Although older adults are at a high risk of severe or critical Covid-19, there are many cases of unvaccinated centenarians who had a silent infection or recovered from mild or moderate Covid-19. We ...studied three Brazilian supercentenarians, older than 110 years, who survived Covid-19 in 2020 before being vaccinated.
Despite their advanced age, humoral immune response analysis showed that these individuals displayed robust levels of IgG and neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against SARS-CoV-2. Enrichment of plasma proteins and metabolites related to innate immune response and host defense was also observed. None presented autoantibodies (auto-Abs) to type I interferon (IFN). Furthermore, these supercentenarians do not carry rare variants in genes underlying the known inborn errors of immunity, including particular inborn errors of type I IFN.
These observations suggest that their Covid-19 resilience might be a combination of their genetic background and their innate and adaptive immunity.
The bioavailability of metals, which are known as important contact allergens, is decisive for the development and the maintenance of contact dermatitis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ...percutaneous penetration of metal powders of cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni) and chromium (Cr) and the effect of skin lesions on skin absorption. In vitro permeation experiments were performed using the Franz diffusion cells with intact and damaged human skin. Physiological solution was used as receiving phase and metal powders (Co, Ni and Cr) dispersed in synthetic sweat at pH 4.5 were applied as donor phase to the outer surface of the skin for 24
h. The amount of each metal permeating the skin was analysed by electro-thermal atomic absorption spectroscopy (ETAAS). Donor solution analysis demonstrated that metals were present as ions. Measurements of metals skin content were also exploited. Median Co and Ni concentrations found in the receiving phase were significantly higher when Co and Ni powders were applied on the abraded skin than after application on the intact skin (3566 and 2631
ngcm
−2 vs. 8.4 and 31
ngcm
−2, respectively). No significant difference was found in Cr permeation through intact and damaged skin. The measurement of metals skin content showed that Co, Ni and Cr concentrations were significantly higher in the damaged skin than in the intact skin. Co and Ni ions concentrations increased significantly when the donor solutions were applied on the damaged skin, while Cr ions concentrations did not increase. This study demonstrated that Co and Ni powders can permeate through damaged skin more easily than Cr powder, which has probably a stronger skin proteins binding capacity. Therefore, our results suggest that is necessary to prevent skin contamination when using toxic substances because a small injury to the skin barrier can significantly increase skin absorption.
Health is the major reference regarding quality of life; when it comes to breast cancer in particular, the loss of a breast traumatically affects a woman's life, reflecting on her quality of life. ...Recognizing this problem, our aim was to investigate the quality of life of women who live in a semi-arid region of Brazil after breast cancer mastectomy. In this exploratory, transversal and observational study, a Brazilian variantof the shorter version of the original instrument from the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF), applied in the study population, was analyzed and their socio-demographic profile was obtained. The sample was composed of 50 mastectomized women. The 50 included patients comprised women at a mean age of 54 years. Most of them had finished elementary school, and their average income was one Brazilian minimum monthly wage. Regarding the data related to quality of life, the highest score was found in the social relationships domain (4.29) followed by the psychological (4.09) and environmental (3.88) domains. The lowest score observed was for the physical domain (3.48). With these findings we can say that social and psychological parameters are driving factors of the quality of life in post-mastectomy women. Therefore, these results are useful to establish strategies to improve the quality of life of breast cancer mastectomy patients.
Background
Diabetes mellitus is a chronicle illness in which there is a high blood glucose level defined as hyperglycemia, resulted by a deficiency in insulin secretion and/or in its action. ...Nowadays, it is being seen as a public health problem and is reaching increasing proportions with regard to the appearance of new cases. For diagnosis, sensible and accurate methods should be used to avoid complications of the sickness. The measure of glycated hemoglobin may not be used for diagnosis, but is the reference method to evaluate the grade of glycemic control in the long term, reflecting the blood glucose level in the latest 2–3 months. The aim of this study was to evaluate the grade of concordance between turbidimetry and liquid chromatography methods in the glycated hemoglobin determination and to estimate the sensibility and specificity values of turbidimetry.
Methods
This study included 133 blood samples obtained from patients and healthy donors, ageing between 18 and 80 years with glycemic values between 58 and 473 mg/dl.
Results and Conclusion
Turbidimetry is a useful method for determining glycemic levels above 100 and over 200 mg/dl, but does not have the ability to select samples with intermediary blood glucose concentrations.
