Thirty-Day Mortality in COVID-19 Positive Patients With Hip Fractures: A Case-Series and Literature Review

Introduction: The novel coronavirus has spread rapidly around the world with particularly high mortality in the elderly. Care and nursing homes have become the sites of greatest concentration of cases. We intended to review 30-day mortality of COVID-19 patients with hip fractures. This is relevant given the disease impact in this age group.Methods: Medline and Embase databases were searched for relevant studies linked to mortality and morbidity in COVID-19 patients who have undergone non-elective hip surgeries using the keywords "COVID-19"OR "SARS-cov-2"OR "Coronavirus Infections"; AND "Surgery"OR "Hip"OR "Fracture"OR "Orthopedics." We included all patients with hip fractures, but excluded pathological fractures and other non-traumatic hip pathologies. Four-hundred and eighty-one articles were identified for screening, in addition to an unpublished case-series of 67 patients that have 3 cases turned positive for COVID 19, yielding a total of 50patients for the final review.Results: The study included 4 articles published until May 9th 2020 and a case-series: 26(52%) patients were females; the median age was 86years; hypertension(53.6%), diabetes mellitus type II(28.6%), and coronary artery heart disease(25%) were the most common comorbidities; 34(68%) patients had intertrochanteric hip fracture and 16(32%) patients had femoral neck fractures; 22(59.5%) patients underwent cephalomedullary nail fixation, 12(32.4%) patients had hemiarthroplasty, and for 3(8.1%) patients, the type of surgery was not documented; 20(40%) patients died(12patients died before the surgery and 8died after surgery at a median time of 3days), 29(76.3%) patients had an unremarkable course throughout hospitalization and were discharged including 1(2.6%) patient managed non-operatively, and 1(2.6%) patient was admitted to the ICU after the surgery but eventually discharged.Conclusion: COVID-19 infected elderly patients have a higher 30-days mortality rate compared to non-COVID-19 infected cases. Further studies are warranted to look at the morbidity and mortality rates in COVID-19 positive patients with hip fractures and to investigate how these outcomes can be improved.Level of evidence: Level IV

EXPLORING THE IMPACTS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON OMAN'S ELECTRICITY SECTOR

This article reviews the recent trends of Oman's electricity sector before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The impacts of the pandemic on the Main Interconnected System (MIS) of Oman were analyzed using hourly load data. The analysis shows that the MIS demand declined as a result of the decrease in economic activities during the lockdown. In addition, the MIS demand experienced temporal and geographical variations: the former is demonstrated by a shift in peak demand hours, while the latter is represented by a reduction in Muscat's urban areas' load compared with those of other areas

The mechanical function of vertebral body osteophytes

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Phytochemical screening and in vitro evaluation of antioxidant and antimicrobial efficacies of Pteropyum scoparium (Jaub. & Spach) Sidaf crude extracts

Objective: Pteropyrum scoparium Jaub. &amp; Spach locally known as “Sidaf” is a meal known to the ancient Omani people with many health benefits. It is traditionally used in Oman to treat high cholesterol, hypertension, indigestion problems, wound healing, and diabetes. However, these claims are yet to be scientifically proven. Hence, this study aimed to perform phytochemical, antioxidant, and antimicrobial analysis of P. scoparium leaves aqueous and alcoholic extracts to confirm its medicinal potential. Methods: A detailed phytochemical analysis of ethanol and aqueous extracts of leaves was carried out to confirm the presence of bioactive substances. DPPH (2,2′-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), agar-well diffusion and disc diffusion methods were used to evaluate antioxidant and antimicrobial potential, respectively. The extracts were tested against four microorganisms viz. E. coli (ATCC 25922), S. aureus (ATCC 23235), Penicillium sp. (ATCC 11597) and Rhizopus stolonifer (ATCC 14037). Results: The ethanol extract exhibited higher DPPH scavenging activity than aqueous extract that was confirmed with IC50 values of both extracts. However, the aqueous extract was found to be significantly more effective as an antimicrobial agent than the ethanol extract. This could be due to higher coumarins content that is thrice as much as in ethanol extract. One-way repeated measure RM ANOVA showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the antimicrobial susceptibility of all four organisms for the aqueous and ethanol well diffusion extracts (DF = 7; SS = 56.350, MS = 8.050; F = 5.865; P < 0.001). The highest mean zone of inhibition was recorded for S. aureus (12 ± 3.851 mm) well diffusion aqueous extract followed by R. stolonifer (11.750 ± 4.250 mm) well diffusion aqueous extract, and S. aureus (10.625 ± 3.771 mm) well diffusion ethanol extract. Conclusions: Phytochemical screening of ethanol and aqueous extracts revealed the presence of alkaloids, glycosides, carbohydrates, amino acid, fats &amp; fixed oils, phenolic compounds &amp; tannins, proteins, phytosterols, saponins, gum &amp; mucilage, terpenoids, coumarins and anthocyanins. The findings from this study will be useful in evaluating the phytochemical constituents present in the extract and developing commercial drugs as antioxidant and antimicrobial agents based on this plant