Medicina clinica
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One of the current priorities of the World Health Organization is multidrug-resistant bacteria, because they are a global problem due to their rapid spread and the difficulty of their treatment. In addition, they are associated with high morbidity, mortality and high economic costs. There are multidrug-resistant bacteria, both Gram-positive and Gram-negative, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii resistant to carbapenems, enterobacteria producing carbapenemases, Staphylococcus aureus resistant to methicillin and/or with intermediate sensitivity to vancomycin, and Enterococcus faecium (and less frequently Enterococcus faecalis) resistant to vancomycin. This review will comment on the new antibiotics that have been incorporated into the therapeutic arsenal in recent years, as well as other promising antibiotics that are in their final stages of development.
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Review
Effect of antiresorptive and bone forming treatments in bone erosions in rheumatoid arthritis.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease that can cause joint destruction and marked disability. Early treatment with disease-modifying drugs, including biological therapy, is the principal treatment to prevent the structural damage associated with this entity. Some studies have indicated that concomitant treatment with antiresorptives, such as bisphosphonates or denosumab, could prevent erosive lesions in this process, and it has even been suggested that treatment with a bone forming agent, such as teriparatide, could revert previously established erosive lesions. In this article we review the evidence available on the efficacy of treatment with antiresorptives and bone forming agents in the prevention and/or treatment of bone erosions associated with RA.
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Currently there is evidence on hypertriglyceridaemia as an independent risk factor of atherosclerosis. Chylomicronaemia associated with very high concentration of triglycerides may cause severe and recurrent acute pancreatitis. The cause of most cases is a combination of a polygenetic basis with some lifestyles and pathological conditions. ⋯ In some cases, drugs are also required for their control, but their impact on vascular risk reduction or pancreatitis prevention is more controversial. The recent advances in knowledge of molecular lipid metabolism and pharmacological technologies are resulting in the development of new therapeutic strategies, which can be applied to patients with refractory hypertrigliceridaemia. The challenge may be how the health systems can cover its high costs.
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Pulmonary ultrasound is becoming very important for the diagnosis and monitoring of respiratory diseases in different areas, such as emergency departments, outpatient clinics, inpatient areas, etc. This review attempts to encompass most of the applications and utilities of thoracic ultrasound in daily clinical practice. For this, the review focuses on how the ultrasound image would be visualized in each of the pleuro-pulmonary pathologies to which it has access and its use in interventional pulmonology. In addition, a schematic illustration with the most frequent pathologies and their ultrasound representation is presented, in order to better understand what we are seeing with this complementary test of great diagnostic value.
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The preoperative estimation of the risk of mortality after a hip fracture is very useful to plan time of surgery and perioperative care, inform patients and families about the prognosis and allows comparisons between different units. Different models have been developed to stratify mortality risk, but they show heterogeneity in terms of type of population and variables included, monitoring the time and statistical methods used, which makes it difficult to establish comparisons between them. ⋯ So far, the Nottingham Hip Fracture Score (NHFS) and the Orthopaedic Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the enUmeration of Mortality and Morbidity (O-POSSUM) are the most commonly used models. The NHFS is simpler and faster to apply, and by not including intraoperative variables can be used at the time of admission.