São Paulo medical journal = Revista paulista de medicina
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The high-complexity features of intensive care unit services and the clinical situation of patients themselves render correct prognosis fundamentally important not only for patients, their families and physicians, but also for hospital administrators, fund-providers and controllers. Prognostic indices have been developed for estimating hospital mortality rates for hospitalized patients, based on demographic, physiological and clinical data. ⋯ APACHE II was useful for stratifying these patients. The illness severity and death rate among clinical patients were higher than those recorded for surgical patients. Despite the stratification ability of the APACHE II system, it lacked accuracy in predicting death rates. The recorded death rate was higher than the predicted rate.
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The speech rate is one of the parameters considered when investigating speech fluency and is an important variable in the assessment of individuals with communication complaints. ⋯ Objective tests that quantify diseases are important in their diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Therapeutic response to benzodiazepine in panic disorder subtypes.
This study makes a comparison between two subtypes of panic disorder regarding the clinical efficacy of clonazepam, a benzodiazepine. ⋯ Clonazepam was equally effective in the treatment of the respiratory and non-respiratory subtypes of panic disorder, suggesting there is no difference in the therapeutic response between the two subtypes.
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Iron deficiency and heterozygous beta-thalassemia are important causes of hypochromic-microcytic anemia. Two laboratory parameters are suggested for the differentiation of such anemia. High-fluorescence reticulocyte counts and soluble transferrin receptor levels were determined in iron-deficiency anemia patients (n = 49) and heterozygous beta-thalassemia patients (n = 43). There was no significant difference in high-fluorescence reticulocyte and soluble transferrin receptor values between the two groups, but a correlation was observed between high-fluorescence reticulocytes and soluble transferrin receptors in iron-deficiency anemia, probably due to increased receptor synthesis as a response to decreased iron content in erythrocytes.
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Although the benefits of antenatal corticosteroids have been widely demonstrated in other countries, there are few studies among Brazilian newborn infants. ⋯ Antenatal corticosteroids were effective in the reduction of morbidity and mortality among premature newborns in the population studied, and therefore their use should be stimulated within our environment.