Plos One
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Two mRNA vaccines (BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273) against severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are globally authorized as a two-dose regimen. Understanding the magnitude and duration of protective immune responses is vital to curbing the pandemic. We enrolled 461 high-risk health services workers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and first responders in the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) to assess the humoral responses in previously infected (PI) and infection naïve (NPI) individuals to mRNA-based vaccines (BNT162b2/Pfizer- BioNTech or mRNA-1273/Moderna). ⋯ Previously infected individuals achieved higher median peak titers (p = 0.002) and had a slower rate of decay (p = 0.047) than infection-naïve individuals. mRNA-1273 vaccinated infection-naïve individuals demonstrated modestly higher titers following each dose (p = 0.005 and p = 0.029, respectively) and slower rates of antibody decay (p = 0.003) than those who received BNT162b2. A subset of previously infected individuals (25%) required both doses in order to reach peak antibody titers. The biologic significance of the differences between previously infected individuals and between the mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 vaccines remains uncertain, but may have important implications for booster strategies.
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Hemorrhoidal disease is a very common benign anorectal disease. It affects millions of people around the world, and represent a major medical and socioeconomic problem. However, studies that determine the magnitude and risk factors are limited. Therefore, the aim this study is to assess the prevalence and associated factors of hemorrhoid among adult patients visiting the surgical outpatient department at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (UoGCSH) Northwest Ethiopia. ⋯ The overall prevalence of hemorrhoid was high and its prevalence was higher in male subjects. Constipation and being overweight were found to increase the odds of having hemorrhoids. Screening for early identification and intervention of hemorrhoids, especially for risk groups is better to be practiced by health professionals.
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This study aimed to assess the value of quick sequential organ failure assessment (qSOFA) combined with other risk factors in predicting in-hospital mortality in patients presenting to the emergency department with suspected infection. This post-hoc analysis of a prospective multicenter study dataset included 34 emergency departments across Japan (December 2017 to February 2018). We included adult patients (age ≥16 years) who presented to the emergency department with suspected infection. qSOFA was calculated and recorded by senior emergency physicians when they suspected an infection. ⋯ Addition of other variables only marginally improved the model's AUC; the model that included all potentially relevant variables yielded an AUC of only 0.730 (95% CI: 0.687-0.774). Other key statistic values were similar among all models, with sensitivity and specificity of 0.55-0.65 and 0.60-0.75, respectively. In this post-hoc data analysis from a prospective multicenter study based in Japan, combining qSOFA with other sepsis-related risk factors only marginally improved the model's predictive value.
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The goal of this study is to construct a mortality prediction model using the XGBoot (eXtreme Gradient Boosting) decision tree model for AKI (acute kidney injury) patients in the ICU (intensive care unit), and to compare its performance with that of three other machine learning models. ⋯ XGBoot model had obvious advantages of performance compared to the other machine learning models. This will be helpful for risk identification and early intervention for AKI patients at risk of death.
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The psychological distress and sleep problems caused by current Covid-19 outbreak is not well known in kidney transplant recipients. In this study, we aimed to investigate the association between perceived stress with sleep quality, insomnia, anxiety, depression and kidney function in kidney transplant recipients during the Covid-19 pandemic. ⋯ High PSS is positively correlated with poor sleep quality and insomnia and also an independent predictor of anxiety and depression in kidney transplant recipients during the outbreak of Covid-19. As the pandemic is still spreading worldwide quickly early identification and intervention of sleep disturbances and psychiatric disorders are essential to protect graft function with high compliance to treatment in transplantation patients.