Plos One
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Hyperbilirubinemia (jaundice) is caused by raised levels of unconjugated bilirubin in the blood. When severe, susceptible brain regions including the cerebellum and auditory brainstem are damaged causing neurological sequelae such as ataxia, hearing loss and kernicterus. The mechanism(s) by which bilirubin exerts its toxic effect have not been completely understood to date. ⋯ Because of the rapid and reversible onset of toxicity in this novel model it represents a system to screen therapeutic compounds. We have demonstrated this by targeting inflammation genetically and with anti-inflammatory small molecules that offered protection against bilirubin toxicity. This also suggests that anti-inflammatory drugs could be of therapeutic use in hyperbilirubinemia.
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Malaria is one of the transfusion transmissible infections in malaria endemic countries such as Ghana. Healthy blood donors may harbour Plasmodium parasites without showing signs of malaria. Blood from such donors constitutes a risk to transfusion recipients and the recipients of this blood may go on to develop transfusion transmitted malaria (TTM). ⋯ Out of 100 health workers surveyed, 26% (26/100) had never heard of transfusion transmitted malaria. In an emergency situation, 41% health workers were willing to transfuse malaria positive blood but only 2%, 4% and 8% were willing to transfuse blood that was positive for HIV, Hepatitis B and Syphilis respectively. Regular training workshops may help improve the knowledge of health workers as a quarter of workers had not heard about transfusion transmitted malaria and 6.8% did not know that malaria was transmissible by transfusion.
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To assess the image quality of 3 different ultralow-dose CT protocols on pulmonary nodule depiction in a ventilated ex vivo-system. ⋯ The results of this experiment, conducted in a realistic setting show the feasibility of ultralow-dose CT for the detection of pulmonary nodules.
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The aim of this study was to summarize and discuss the similarities and differences in inflammatory biomarkers in postoperative delirium (POD) and cognitive dysfunction (POCD). ⋯ Available evidence from medium-to-high quality observational studies suggests that POD and POCD are indeed correlated with the concentration of peripheral and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) inflammatory markers. Some of these markers, such as CRP and IL-6, play roles in both POD and POCD, while others are specific to either one of them.
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The usefulness of a diagnostic workup for occult cancer in patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) is controversial. We used the RIETE (Registro Informatizado Enfermedad Trombo Embólica) database to perform a nested case-control study to validate a prognostic score that identifies patients with unprovoked VTE at increased risk for cancer. We dichotomized patients as having low- (≤2 points) or high (≥3 points) risk for cancer, and tried to validate the score at 12 and 24 months. ⋯ C-statistic was 0.61 (95%CI, 0.54-0.69). We validated our prognostic score at 12 and 24 months, although prospective cohort validation is needed. This may help to identify patients for whom more extensive screening workup may be required.