Project description:During the COVID-19 2020 outbreak, a large body of data has been provided on general management and outcomes of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Yet, relatively little is known on characteristics and outcome of patients managed in Internal Medicine Units (IMU). To address this gap, the Italian Society of Internal Medicine has conducted a nationwide cohort multicentre study on death outcome in adult COVID-19 patients admitted and managed in IMU. This study assessed 3044 COVID-19 patients at 41 referral hospitals across Italy from February 3rd to May 8th 2020. Demographics, comorbidities, organ dysfunction, treatment, and outcomes including death were assessed. During the study period, 697 patients (22.9%) were transferred to intensive care units, and 351 died in IMU (death rate 14.9%). At admission, factors independently associated with in-hospital mortality were age (OR 2.46, p = 0.000), productive cough (OR 2.04, p = 0.000), pre-existing chronic heart failure (OR 1.58, p = 0.017) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (OR 1.17, p = 0.048), the number of comorbidities (OR 1.34, p = 0.000) and polypharmacy (OR 1.20, p = 0.000). Of note, up to 40% of elderly patients did not report fever at admission. Decreasing PaO2/FiO2 ratio at admission was strongly inversely associated with survival. The use of conventional oxygen supplementation increased with the number of pre-existing comorbidities, but it did not associate with better survival in patients with PaO2/FiO2 ratio < 100. The latter, significantly benefited by the early use of non-invasive mechanical ventilation. Our study identified PaO2/FiO2 ratio at admission and comorbidity as the main alert signs to inform clinical decisions and resource allocation in non-critically ill COVID-19 patients admitted to IMU.
Project description:The burden of hospital admission for pneumonia in internal medicine wards may not be underestimated; otherwise, cases of pneumonia are a frequent indication for antimicrobial prescriptions. Community- and hospital-acquired pneumonia are characterized by high healthcare costs, morbidity and non-negligible rates of fatality. The overcoming prevalence of resistant gram-negative and positive bacteria (e.g., methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, penicillin and ceftriaxone-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae, extended-spectrum β-lactamases and carbapenemases producing Enterobacteriaceae) has made the most of the first-line agents ineffective for treating lower respiratory tract infections. A broad-spectrum of activity, favourable pulmonary penetration, harmlessness and avoiding in some cases a combination therapy, characterise new cephalosporins such as ceftolozane/tazobactam, ceftobiprole, ceftazidime/avibactam and ceftaroline. We aimed to summarise the role and place in therapy of new cephalosporins in community- and hospital-acquired pneumonia within the setting of internal medicine wards. The "universal pneumonia antibiotic strategy" is no longer acceptable for treating lung infections. Antimicrobial therapy should be individualized considering local antimicrobial resistance and epidemiology, the stage of the illness and potential host factors predisposing to a high risk for specific pathogens.
Project description:The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has affected millions of people worldwide and has significant implications for public health. Host transcriptomics profiling provides comprehensive understanding of how the virus interacts with host cells and how the host responds to the virus. COVID-19 disease alters the host transcriptome, affecting cellular pathways and key molecular functions. To contribute to the global effort to understand the virus’s effect on host cell transcriptome, we have generated a dataset from nasopharyngeal swabs of 35 individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 from the Campania region in Italy during the three outbreaks, with different clinical conditions. This dataset will help to elucidate the complex interactions among genes and can be useful in the development of effective therapeutic pathways
Project description:Objectives: To investigate the rate of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) positivity and its clinical significance in patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Methods: This study included 178 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 who were enrolled in a cohort at a single centre. Myeloperoxidase (MPO)-ANCA and proteinase 3 (PR3)-ANCA levels in stored blood sera were measured using immunoassay kits. Mortality, mechanical ventilator care, and severe infection were assessed as three poor outcomes. The 2022 American College of Rheumatology and the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (ACR/EULAR) classification criteria for the three subtypes of AAV were applied only to patients who had MPO-ANCA or PR3-ANCA among study subjects. Results: The detection rate of ANCA positivity was 18.5%. MPO-ANCA and PR3-ANCA were found in 22 (12.4%) and 14 (7.9%) patients, respectively. However, neither MPO-ANCA nor PR3-ANCA affected the three poor outcomes. According to the new criteria, 12 (6.7%) and 21 (11.8%) patients were classified as having granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), respectively. Conclusions: SARS-CoV-2 infection may increase the rate of ANCA positivity. Although it might not affect poor outcomes, it might contribute to the classification of GPA and MPA despite uncertain clinical significance.
