Clinical and biochemical characteristics of people experiencing post-coronavirus disease 2019-related symptoms: A prospective follow-up investigation

BackgroundPost-acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) syndrome, also known as long COVID, is a prolonged illness after the acute phase of COVID-19. Hospitalized patients were known to have persisting symptoms of fatigue, headache, dyspnea, and anosmia. There is a need to describe the characteristics of individuals with post-COVID-19 symptoms in comparison to the baseline characteristics.PurposeTo investigate the clinical and biochemical characteristics of people who recovered from COVID-19 after 6 months of discharge from the hospital.MethodsThis was a prospective follow-up investigation of hospitalized and discharged COVID-19 patients. Adult patients admitted to King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and discharged were recruited. The baseline demographic information, comorbidities, vital signs and symptoms, laboratory parameters, COVID-19 therapy, and outcomes were collected from the medical records. Blood samples were collected for cytokines estimation. A detailed interview about signs and symptoms was undertaken during the follow-up.ResultsHalf of the followed-up people reported experiencing at least one of the COVID-19-related symptoms. The mean blood pressure was found higher in follow-up. People with the symptoms were characterized by low lymphocyte count, lower serum calcium levels, and hyperglycemia compared to people without any post-COVID-19 symptoms. Cytokines IL-8, VEGF, and MCP-1 were higher in people with the most frequent symptoms.ConclusionPeople with post-COVID-19 symptoms were characterized by lower lymphocyte count, lower serum calcium levels, and hyperglycemia compared to people without symptoms. Individuals with the most frequent post-COVID-19 symptoms had higher baseline pro-inflammatory, chemotactic, and angiogenic cytokines

The Saudi Critical Care Society practice guidelines on the management of COVID-19 in the ICU: Therapy section

BACKGROUND: The rapid increase in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases during the subsequent waves in Saudi Arabia and other countries prompted the Saudi Critical Care Society (SCCS) to put together a panel of experts to issue evidence-based recommendations for the management of COVID-19 in the intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel included 51 experts with expertise in critical care, respirology, infectious disease, epidemiology, emergency medicine, clinical pharmacy, nursing, respiratory therapy, methodology, and health policy. All members completed an electronic conflict of interest disclosure form. The panel addressed 9 questions that are related to the therapy of COVID-19 in the ICU. We identified relevant systematic reviews and clinical trials, then used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach as well as the evidence-to-decision framework (EtD) to assess the quality of evidence and generate recommendations. RESULTS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel issued 12 recommendations on pharmacotherapeutic interventions (immunomodulators, antiviral agents, and anticoagulants) for severe and critical COVID-19, of which 3 were strong recommendations and 9 were weak recommendations. CONCLUSION: The SCCS COVID-19 panel used the GRADE approach to formulate recommendations on therapy for COVID-19 in the ICU. The EtD framework allows adaptation of these recommendations in different contexts. The SCCS guideline committee will update recommendations as new evidence becomes available

Effective adsorption of metals on porphyrins: Experiments and advanced isotherms modeling

In this article, the investigation of the adsorption process of six metal compounds (aluminum chloride, aluminum sulfate, iron chloride, iron sulfate, indium chloride and indium sulfate) on the promising macromolecule named porphyrin was performed to prove new insights about the metals-porphyrin complexes. The experimental adsorption data of the six complexation systems were controlled at four reaction temperatures using the well-known microbalance apparatus (QCM). In fact, the experimental outcomes and the physical modeling treatment indicated that the complexation process of aluminium and iron should be analyzed via the mono-layer adsorption model whereas; the interaction between the two indium compounds and the porphyrin was described via the double-layer model. Actually, the physicochemical description showed that the three metals were adsorbed via a multi-docking mechanism. The fitted values of the paramount parameter density of the adsorbent sites showed the endothermic character of the studied processes. Thus, some porphyrin sites were activated only at high temperature. The down trend of the iron isotherms was explained through the van der Waals parameters which describe the lateral interactions influences. The calculation of the adsorption energies which describe the interactions between the adsorbates and the adsorbent showed that chemical bonds were carried out between the aluminum and the porphyrin. The thermodynamic study, through the two thermodynamic functions (the configurational entropy and the free enthalpy), showed that the disorder of the six processes is maximum at the level of the energetic parameters and that the six complexation mechanisms advanced spontaneously towards saturation. For the iron, the behavior of the enthalpy indicated that the lateral interactions between the adsorbates disfavored the adsorption of iron chloride and iron sulfate at high concentration. The double-layer process of the indium was confirmed by the trends of the free enthalpies which showed two stability states for the two indium compounds

Crowdsourcing process.

Crowdsourcing process.</p

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(XLSX)</p

Mobile application of the illumication system.

Mobile application of the illumication system.</p

The proposed solution.

The proposed solution.</p

The user inside the light-emitting diode (LED) range.

The user inside the light-emitting diode (LED) range.</p

The light intensity (lx) and the distance between user and LED.

The light intensity (lx) and the distance between user and LED.</p

Comparisons among similar applications.

Comparisons among similar applications.</p