Internal and emergency medicine
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Review
Identification and management of invasive mycoses in internal medicine: a road-map for physicians.
Invasive mycoses are a rising problem, not only in traditional categories of patients like hematologic or neutropenic ones, but also in elderly non-neutropenic patients admitted to internal medicine wards. Patients being admitted to medical wards are usually older, have multiple comorbidities, e.g., liver cirrhosis or chronic obstructive respiratory disease, may be malnourished or receive peripheral or total parenteral nutrition, and frequently are undergoing chronic corticosteroid therapy, chemotherapy for cancer or monoclonal antibodies for autoimmune diseases. ⋯ Both candidemia and invasive aspergillosis carry significant morbidity and mortality. The aim of this paper is to provide a simple guide to physicians for a prompt identification and treatment of patients with possible or suspected invasive mycoses.
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Multicenter Study
A prospective study on survival in cancer patients with and without venous thromboembolism.
Retrospective population-based studies showed that in cancer patients venous thromboembolism (VTE) is associated with reduced survival. Master Oncology is a multicenter study in patients with solid advanced cancer aimed at assessing (1) risk factors for VTE using a case-control design, and (2) survival in cases (patients with VTE) and controls (patients without VTE). Survival data were prospectively collected for at least 10 months. ⋯ Median survival time was reduced for both patients with symptomatic (Wilcoxon = 35.22, p < 0.001) and asymptomatic VTE (Wilcoxon = 4.63, p = 0.031). Patients with advanced solid cancer, high BMI, high ECOG score, and recent diagnosis of cancer are associated with an increased risk for VTE. Patients with both symptomatic and asymptomatic VTE have a reduced survival compared to those without VTE.