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Indian Journal of Dermatology,... 2020Benign melanocytic neoplasms have nests of melanocytic cells and show characteristic dermoscopic features. Clinical and dermoscopic features have not been studied... (Observational Study)
Observational Study
BACKGROUND
Benign melanocytic neoplasms have nests of melanocytic cells and show characteristic dermoscopic features. Clinical and dermoscopic features have not been studied previously in the Indian population.
AIMS
To study the clinical, epidemiological and dermoscopic patterns of benign melanocytic neoplasms.
METHODS
This was a descriptive, observational, single centre study. In 107 patients with melanocytic neoplasms, 167 lesions were clinically examined and studied under the dermoscope and histopathological examination was done when indicated. The lesions were broadly divided as acquired and congenital. Five main dermoscopic patterns were seen-globular, homogenous, reticular, parallel and streaks. If there were two of these patterns in a particular lesion, it was termed 'mixed pattern'. The presence of three or more patterns was called 'multicomponent pattern'. Various other features were also observed.
RESULTS
The majority of patients belonged to the third decade with a female preponderance. History of increased UV exposure and family history was significant in acquired nevi. The dermoscopic pattern progressed from predominantly reticular in junctional nevi to predominantly globular in compound nevi and lesser pigment in intradermal nevi, with more vascular structures. The congenital melanocytic nevi showed additional features of comedo- like lesions, milia- like cysts, perifollicular pigmentary changes and increased colour variation. Even though colour variation was observed in both acquired and congenital lesions, no signs of dysplasia were seen on histopathology.
LIMITATIONS
A larger sample size is required, with follow up of lesions. No parallel studies in brown skinned population were found for exact comparison.
CONCLUSION
Benign melanocytic proliferations are often neglected in our country. This study will help in understanding the course, clinical features and dermoscopic patterns of various benign melanocytic neoplasms, and will be a step forward towards research in our population. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind in India.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Child; Child, Preschool; Dermoscopy; Female; Humans; Infant; Male; Melanocytes; Melanoma; Middle Aged; Skin Neoplasms; Young Adult
PubMed: 31997793
DOI: 10.4103/ijdvl.IJDVL_184_17 -
Indian Journal of Dermatology,... 2021
Topics: Atrophy; Cheek; Facial Neoplasms; Female; Humans; Middle Aged; Neoplasms, Adnexal and Skin Appendage; Skin Neoplasms
PubMed: 31650982
DOI: 10.4103/ijdvl.IJDVL_799_18 -
Journal of Preventive Medicine and... Dec 2020The aim of this study is to describe a proactive surveillance system of food, water and environmental surfaces, in order to avoid Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs)...
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this study is to describe a proactive surveillance system of food, water and environmental surfaces, in order to avoid Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) from hospital environment.
METHODS
It is a retrospective descriptive study. The surveillance system consists of two integrated phases: pre-analytic and post-analytic. The activities are distinguished in ordinary control activities, performed after scheduled and shared surveys, and compliance activities, performed when it is necessary to establish the adequacy of the destination use, for example opening a new ward.
RESULTS
A total of 1,470 Samples were collected and 539 Reports were generated across the five-year study period. Water for human consumption procedure: a statistically significant trend was found only in the total number of Samples collected (p < 0.001). Legionella spp. infection water risk procedure: all Samples and Reports, with the exception of Compliance Report Samples, showed a statistically significant trend (p < 0.001). Pseudomonas aeruginosa water risk procedure: only Ordinary Reports and Compliance Report Samples trend were statistically significant (p = 0.002 and p = 0.028 respectively). Effectiveness of surface sanitization procedure: no trend was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Hospital catering and food surfaces procedure: Samples and Reports yearly number was constant, no trend analysis was performed. HAIs prevalence was never over 5% in the hospital under study.
CONCLUSIONS
This surveillance system of water, food and environmental surfaces represents an innovative way of approaching hospital safety for patients and personnel because it overcomes the limitations due to a classic approach limited to a laboratory analytic phase only, according to the best available scientific evidence.
Topics: Cross Infection; Hospitals; Humans; Hygiene; Legionella; Legionellosis; Pseudomonas Infections; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Retrospective Studies; Water Microbiology
PubMed: 33628970
DOI: 10.15167/2421-4248/jpmh2020.61.4.1587 -
Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) Sep 2023Convolutional neural network (CNN) models have been extensively applied to skin lesions segmentation due to their information discrimination capabilities. However, CNNs'...
