Internal medicine journal
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Internal medicine journal · Mar 2024
Ethnic differences in the characteristics of patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer in the Te Manawa Taki region of New Zealand.
Māori have three times the mortality from lung cancer compared with non-Māori. The Te Manawa Taki region has a population of 900 000, of whom 30% are Māori. We have little understanding of the factors associated with developing and diagnosing lung cancer and ethnic differences in these characteristics. ⋯ The findings point to the need to address barriers to early diagnosis and the need for system change including the need to introduce a lung cancer screening focussing on Māori. There is also the need for preventive programmes to address comorbidities that impact lung cancer outcomes as well as a continued emphasis on creating a smoke-free New Zealand.
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Internal medicine journal · Mar 2024
Observational StudyNosocomial COVID-19 infection in the era of vaccination and antiviral therapy.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination and antiviral therapies have altered the course of the COVID-19 pandemic through mitigating severe illness and death. However, immunocompromised, elderly and multimorbid patients remain at risk of poor outcomes and are overrepresented in hospital populations. The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics and outcomes of patients with nosocomial COVID-19 infection. ⋯ The majority of cases of nosocomial COVID-19 infection were mild, with a lower mortality rate than in earlier studies. This finding is likely attributable to immunity through vaccination and prior infection, early antiviral therapy and attenuated severity of the Omicron variant. The high proportion of nosocomial infections supports ongoing infection control measures.
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Internal medicine journal · Mar 2024
Cigarette smoking and risk of adult-onset Still disease: a propensity score matching analysis.
Environmental factors play an important role in the pathogenesis of rheumatic diseases. Smoking is thought to be a risk factor for autoimmune rheumatic diseases. ⋯ Smoking probably is not a risk factor for AOSD and did not affect the response to treatment.
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Internal medicine journal · Mar 2024
Incidence of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated renal vasculitis; a retrospective study in rural and regional Victoria, Australia.
The epidemiology of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) varies worldwide. Previous Australian studies described a higher incidence of AAV in rural areas; however, this has not yet been investigated in Victoria. ⋯ The calculated incidence of AAV in rural and regional Victoria is not higher than the reported incidence in most urban Australian cohorts. This study may underestimate the true local disease incidence as only patients with renal vasculitis were included.
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Internal medicine journal · Mar 2024
Clinical spectrum, biochemical profile and disease progression of Kennedy disease in an Indian cohort.
Kennedy disease (KD) is a slowly progressive lower motor neuron degenerative disease. The prevalence of KD is unknown in India. ⋯ This study showed phenotypic heterogeneity in the Indian cohort. The age of onset was earlier with a slowly progressive indolent course as compared with other ethnic cohorts. This highlights the importance of considering the KD diagnosis in patients with the indolent course and suspected ALS diagnosis even with ptosis and fatigability in an appropriate clinical context.