Injuries related to animal sacrifice during the Feast of Sacrifice in Turkey

BACKGROUND: The Feast of Sacrifice is a significant annual religious festival in Muslim countries. In these festivals, thousands of animals are usually sacrificed by inexperienced individuals. Thus, many injuries occur during sacrificing of animals. OBJECTIVES: Describe injuries related to animal sacrifice or meat processing. DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTING: Three hospitals in different cities of Turkey. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Severity and type of injuries that occur during animal sacrifice or meat processing after the sacrifice and hospital costs. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Identification and classification of sacrifice related injuries. SAMPLE SIZE: 301 injured individuals. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 42.5 (14.8) years and 83.1% of the subjects were male. Most (90.0%) injuries were penetrating injuries and 10.0% were blunt traumas. Upper and lower extremity injuries were identified in 77.4% and 17.9% of cases, respectively. Almost half of the injuries were on the left hand (49.8%). Almost all (96.6%) cases were treated and discharged from emergency services. Median hospital cost per patient was 103.14 Turkish Liras (35.95-852.66 Turkish Liras) (19.53 USD [6.80-161.48 USD]). CONCLUSIONS: Even though injuries related to animal sacrifice are usually caused by minor sharp objects, they can be severe and life threatening on rare occasions. To minimize the injuries that may occur during this period, public education and more convenient sacrifice centers may be helpful. LIMITATIONS: Small sample, single country, and short duration of the study. CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None. © 2020, Annals of Saudi Medicine, Saudi Arabia. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND). The details of which can be accessed at http:// creativecommons. org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0

Asymmetrical Bilateral Traumatic Hip Dislocation with Segmental Femur Fracture

Introduction: Hip dislocations are extremely rare, but they are orthopedic emergencies that need to be immediately intervened. Traumatic hip dislocations are usually unilateral and occur toward the posterior region. Bilateral traumatic hip dislocations, on the other hand, are rarer. Asymmetric occurrence of bilateral traumatic hip dislocations is even rarer. The possibility of spontaneous hip dislocation in a healthy person is very unlikely. This is because ligaments wrapping the hip joint make it quite stable. Thus, hip dislocation usually occurs due to a high-energy trauma. Case Report: In this paper we report a unique female patient with asymmetric bilateral traumatic hip dislocation accompanied by a segmental fracture of the femur due to a traffic accident. The patient's right hip was reduced under sedoanalgesia at the emergency department and the left hip was reduced under anesthesia at operating room. Avascular necrosis did not develop at her 2-year follow-up; however, she has been re-operated after developing nonunion in the left femoral segmental fracture. Conclusion: In conclusion, hip dislocations should be treated in first six hours due to the risk of avascular necrosis. Uncomplicated hip dislocations without accompanied fractures can be treated with sedoanalgesia in emergency service settings. However hip dislocations which are complicated with accompanied fractures should be reduced in operation rooms without delay

Usefulness of Serum D-Dimer Level in Acute Renal Infarction

Acute renal infarction (ARI) is a rarely encountered disease in emergency services, but is of particular importance owing to higher mortality and morbidity rates in the absence of early diagnosis and intervention. On the other hand, urolithiasis cases are admitted to emergency departments very frequently with the complaint of pain. ARI with non-specific symptoms or urolithiasis-like pain would increase the likelihood of being omitted in crowded emergency rooms. Previous studies reported supportive diagnostic role in ARI of increased serum lactate dehydrogenase and C-reactive protein levels and white blood cell count in the presence of hematuria; however, none mentioned D-dimer as a likely diagnostic or prognostic marker. We hereby present 2 case reports where a contrast-enhanced tomographic scan performed on the basis of suspicions raised by high serum D-dimer levels which established the definitive diagnosis ARI. Our aim was to emphasize that serum D-dimer may be used as a criterion for supporting or excluding the thromboembolic events, such as renal and mesenteric infarction

Evaluation of satisfaction levels of expatriate patients presenting to emergency department

People who emigrated from Turkey to European countries for work are called expatriate. It was aimed to analyze demographic characteristics of expatriate patients who presented to the emergency department, to compare satisfaction levels of emergency departments between their country of residence and Turkey, and to identify the factors that affect patient satisfaction. This descriptive study was conducted with questionnaires filled by face-to-face interviews in 150 expatriate patients who were living abroad, came to Turkey for vacation/annual permit and applied to the emergency department with any complaint. We found a statistically significant difference when we evaluated expatriate patients' monthly average number of emergency department applies and their views on priority to apply to emergency departments for health problems, the cleanliness of emergency departments, attitude of doctors, security and receptionist/nursing staff towards patients in Turkey and in their country of residence. It has been found that expatriates prefer the emergency department more in our country and they are more satisfied in their country of residence in terms of the cleanliness of emergency department, attitude of doctors, security and receptionist/nursing staff

Prognostic value of thiol/disulfide homeostasis in symptomatic patients with heart failure

We aimed to examine the role of thiol/disulphide homeostasis (TDH) in heart failure and its stages and the prognosis of heart failure. A total of 140 subjects were included in the study. Total and native thiol levels were higher in the control group compared to the patient groups (p <.001). While the average disulphide/total thiol ratio was similar in groups 1 and 2, it was found to be significantly lower in the control group compared to other groups and significantly higher in group 3 compared to other groups (p <.05). Mean native thiol and total thiol levels were found lower in patients with mortality compared to surviving patients (p <.001). In ROC curve analysis, it was determined that the total thiol level had 81.8% sensitivity and 83.1% specificity, and native thiol level had 81.8% sensitivity and 84.3% specificity. We found that TDH was impaired in favour of disulphide in cases of heart failure. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group