Convolutional neural network (CNN) models have been extensively applied to skin lesions segmentation due to their information discrimination capabilities. However, CNNs' struggle to capture the connection between long-range contexts when extracting deep semantic features from lesion images, resulting in a semantic gap that causes segmentation distortion in skin lesions. Therefore, detecting the presence of differential structures such as pigment networks, globules, streaks, negative networks, and milia-like cysts becomes difficult. To resolve these issues, we have proposed an approach based on semantic-based segmentation (Dermo-Seg) to detect differential structures of lesions using a UNet model with a transfer-learning-based ResNet-50 architecture and a hybrid loss function. The Dermo-Seg model uses ResNet-50 backbone architecture as an encoder in the UNet model. We have applied a combination of focal Tversky loss and IOU loss functions to handle the dataset's highly imbalanced class ratio. The obtained results prove that the intended model performs well compared to the existing models. The dataset was acquired from various sources, such as ISIC18, ISBI17, and HAM10000, to evaluate the Dermo-Seg model. We have dealt with the data imbalance present within each class at the pixel level using our hybrid loss function. The proposed model achieves a mean IOU score of 0.53 for streaks, 0.67 for pigment networks, 0.66 for globules, 0.58 for negative networks, and 0.53 for milia-like-cysts. Overall, the Dermo-Seg model is efficient in detecting different skin lesion structures and achieved 96.4% on the IOU index. Our Dermo-Seg system improves the IOU index compared to the most recent network.
PubMed: 37761291
DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics13182924 -
Vaccine Jun 2021In order to reduce the burden on healthcare systems and to support differential diagnosis with COVID-19, influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations were strongly...
In order to reduce the burden on healthcare systems and to support differential diagnosis with COVID-19, influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations were strongly recommended during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in vulnerable groups. However, no univocal and conclusive evidence on the relationship between influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations and COVID-19 outcomes exists. We evaluated the association between such vaccinations, COVID-19 hospitalization, intensive care unit admissions and deaths in a cohort (N = 741) of COVID-19 patients who had access to the emergency room of a large Italian University hospital between March 1, 2020 and June 1, 2020. Results show that influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations did not affect hospitalization, intensive care unit admission and deaths in COVID-19 patients in the overall sample and in those ≥65 years. The same pattern of results was confirmed considering timing of influenza vaccine administration, vaccination type, and number of uptakes in the last five vaccination campaigns. In conclusion, our study does not support an impact of influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations on COVID-19 outcomes.
Topics: COVID-19; Hospitalization; Humans; Influenza Vaccines; Influenza, Human; Italy; Pandemics; Pneumococcal Vaccines; SARS-CoV-2; Vaccination
PubMed: 34020813
DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.05.015 -
International Journal of Environmental... Jan 2024Food and alcohol disturbance (FAD) is characterized by the association of alcohol use with compensatory behaviors such as restricting calories, physical activity and...
Food and alcohol disturbance (FAD) is characterized by the association of alcohol use with compensatory behaviors such as restricting calories, physical activity and purging. Despite not being part of the current nosography, research has grown in the past 10 years, mostly on college students' samples. In this study, we aim to describe the prevalence, characteristics and association of FAD with problem drinking (PD) and eating disorder risk (EDR) in a sample of Italian high school students. Participants were 900 high school students (53.6% males; mean age = 16.22) that were administered standardized questionnaires. Students who screened positive for PD, EDR and both were, respectively, 17.3%, 5.9% and 1.3%. Approximately one out four students reported FAD behaviors, mostly to control weight and by restricting calories, with higher prevalence and severity among those who screened positive for PD. Purging behaviors were rare overall (15.5%), but significantly more frequent in participants who screened positive for both PD and EDR (41.7%). FAD was more strongly associated with alcohol use severity than with ED symptom severity across all subgroups. FAD behaviors appear to be common in the Italian high school population and more strongly associated with PD. Future studies should investigate FAD's impact on adolescents' functioning and possible early interventions.
Topics: Male; Humans; Adolescent; Female; Prevalence; Alcoholism; Alcohol Drinking; Early Intervention, Educational; Feeding and Eating Disorders
PubMed: 38248546
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph21010083 -
BMJ Case Reports Mar 2022Vascular injury is a common complication in firearm injuries; however, intravascular missile embolism is relatively rare. There are only 38 documented cases of...
Vascular injury is a common complication in firearm injuries; however, intravascular missile embolism is relatively rare. There are only 38 documented cases of intravascular missile embolisation to the heart. Bullet embolisms are difficult to diagnose even with multiple diagnostic modalities and even once identified, the most optimal choice of surgical management is debated. Our patient presented with a gunshot wound to the right posterior shoulder. Cardiac focused assessment with sonography for trauma, chest X-ray, CT and echocardiogram were performed, showing missile location adjacent to the right ventricle with inconclusive evidence of pericardial injury. Exploratory median sternotomy was performed, revealing intact pericardium and injury to the superior vena cava (SVC) with bullet embolisation to the right ventricle. The patient became temporarily asystolic secondary to haemorrhage from the SVC injury. Cardiac massage was performed, dislodging the missile into the inferior vena cava. A venotomy was performed to retrieve the bullet and vascular injuries were primarily repaired.
