Irish journal of medical science
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Pulmonary embolism requires careful differential diagnosis as it is associated with a wide range of symptoms that may suggest different diseases such as chest pain, shortness of breath and syncope. Since the disease can be fatal, especially in cases where right ventricular failure and hemodynamic instability develop, prognostic markers are great importance in terms of monitoring the patient during the treatment process. ⋯ FD-dimer/HsTroponin ratio, which is a powerful, fast, low-cost, easy and simple test, can be used especially in emergency services instead of the PESI score as a mortality marker in pulmonary embolism, which has a high mortality rate.
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Angular deformity in the lower extremity can result in pain, gait disturbance, cosmetic deformity and joint degeneration. Up until the introduction of guided growth, which has since become the widely accepted treatment for frontal plane angular angular deformity around the knee in skeletally immature patients, treatment consisted of staples, corrective osteotomy or an angular epiphysiodesis. Guided growth modulation uses the tension band principle with the goal of treatment being to normalise the lower limb mechanical axis resulting in lower morbidity than previous treatments. In order to assess the success of this procedure we reviewed our results in an attempt to identify patients who may not benefit from this elegant procedure. ⋯ Level III, retrospective cohort study.
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The aim of this study was to delineate the features of the locomotive syndrome (LS) risk stage in the elderly population, encompassing global spine sagittal alignment, visible spinal degenerative changes on plain radiographs, muscle strength, physical capabilities, and low back pain (LBP). ⋯ Participants diagnosed with LS exhibited an increased incidence of spinal degeneration, reduced LLA, and global spinal imbalance characterized by anterior spinal inclination.
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Increasing data are available on the use and efficacy of rituximab (RTX) in patients with anti-muscle-specific tyrosine kinase (MuSK)-positive myasthenia gravis (MG), especially those steroid-dependent or unresponsive to traditional immunotherapies. ⋯ RTX is an effective treatment in anti-MuSK-positive MG. Furthermore, our results support the inhibition of antibody production by RTX and we recommend monitoring anti-MuSK antibody titers to follow disease progression and treatment response.
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To identify the incidence and characteristics of chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) following total knee arthroplasty and determine peri-operative influencing factors. ⋯ CPSP is common after total knee arthroplasty with an incidence of 36.5% at 6 months post procedure. Female sex, lack of multimodal analgesia, and lower Oxford Knee Scores were associated with increased CPSP.