The American journal of the medical sciences
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Review Case Reports
Brucella as a cause of severe sepsis: Case series and brief review.
Brucellosis is a serious public health problem worldwide and can affect any organ system. Due to brucellosis's variable clinical presentation, ranging from subclinical to fully symptomatic, and limited available information, it poses a diagnostic challenge. ⋯ These case presentations will be valuable in increasing the awareness of physicians. A prompt diagnosis is crucial, as detecting some clues of the infection in its early stages can help avoid misdiagnoses.
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Review Case Reports
Pressed for Understanding: Interstitial lung disease in Dry-Cleaning Workers.
Interstitial lung disease (ILD) represents a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by inflammation and fibrosis of the pulmonary interstitium. Risk factors for ILD include various environmental exposures and identifying specific exposures offers a point of intervention for preventing disease. ⋯ While this report does not attempt to establish causality, we hypothesize that exposure to the industrial solvent tetrachloroethylene may serve as a contributing factor given its links to epithelial injury, inflammation, redox imbalance and apoptosis. We hope that this report serves to not only inform readers of this possible connection between dry cleaning and ILD but also lay the foundation for additional studies examining the effects of tetrachloroethylene on the lung.
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The optimal treatment of fibrosing hypersensitivity pneumonitis (fHP) is not well understood. The aim of the study was to obtain information about the usefulness of mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) in its treatment. ⋯ In patients with fHP, MMF improves lung function and dyspnoea and reduces both the number of patients requiring oral corticosteroids and their mean dose in those who completed 1 year of treatment. The model constructed predicts which patients will respond poorly to treatment, with good discriminative ability and only a small percentage of patients will not tolerate treatment. Further prospective, randomised clinical trials are needed to define the role of this treatment in fHP.
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Prediabetes and diabetes are common and serious public health problems, and high blood glucose can lead to serious cardiovascular complications. The purpose of this article was to explore the link between CVH levels and the incidence of prediabetes and diabetes in people over 20 years old, and whether serum vitamin D status could alter this relationship. ⋯ Although the cross-sectional study only determines the association and does not prove causality, the current results can be used to prompt people to improve their lifestyle and risk factors to prevent prediabetes or diabetes through higher CVH and adequate Vitamin D.