Topics: Embolism; Firearms; Foreign-Body Migration; Humans; Vena Cava, Superior; Wounds, Gunshot
PubMed: 35260401
DOI: 10.1136/bcr-2021-247252 -
Life (Basel, Switzerland) Apr 2022Several important sex and gender differences in the clinical manifestation of diseases have been known for a long time but are still underestimated. The infectious...
Several important sex and gender differences in the clinical manifestation of diseases have been known for a long time but are still underestimated. The infectious Coronavirus 2019 disease pandemic has provided evidence of the importance of a sex and gender-based approach; it mainly affected men with worse symptomatology due to a different immune system, which is stronger in women, and to the Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and Transmembrane protease serine 2 roles which are differently expressed among the sexes. Additionally, women are more inclined to maintain social distance and smoke less. Analysis of data on the infectious Coronavirus 2019 disease testing from people admitted to the Amedeo di Savoia Hospital, a regional referral center for infectious diseases, has been applied to the whole of 2020 data (254,640 records). A high percentage of data in the dataset was not suitable due to a lack of information or entering errors. Among the suitable samples, records have been analyzed for positive/negative outcomes, matching records for unique subjects (N = 123,542), to evaluate individual recurrence of testing. Data are presented in age and sex-disaggregated ways. Analyses of the suitable sample also concerned the relation between testing and hospital admission motivation and symptoms. Our analysis indicated that a sex and gender-based approach is mandatory for patients and the National Health System's sustainability.
PubMed: 35629311
DOI: 10.3390/life12050643 -
International Journal of Clinical... 2020Emotional intelligence (EI) is understanding one's own feeling and able to handle those feelings without disturbing themselves. Medical schools are stressful and the...
BACKGROUND
Emotional intelligence (EI) is understanding one's own feeling and able to handle those feelings without disturbing themselves. Medical schools are stressful and the ability to manage stress is a major factor of success for these students. The current study contributes further insight to body of research in EI as it relates to students' stress in education, especially among dental undergraduates of Delhi.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A cross-sectional, convenient sampling-based survey was conducted among 323 dental undergraduates from all the 3 dental Institutions across Delhi. The Schutte Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Stress scale instruments were administered to all the students of four professional years. The data analysis was done using SPSS V.17 and various statistical tests were used to determine significant difference.
RESULTS
No significant differences were found among gender as well as among professional groups for EI. There was a significant difference (0.008) among gender with respect to perceived stress. Correlation analysis showed an inverse relationship between EI and PS (r = -0.227) which was found to be statistically significant.
CONCLUSION
Training in dental education could be quite stressful due to their time-bound work, but regular student performance assessment and associated factors would allow understanding student behavior in handling situations.
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE
Yadav V, Mohanty V, Balappanavar AY, Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Stress among Dental Undergraduates in Delhi. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2020;13(4):344-347.
PubMed: 33149406
DOI: 10.5005/jp-journals-10005-1789 -
American Journal of Physiology.... Apr 2021Cardiovascular regulation is altered by type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2), producing an abnormal response to muscle metaboreflex. During physical exercise, cerebral blood...
Cardiovascular regulation is altered by type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2), producing an abnormal response to muscle metaboreflex. During physical exercise, cerebral blood flow is impaired in patients with DM2, and this phenomenon may reduce cerebral oxygenation (COX). We hypothesized that the simultaneous execution of a mental task (MT) and metaboreflex activation would reduce COX in patients with DM2. Thirteen individuals suffering from DM2 (6 women) and 13 normal age-matched controls (CTL, 6 women) participated in this study. They underwent five different tests, each lasting 12 min: postexercise muscle ischemia (PEMI) to activate the metaboreflex, control exercise recovery (CER), PEMI + MT, CER + MT, and MT alone. COX was evaluated using near-infrared spectroscopy with sensors applied to the forehead. Central hemodynamics was assessed using impedance cardiography. We found that when MT was superimposed on the PEMI-induced metaboreflex, patients with DM2 could not increase COX to the same extent reached by the CTL group (101.13% ± 1.08% vs. 104.23% ± 2.51%, < 0.05). Moreover, patients with DM2 had higher mean blood pressure and systemic vascular resistance as well as lower stroke volume and cardiac output levels compared with the CTL group, throughout our experiments. It was concluded that patients with DM2 had reduced capacity to enhance COX when undertaking an MT during metaboreflex. Results also confirm that patients with DM2 had dysregulated hemodynamics during metaboreflex, with exaggerated blood pressure response and vasoconstriction. This may have implications for these patients' lack of inclination to exercise.
Topics: Adult; Autonomic Nervous System; Biomarkers; Case-Control Studies; Cerebrovascular Circulation; Chemoreceptor Cells; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Exercise; Female; Homeostasis; Humans; Male; Mental Processes; Middle Aged; Muscle Contraction; Muscle, Skeletal; Oxygen; Oxygen Consumption; Random Allocation; Reflex; Time Factors
PubMed: 33533319
DOI: 10.1152/ajpregu.00288.2020