Curēus
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Given their ease of use, safety, and efficacy, direct-acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs) are nowadays widely used in patients with atrial fibrillation or venous thromboembolism, with or without an association with malignancy. Andexanet alfa (andexanet) is a recombinant modified human factor Xa decoy protein that reverses the inhibition of factor Xa. After Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in May 2018, andexanet has been used for life-threatening bleeding in patients treated with apixaban or rivaroxaban. ⋯ A total of four patients in a period of 10 months received andexanet for intracranial bleeding, 50% (2) had excellent hemostasis, 30 days mortality was 75% (3), and 25% (1) had a thromboembolic event. Anticoagulation was never started in all patients. This review tends to show the real-world utilization data of andexanet in a community hospital setting.
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The spread of COVID-19 has been exponential throughout the globe. Though only a small percentage of infected individuals reach the critical stage of the disease, i.e., acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), this percentage represents a significant number of patients that can overwhelm the healthcare system. Patients presenting with ARDS need mechanical ventilation, as their lungs are unable to oxygenate blood on their own due to fluid accumulation. One way to manage this excess pressure of fluid build-up around the lung tissues is to relieve the dorsal alveoli by prompting the patient to lie face down on the stomach; this is called awake proning. It is a procedure that is directed towards the recruitment of lung parenchyma when infected with pneumonia or when the condition has worsened into ARDS. This helps in relieving the pressure from the dorsal lung surface that has markedly higher perfusion than the ventral surface. Awake proning delays the use of mechanical ventilation and facilitates the patients with severe ARDS or severe pneumonia in maintaining the supply of oxygen to the body tissues. Since medical institutes are overburdened and limited ventilators are available, awake proning can reduce not only the burden on hospitals but also decrease the need for ventilators.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken radiology by storm, in particular, mammogram interpretation, and we have seen a recent surge in the number of publications on potential uses of AI in breast radiology. Breast cancer exerts a lot of burden on the National Health Service (NHS) and is the second most common cancer in the UK as of 2018. New cases of breast cancer have been on the rise in the past decade, while the survival rate has been improving. ⋯ Of course, AI has many applications and potential uses in radiology, but will it replace radiologists? We reviewed many articles on the use of AI in breast radiology to give future radiologists and radiologists full information on this topic. This article focuses on explaining the basic principles and terminology of AI in radiology, potential uses, and limitations of AI in radiology. We have also analysed articles and answered the question of whether AI will replace radiologists.
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Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), first reported in China during December of 2019, is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Infection later spread very rapidly around the globe with over 8,708,008 cases reported, including more than 461,715 deaths reported across at least 216 countries by June 20, 2020. It was declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. ⋯ An urgent unmet need led to the planning and opening of multiple drug development trials for treatment and vaccine development. In this article, we have compiled comprehensive data on many candidate drugs such as remdesivir, favipiravir, ribavirin, umifenovir, arbidol, lopinavir, ritonavir, baricitinib, hydroxychloroquine, nitazoxanide, azithromycin, baloxavir, oseltamivir, losartan, and tocilizumab. We have tabulated available data on various clinical trials testing various aspects of COVID-19 therapeutics.
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The supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) is inadequate throughout the United States and the world. This is especially true of N95 respirators. The cost of PPE is high. ⋯ The risk to providers due to inadequate PPE increases with their age and presence of comorbidities. African-Americans and Latinos are at a greater risk. CDC recommends that in the absence of appropriate PPE, "exclude healthcare personnel at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19 from contact with known or suspected COVID-19 patients." Providing care without appropriate PPE should not be a condition of employment for any provider, especially for the ones in high-risk category.