-67 years. The patients' liver lesions varied in size from 3.1 to 15.5 cm (classification range: P2N0M0-P4N1M0), and one patient had dissemination to the lungs. While there were no fatalities, postoperative complications in one patient resulted in liver transplantation. In 2018, the overall prevalence of red foxes was 11.24% (28/249). A new focus on HAE has emerged in central continental Croatia, with the highest regional incidence in Europe. Screening projects among residents and the implementation of veterinary preventive measures following the One Health approach are warranted.
Diabetes and atherosclerosis are the predominant causes of stroke and cardiovascular disease (CVD) both in low- and high-income countries. This is due to the lack of appropriate medical care or high ...medical costs. Low-cost 10-year preventive screening can be used for deciding an effective therapy to reduce the effects of atherosclerosis in diabetes patients. American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) recommended the use of 10-year risk calculators, before advising therapy. Conventional risk calculators are suboptimal in certain groups of patients because their stratification depends on (a) current blood biomarkers and (b) clinical phenotypes, such as age, hypertension, ethnicity, and sex. The focus of this review is on risk assessment using innovative composite risk scores that use conventional blood biomarkers combined with vascular image-based phenotypes. AtheroEdge™ tool is beneficial for low-moderate to high-moderate and low-risk to high-risk patients for the current and 10-year risk assessment that outperforms conventional risk calculators. The preventive screening tool that combines the image-based phenotypes with conventional risk factors can improve the 10-year cardiovascular/stroke risk assessment.
Because of mostly asymptomatic cyst growth and often-neglected nonspecific low-grade symptoms, many cases of cystic echinococcosis (CE) caused by
in the pediatric population are diagnosed at school ...age, in an advanced and even complicated stage. In 2003, after 5 months of intermittent dull upper-right abdominal pain and nausea, a 13-year-old boy was diagnosed with massive liver CE, with ∼20 round-shaped double-walled medium-sized infective cysts, which permeated the whole liver. Because of their wide distribution across the liver tissue and the risky superficial position of some cysts, liver transplantation emerged as the optimal therapeutic option. Despite being described as only an exceptionally used method for CE, we subjected our patient on 4 occasions to a radiofrequency energy thermoablation (RFT) procedure similar to the one used for malignant neoplasms. In total, 9 superficially situated cysts were initially treated with RFT by using a 14-gauge outer needle and a temperature of 70°C for 8 minutes per cyst, and the remaining cysts were treated with the puncture-aspiration-instillation-reaspiration procedure, along with albendazole (15 mg/kg per day) therapy, for a period of 20 months. After 2 years of follow-up, 4 residual small-sized semisolidified cysts were seen in the liver, and the patient showed no signs of relapse. Although not routinely used, RFT, along with puncture-aspiration-instillation-reaspiration and prolonged albendazole therapy, has shown good tolerability and long-term efficacy in the treatment of multiple infective CE, which could suggest the usefulness of the RFT method beyond salvage situations in pediatric patients.
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the top ten leading causes of death worldwide. Atherosclerosis disease in the arteries is the main cause of the CVD, leading to myocardial infarction and stroke. ...The two primary image-based phenotypes used for monitoring the atherosclerosis burden is carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) and plaque area (PA). Earlier segmentation and measurement methods were based on ad hoc conventional and semi-automated digital imaging solutions, which are unreliable, tedious, slow, and not robust. This study reviews the modern and automated methods such as artificial intelligence (AI)-based. Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) can provide automated techniques in the detection and measurement of cIMT and PA from carotid vascular images. Both ML and DL techniques are examples of supervised learning, i.e., learn from “ground truth” images and transformation of test images that are not part of the training. This review summarizes (1) the evolution and impact of the fast-changing AI technology on cIMT/PA measurement, (2) the mathematical representations of ML/DL methods, and (3) segmentation approaches for cIMT/PA regions in carotid scans based for (a) region-of-interest detection and (b) lumen-intima and media-adventitia interface detection using ML/DL frameworks. AI-based methods for cIMT/PA segmentation have emerged for CVD/stroke risk monitoring and may expand to the recommended parameters for atherosclerosis assessment by carotid ultrasound.
The aim of our study was to establish and compare the diagnostic accuracy and clinical applicability of published chest CT severity scoring systems used for COVID-19 pneumonia assessment and to ...propose the most efficient CT scoring system with the highest diagnostic performance and the most accurate prediction of disease severity. This retrospective study included 218 patients with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and chest CT. Two radiologists blindly evaluated CT scans and calculated nine different CT severity scores (CT SSs). The diagnostic validity of CT SSs was tested by ROC analysis. Interobserver agreement was excellent (intraclass correlation coefficient: 0.982-0.995). The predominance of either consolidations or a combination of consolidations and ground-glass opacities (GGOs) was a predictor of more severe disease (both
< 0.005), while GGO prevalence alone was not. Correlation between all CT SSs was high, ranging from 0.848 to 0.971. CT SS 30 had the highest diagnostic accuracy (AUC = 0.805) in discriminating mild from severe COVID-19 disease compared to all the other proposed scoring systems (AUC range 0.755-0.788). In conclusion, CT SS 30 achieved the highest diagnostic accuracy in predicting the severity of COVID-19 disease while maintaining simplicity, reproducibility, and applicability in complex clinical settings.
To review unusual actinomycosis cases that appeared as a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge at our institution and to present a literature review on the usual clinical presentations.
This ...retrospective review included all patients hospitalized for actinomycosis in a 10-year period at the University Hospital for Infectious Diseases "Dr. Fran Mihaljević", Zagreb, Croatia.
A total of 15 patients were hospitalized during the observed period, 9 (60%) females and 6 (40%) males. The localizations of actinomycosis were: pelvis (5), lungs (3), blood stream (2), colon (1), penis (1), stomach (1), skin (1), cervicofacial region (1). We present four unusual cases: subcutaneous actinomycotic abscess, actinomycosis of the stomach with underlying non-Hodgkin lymphoma, sepsis due to Actinomyces neslundii originated from chronic asymptomatic periapical tooth abscesses and actinomycosis of the distal part of the penile shaft.
Actinomycosis was a very rare clinical problem in our clinical practice (0.032% of all hospitalizations and 0.0034% of all outpatients) but among those cases classical clinical presentations were also very rare.
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