Project description:IntroductionThe July effect refers to an increase in adverse outcomes during periods of physician trainee turnover in teaching hospitals. We created an interactive resident-led curriculum to train new internal medicine interns for routine encounters on inpatient wards by role-playing through mock paging scenarios and focusing on practical information relevant to intern year.MethodsA formal assessment of the academic year 2018 intern boot camp curriculum revealed that interns preferred sessions that involved active learning strategies and covered common issues. In the first week of academic year 2019, interns participated in two 1-hour small-group sessions involving mock paging scenarios. Interns were divided into small groups with one facilitator who was a senior medicine resident. Within these groups, facilitators acted as the nurse and provided pages. Interns took turns answering these mock pages based on a sign-out of patients. The facilitator emphasized desired learner actions and teaching points using a provided guide.ResultsTwenty interns participated in the curriculum. Interns rated the curriculum highly and felt that the sessions improved their knowledge, comfort, and skills in managing routine inpatient encounters. On a 2-week follow-up knowledge test to determine if they retained the information from the curriculum, interns scored an average of 85% (response rate: 60%, N = 12), indicating that they could apply the knowledge/skills learned to new scenarios.DiscussionThis curriculum prepares medicine interns to manage common inpatient issues at the beginning of their residency. After completing the curriculum, interns reported increased confidence in handling these issues.
Project description:BackgroundThere are few agents that have been proven effective for COVID-19. Predicting clinical improvement as well as mortality or severity is very important.ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate the factors associated with the clinical improvement of COVID-19.MethodsOverall, 74 patients receiving treatment for COVID-19 at Tokyo Medical and Dental University Hospital from April 6th to May 15th, 2020 were included in this study. Clinical improvement was evaluated, which defined as the decline of two levels on a six-point ordinal scale of clinical status or discharge alive from the hospital within 28 days after admission. The clinical courses were particularly investigated and the factors related to time to clinical improvement were analyzed with the log-rank test and the Cox proportional hazard model.ResultsForty-nine patients required oxygen support during hospitalization, 22 patients required invasive mechanical ventilation, and 5 patients required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. A total of 83% of cases reached clinical improvement. Longer period of time from onset to admission (≥10 days) (HR, 1.057; 95% CI, 1.002-1.114), no hypertension (HR, 2.077; 95% CI, 1.006-4.287), and low D-dimer levels (<1 μg/ml) (HR, 2.372; 95% CI, 1.229-4.576) were confirmed to be significant predictive factors for time to clinical improvement. Furthermore, a lower SARS-CoV-2 RNA copy number was also a predictive factor for clinical improvement.ConclusionsSeveral predictors for the clinical improvement of COVID-19 pneumonia were identified. These results may be important for the management of COVID-19 pneumonia.
