{Figure 1}{Figure 2} The use of cheaper over-the-counter tattoo removal creams and devices may lead to more expensive wound care procedures including, chemical or surgical debridement, skin grafting ...and even flap surgery. 3 National health services all over the world face lead to more funding problems arising from serious complications after do-it-yourself tattoo removal creams and devices freely advertised on the internet.
Background
Perforations in the nasal septum (NSP) give rise not only to disintegration of the septum anatomy but also impairment in normal nasal physiology. The successes of these surgical techniques ...are usually equated to anatomical closure of the perforation. The goal of this study is to evaluate the subjective and objective results of our surgical technique for septal perforation surgery.
Methods
All NSPs in the six patients were closed by inferior turbinate flap. The Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) instrument was used to evaluate the preoperative and postoperative subjective sensation of nasal obstruction. Measurement of preoperative and postoperative nasal airway resistance was performed using active anterior rhinomanometry which is an objective test. Wilcoxson signed rank test and Spearman correlation test were used to analyze correlation between NOSE scores and rhinomanometric measurements.
Results
The full closure of the septal perforations was noted in 100% of patients. The total NOSE score was 14 preoperatively and one postoperatively. The improvement in NOSE scores was statistically significant (P≤0.002). The mean preoperative total resistance (ResT150) value was 0.13 Pa/cm
3
s
-1
, which is below the normal range (0.16-0.31 Pa/cm
3
s
-1
), while the mean postoperative ResT150 value was 0.27 Pa/cm
3
s
-1
. The correlation between the improvement in NOSE scores and improvements in ResT150 values was statistically significant.
Conclusions
Surgical approaches should aim to solve both the anatomical and physiological problems of NSP. The application of subjective and objective tests in the postoperative period will help surgeons assess the applied techniques.
The COVID-19 disease, which was declared epidemic by the WHO, is a global emergency public health problem. Patients with extrapulmonary symptoms are the group of patients who should be considered for ...person-to-person transmission in the community. In our study, it was aimed to investigate the characteristics of patients with COVID-19-related diarrhea symptoms.
The study was conducted retrospectively in CO-VID-19 rtRT-PCR-positive patients in 5 medical centers. Three or more loose/liquid stools per day or increased number of defecations compared to normal defecation were defined as diarrhea. The patients were analyzed in 2 groups as those with and without diarrhea.
One thousand eighty-six patients were included in the study. Seventy-eight (7.2%) of the patients had diarrhea. Diarrhea was watery in 54 (69.2%) patients while with blood and mucus in 18 (23.1%) patients. Diarrhea continued for an average of 5.2 ± 1.6 (2-11) days. The clinical and laboratory findings of patients with diarrhea were more serious than those without diarrhea. Diarrhea is more common in the elderly and people with comorbid disease, and patients with diarrhea had higher CMI score and CRP and higher complaints of fever, cough, shortness of breath, myalgia, and fatigue.
The presence of diarrhea should indicate a suspected COVID-19 infection and suggest testing for early diagnosis of the disease. It should be kept in mind that the course of the disease may be more severe in these patients, and precautions should also be taken in terms of fecal transmission during discharge.
Sensory assessment of the skin is essential to document the function of the sensory fibers of the tested nerves. The Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments, disk-criminator, electrodiagnostic testing, and ...Pressure-Specified Sensory Device (PSSD) have been currently used to assess sensory function of peripheral nerves. None of these methods is optimal because of different drawbacks; however, an increasing number of articles, which recognize the reliability of PSSD, have been published during the last decade. In this review, following a short overview on basic physiology and assessment methods of the skin sensory receptors, we compared the sensory assessment methods and summarized the applications of the PSSD in the field of different clinical areas, mainly peripheral neuropathies, breast, and flap surgery.
Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) associated pneumonia may progress into acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Some patients develop features of macrophage activation syndrome (MAS). Elevated ...levels of IL-6 were reported to be associated with severe disease, and anti-IL-6R tocilizumab has been shown to be effective in some patients. This retrospective multicenter case–control study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of tocilizumab in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, who received standard of care with or without tocilizumab. Primary outcome was the progression to intubation or death. PSMATCH (SAS) procedure was used to achieve exact propensity score (PS) matching. Data from 1289 patients were collected, and study population was reduced to 1073 based on inclusion–exclusion criteria. The composite outcome was observed more frequently in tocilizumab-users, but there was a significant imbalance between arms in all critical parameters. Primary analyses were carried out in 348 patients (174 in each arm) after exact PS matching according to gender, ferritin, and procalcitonin. Logistic regression models revealed that tocilizumab significantly reduced the intubation or death (OR 0.40,
p
= 0.0017). When intubation is considered alone, tocilizumab-users had > 60% reduction in odds of intubation. Multiple imputation approach, which increased the size of the matched patients up to 506, provided no significant difference between arms despite a similar trend for intubation alone group. Analysis of this retrospective cohort showed more frequent intubation or death in tocilizumab-users, but PS-matched analyses revealed significant results for supporting tocilizumab use overall in a subset of patients matched according to gender, ferritin and procalcitonin levels.
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