Complete blood count parameters as biomarkers of retinopathy of prematurity: a Portuguese multicenter study

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Purpose: To evaluate complete blood count (CBC) parameters in the first week of life as predictive biomarkers for the development of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods: Multicenter, prospective, observational study of a cohort of preterm infants born with gestational age (GA) < 32 weeks or birth weight < 1500 g in eight Portuguese neonatal intensive care units. All demographic, clinical, and laboratory data from the first week of life were collected. Univariate logistic regression was used to assess risk factors for ROP and then multivariate regression was performed. Results: A total of 455 infants were included in the study. The median GA was 29.6 weeks, and the median birth weight was 1295 g. One hundred and seventy-two infants (37.8%) developed ROP. Median values of erythrocytes (p < 0.001), hemoglobin (p < 0.001), hematocrit (p < 0.001), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (p < 0.001), lymphocytes (p = 0.035), and platelets (p = 0.003) of the group of infants diagnosed with ROP any stage were lower than those without ROP. Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) (p = 0.044), red blood cell distribution width (RDW) (p < 0.001), erythroblasts (p < 0.001), neutrophils (p = 0.030), neutrophils-lymphocytes ratio (p = 0.028), and basophils (p = 0.003) were higher in the ROP group. Higher values of MCV, erythroblasts, and basophils remained significantly associated with ROP after multivariate regression. Conclusion: In our cohort, the increase in erythroblasts, MCV, and basophils in the first week of life was significantly and independently associated with the development of ROP. These CBC parameters may be early predictive biomarkers for ROP.Open access funding provided by FCT|FCCN (b-on). This work was supported by the Laboratório de Genética and the Instituto de Saúde Ambiental (ISAMB) of the Faculdade de Medicina of Universidade de Lisboa and the Instituto de Investigação Científica Bento da Rocha Cabral. The writing of the manuscript was also supported by funds from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to ISAMB (ref. UIDB/04295/2020 and UIDP/04295/2020). This work was also part of a doctoral project funding by the company CUF with a PhD grant in Medicine awarded in 2021 and by the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology with a PhD grant awarded in 2019.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Surgical Approaches to Optic Disc Pit Maculopathy: A Clinical Case Series

The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical outcomes of 13 patients with optic disc pit maculopathy (ODP-M) – progressive visual loss, serous macular detachment, and/or intraretinal fluid – who underwent different surgical approaches. This was a retrospective study including a consecutive sample of 13 patients aged 13–74 years (mean 35.38 ± 19.66 years) diagnosed with ODP-M and submitted to vitreoretinal surgery between 2005 and 2021. All patients underwent pars plana vitrectomy, posterior hyaloid detachment, and gas tamponade. Endolaser photocoagulation was applied to the temporal margin of the optic disc in 8 cases; internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling was performed in 9 cases; and ILM inverted flap technique in 5 cases. Stuffing of the pit with an ILM flap was performed in 3 cases. Mean best-corrected visual acuity improved from 20/200 (1.04 ± 0.56 LogMAR) to 20/50 (0.43 ± 0.54 LogMAR) within 4–36 months. Central retinal thickness decreased from 587.5 ± 158.01 μm to 253.9 ± 33.55 μm, and 7 out of 10 patients had complete resolution of intraretinal fluid. All patients had complete retinal reattachment; however, a few years after surgery, 4 patients had recurrence of serous retinal detachment. The only adjunctive technique associated with greater visual improvement was endolaser (p = 0.033) and not performing peeling of the ILM was also associated with better visual results (p = 0.013), independently of preoperative visual acuity or age at the time of surgery. None of the adjunctive procedures was a significant predictor of better anatomical outcomes. In conclusion, all of these approaches for the surgical management of ODP-M were safe and effective. In this study, vitrectomy with endolaser was a good option for management of ODP-M

Alla vägar bär till mål : Formativ bedömning i geografiundervisning på mellanstadiet

The purpose of this study is to examine what kind of formative assessments is used in the Geography education at middle-school in Sweden, and how the use of formative assessment differs between teachers. A further aimis to examine whether any problems canbe observed with formative assessment in Geography education. Following questions will try to be answered: What strategies informative assessment occurs in Geography educationin indoor schooling at Swedish schools? What problems/lacks can be observed based on the strategies used in formative assessment in Geography subject in indooreducation? How does the use of formative assessment differ between three Geography teachers? To answer these questions, nine lessons in Geography education were observed in total; three teachers held three lessons each which were observed. Earlier studies have showed that Geography education held outdoors was more motivational according to students. Earlier studies also concludethat students considered that Geography education held indoors had no purpose, and that students were passive during the lessons. Other studies have showed that lessons where formative assessment was used, increased the students' motivation and desire to learn. This study concludes that all strategies in formative assessment has been used by all three teachers. One conclusion is that when the goals of the lesson wasn't visible for the pupils, it affected the motivation of pupils. Another conclusion is that when the goals of the lesson wasn't visible, there was a connection to pupils not using self-regulated learning