Project description:BackgroundDespite increased testing efforts and the deployment of vaccines, COVID-19 cases and death toll continue to rise at record rates. Health systems routinely collect clinical and non-clinical information in electronic health records (EHR), yet little is known about how the minimal or intermediate spectra of EHR data can be leveraged to characterize patient SARS-CoV-2 pretest probability in support of interventional strategies.Methods and findingsWe modeled patient pretest probability for SARS-CoV-2 test positivity and determined which features were contributing to the prediction and relative to patients triaged in inpatient, outpatient, and telehealth/drive-up visit-types. Data from the University of Washington (UW) Medicine Health System, which excluded UW Medicine care providers, included patients predominately residing in the Seattle Puget Sound area, were used to develop a gradient-boosting decision tree (GBDT) model. Patients were included if they had at least one visit prior to initial SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing between January 01, 2020 through August 7, 2020. Model performance assessments used area-under-the-receiver-operating-characteristic (AUROC) and area-under-the-precision-recall (AUPR) curves. Feature performance assessments used SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values. The generalized pretest probability model using all available features achieved high overall discriminative performance (AUROC, 0.82). Performance among inpatients (AUROC, 0.86) was higher than telehealth/drive-up testing (AUROC, 0.81) or outpatient testing (AUROC, 0.76). The two-week test positivity rate in patient ZIP code was the most informative feature towards test positivity across visit-types. Geographic and sociodemographic factors were more important predictors of SARS-CoV-2 positivity than individual clinical characteristics.ConclusionsRecent geographic and sociodemographic factors, routinely collected in EHR though not routinely considered in clinical care, are the strongest predictors of initial SARS-CoV-2 test result. These findings were consistent across visit types, informing our understanding of individual SARS-CoV-2 risk factors with implications for deployment of testing, outreach, and population-level prevention efforts.
Project description:Repeated positivity and reinfection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) is a significant concern. Our study aimed to evaluate the clinical significance of repeatedly positive testing after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recovery. We performed a systematic literature search following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline. With available individual patient data reporting on repeatedly SARS-CoV-2 positive (RSP) patients, case reports, and case series were included in this analysis. We performed a descriptive analysis of baseline characteristics of repeatedly positive cases. We assessed the cases according to the length of their polymerase chain reaction (PCR) negative interval between the two episodes. Risk factors for the severity of second episodes were evaluated. Overall, we included 123 patients with repeated positivity from 56 publications, with a mean repeated positivity length of 47.8 ± 29.9 days. Younger patients were predominant in the delayed (>90 days) recurrent positive group. Furthermore, comparing patients with RSP intervals of below 60 and above 60 days, we found that a more severe disease course can be expected if the repeated positivity interval is shorter. Severe and critical disease courses might predict future repeatedly positive severe and critical COVID-19 episodes. In conclusion, our results show that the second episode of SARS-CoV-2 positivity is more severe if it happens within 60 days after the first positive PCR. On the other hand, the second episode's severity correlates with the first.
Project description:Enhanced community surveillance is a key pillar of the public health response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Asymptomatic carriage of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a potentially significant source of transmission, yet remains relatively poorly understood. Disruption of dental services continues with significantly reduced capacity. Ongoing precautions include preappointment and/or at appointment COVID-19 symptom screening and use of enhanced personal protective equipment (PPE). This study aimed to investigate SARS-CoV-2 infection in dental patients to inform community surveillance and improve understanding of risks in the dental setting. Thirty-one dental care centers across Scotland invited asymptomatic-screened patients aged over 5 y to participate. Following verbal consent and completion of sociodemographic and symptom history questionnaire, trained dental teams took a combined oropharyngeal and nasal swab sample using standardized Viral Transport Medium-containing test kits. Samples were processed by the Lighthouse Lab and patients informed of their results by SMS/email with appropriate self-isolation guidance in the event of a positive test. All positive cases were successfully followed up by the national contact tracing program. Over a 13-wk period (from August 3, 2020, to October 31, 2020), 4,032 patients, largely representative of the population, were tested. Of these, 22 (0.5%; 95% CI, 0.5%-0.8%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The positivity rate increased over the period, commensurate with uptick in community prevalence identified across all national testing monitoring data streams. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a COVID-19 testing survey in asymptomatic-screened patients presenting in a dental setting. The positivity rate in this patient group reflects the underlying prevalence in community at the time. These data are a salient reminder, particularly when community infection levels are rising, of the importance of appropriate ongoing infection prevention control and PPE vigilance, which is relevant as health care team fatigue increases as the pandemic continues. Dental settings are a valuable location for public health surveillance.