Articles: human.
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Focused assessment sonography for trauma (FAST) performed in the prehospital setting may improve trauma care by influencing treatment decisions and reducing time to definitive care, but its accuracy and benefits remain uncertain. This systematic review evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of prehospital FAST in detecting hemoperitoneum and its effects on prehospital time and time to definitive diagnosis or treatment. ⋯ Prehospital FAST had a low sensitivity but a very high specificity to identify hemoperitoneum and reduced time-to-diagnostics or interventions, without increasing prehospital times, in patients with a high probability of abdominal bleeding. Its effect on mortality is still under-investigated.
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This review critiques Johns Hopkins professor Leonard Rubenstein's Perilous Medicine: The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War, and offers the reader a military medical officer's perspective on these important concepts. Rubenstein's tome is essential reading for military officers who must understand how the laws of armed conflict and the ideals of humanitarian protection apply in twenty-first-century conflict. This review adds that military officers may, at times, need to also consider a less ideal but more consequential framework.
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Review Case Reports
Bilateral facial palsy caused by HIV infection: A case report and literature review.
Bilateral facial palsy (BFP) has been identified as a possible neurological complication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, but only a limited number of cases have been reported in the literature. The purpose of this study was to deepen our understanding of the etiology of BFP. Case report: We report the case of a 46-year-old married bisexual man with BFP associated with HIV infection. ⋯ The pathophysiology of this clinical presentation is thought to be related to the immune response to the systemic transmission of the virus. Conclusions: Most patients with BFP have underlying systemic causes, particularly autoimmune diseases. The exclusion of HIV infection in patients with BFP is essential for the early diagnosis and management of HIV.
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Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs) are a complex cluster of synthetic derivatives of testosterone. AAS abuse is considered a major public health issue since it has increased among young/adolescent males. The use of steroids has a prevalence rate of 14% in young athletes and 30-75% in professional athletes or bodybuilders. AASs simulate the testosterone mechanism, binding the intracellular androgen receptor, and dysregulating the normal hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis in the same way as exogenous testosterone. Abuse can produce several side effects on organs, such as the genital system. The physio-pathological mechanisms that cause AAS abuse-related, genital system disorders in humans are still not completely known. ⋯ The present review of the literature highlights how little is known about the action of AASs on the male genital system. However, although their use is prohibited in many countries, the black market for these substances is still very frequent. The scientific landscape still has a lot to invest in the research of AAS on the male genital system to make young people even more aware of the negative aspects of these substances, contributing to the reduction of these products in an inappropriate way.
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Human body fluids have become an indispensable resource for clinical research, diagnosis and prognosis. Urine is widely used to discover disease-specific glycoprotein biomarkers because of its recurrently non-invasive collection and disease-indicating properties. While urine is an unstable fluid in that its composition changes with ingested nutrients and further as it is excreted through micturition, urinary proteins are more stable and their abnormal glycosylation is associated with diseases. ⋯ In this article, we evaluate the clinical applications of urine, introduce methods for urine glycosylation analysis, and discuss urine glycoprotein biomarkers. We emphasize the importance of mining urinary glycoproteins and searching for disease-specific glycosylation in various diseases (including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, and viral infections). With advances in mass spectrometry-based glycomics/glycoproteomics/glycopeptidomics, characterization of disease-specific glycosylation will optimistically lead to the discovery of disease-related urinary biomarkers with better sensitivity and specificity in the near future.