Læknablađiđ
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Comparative Study
[The impact of lung diseases, smoking and e-cigarette use on the severity of COVID-19 illness at diagnosis].
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused public health and economic turmoil across the globe. Severe COVID-19 disease most often presents with pneumonia and complications in acutely ill patients often stem from the lungs. The associations of lung disease, smoking and e-cigarette use with the incidence and severity of COVID-19 are unclear on a population level. ⋯ The age distribution and prevalence of lung disease and their risk factors are described in the context of COVID-19 incidence and symptom severity in a whole-nation cohort of Icelanders. The cohort is younger and had less severe symptoms than in many previosly published studies of COVID-19. Interestingly, the prevalences of smoking and e-cigarette use were lower than in the Icelandic general population and they were not associated with symptom severity at diagnosis. To conclude, the results presented here indicate that underlying lung diseases are prevalent among people with severe COVID-19 symptoms but fail to demonstrate an association between cigarette smoking or e-cigarette smoking with COVID-19 severity.
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Self-expandable metal stents (SEMS) are a known treatment option for obstruction due to colorectal cancer. The objective of this project was to estimate the usage of such stents in Iceland between 2000-2018. We evaluated the number of patients who received the stent as a bridge to surgery (BtoS) or as a palliative therapy (PT) and evaluated complication rate and the technical and clinical success rate. ⋯ SEMS served as BtoS with resection and primary anastomosis for the majority of patients in the BtoS group. For a majority of patients in the PT group, SEMS could be used to avoid surgery. The perforation rate was relatively high. Information on techincal and clinical success was poorly recorded. Because of the retrospective nature of the study and the small population size all results should be interpreted with caution.
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Despite extensive knowledge on the importance of quality sleep for health and wellbeing, sleep quality and sleep disorders are commonly overlooked in both prevention and treatment of chronic illnesses. The aim of this review is to draw attention to recently published literature focusing on how disrupted sleep contributes to the onset and progression of chronic diseases, with focus on cardiovascular- and -cardiometabolic diseases. ⋯ Objective sleep disorder diagnosis is relevant to ensure appropriate therapy intervention, and for sleep disorders to be managed as other chronic diseases based on regular objective assessments of treatment efficacy. In light of the knowledge of how short sleep and/or low sleep quality negatively affects the cardiovascular system, including objective sleep evaluation in the -standard of care for risk assessment and management of cardiovascular diseases may improve cardiovascular risk prediction and improve outcomes.