Breast cancer remains the second most frequent type of cancer in the world and the first among women, and systemic chemotherapy is an adjuvant therapeutic modality that improves survival in a great ...part of patients. Women with breast cancer, however, frequently show a higher risk of thromboembolism, an event associated to hyperhomocysteinemia and the presence of circulating tumor cells (CTC). Our aim is to correlate the presence of CTCs, detected by the analysis of CK19 and c-erbB2 gene expressions, and the homocysteine plasma levels in the peripheral blood in patients with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Epithelial marker expression (CK19 and c-erbB2) and homocysteine levels were analyzed in a mononuclear fraction of the peripheral blood and plasma, respectively, obtained from 35 patients diagnosed with breast cancer at diagnosis and throughout chemotherapy treatment. No significant relation between the CK19 and c-erbB2 expressions and hyperhomocysteinemia was observed at any moment of the evaluation throughout the chemotherapy treatment (3 and 6 months after the onset). Among clinical data, only menopausal status showed a statistically significant correlation with homocysteine concentration. Although differences in the expressions of the analyzed epithelial markers were detected at 3 and 6 months of chemotherapy treatment, no relation between plasma homocysteine variations and the CK19 and c-erbB2 gene expressions was found in patients under chemotherapy treatment at any moment of the evaluation, suggesting that chemotherapy affects the expressions of the studied genes independently.
Background: The risks caused by infectious and contagious diseases in the school environment are of importance to the conduct of early childhood education in the contemporary world. In this work ...authors aimed to analyze vulnerability to infectious and contagious diseases in daycare center teachers who work in public institutions in the Municipality of Fortaleza-CE, Brazil.Methods: This was aquanti-qualitative study approach of the descriptive, cross-sectional type, of an exploratory nature. This study was carried out with 30 daycare center teachers from the Municipality of Fortaleza from October to November 2016. Results: The main infectious and contagious diseases that affect children in the daycare center were high rates of two or three comorbidities per child. Regarding the workplace risk to the teachers’ health, 58.6% of the teachers consider that the working in the daycare center does not bring greater risks of illness and 41.4% believe it does.Conclusions: Stress due to the presence of students with viral infections who need to remain in the daycare center, lack of hygiene, rest and inadequate nutrition contribute to the vulnerability to illnesses in the teachers.
Hydatidiform mole resulting from sexual violence Drezett, Jefferson; Kurobe, Flavia Cella; Nobumoto, Cecília Tomiko ...
International archives of medicine,
02/2012, Letnik:
5, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Hydatidiform mole (HM) is characterized by abnormal proliferation of human trophoblast with producers functioning tissues of human chorionic gonadotropin. It can evolve with ovarian cysts ...tecaluteínicos, hypertension of pregnancy or hyperthyroidism. The incidence of HM is variable and its etiology poorly known, associated with nutritional factors, environmental, age, parity, history of HM, oral contraceptives, smoking, consanguinity or defects in germ cells. There is no reference in literature on HM resulting from sexual violence, objective of this report.
Description of two cases of HM among 1146 patients with pregnancy resulting from sexual violence treated at Hospital Pérola Byington, São Paulo, from July 1994 to August 2011.
The cases affected young, white, unmarried, low educated and low parity women. Sexual violence was perpetrated by known offenders unrelated to the victims, under death threat. Ultrasound and CT of the pelvis showed bulky uterus compatible with HM without myometrial invasion. One case was associated with theca lutein cysts. The two cases were diagnosed in the second trimester of pregnancy and evolved with hyperthyroidism. There was no hypertension, disease recurrence, metastasis or sexually transmitted infection.
The incidence of HM was 1:573 pregnancies resulting from rape, within the range estimated for Latin American countries. Trophoblastic material can be preserved to identify the violence perpetrator, considering only the paternal HM chromosomes. History of sexual violence should be investigated in cases of HM in the first half of adolescence and women in a vulnerable condition.
The authors evaluated the usefulness of routine traditional radiology in the management of patients submitted to VBG.
Radiological findings in 65 subjects who had undergone VBG were evaluated. ...Post-surgical clinical and radiological examinations were performed 3 days, 1, 4 and 12 months after surgery. Upper GI symptoms, gastroesophageal imaging and 80% solid meal pouch emptying time were recorded.
The routine postoperative study, in the absence of clinical symptoms, showed no unsuspected complication in any patient, both in the early and in the late postoperative period. There was no significant correlation at 4 and 12 months between emptying time and duration of satiation, emptying time and percent excess weight loss (%EWL), and duration of satiation and %EWL.
Traditional radiological studies can be safely omitted from both the immediate postoperative period and from the long-term follow-up in asymptomatic VBG patients. The studies were not helpful in understanding functional changes leading to weight loss after VBG.
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