Análise de custo de pacientes com broncopneumonia comunitária de baixo, intermediário e alto risco em uma emergência hospitalar através do método TDABC

Objetivo: Analisar os custos de pacientes com broncopneumonia comunitária de baixo, médio e alto risco (PSI classe I, II, III, IV, V) em uma emergência hospitalar antes e após medida restritiva ao atendimento. Metodologia: o método de custeio utilizado foi o time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC). Mapeou-se os processos e determinados os tempos padrão dos mesmos. Comparou-se os custos de recursos humanos, infraestrutura, exames e antibióticos um ano antes e um ano após o início da restrição. Os custos também foram avaliados, por classes de PSI, quanto ao tempo de internação em emergência e à adequação de esquema antibiótico empírico. Avaliou-se desfechos como óbito intra-hospitalar, reinternação por causa infecciosa em 30 dias, admissão em UTI. As variáveis categóricas foram comparadas usando-se o quiquadrado e as variáveis contínuas, dada a distribuição não-paramétrica, foram comparadas através do teste de Mann-Whitney. Foram considerados significativos os p < 0,05. Resultados: O tempo total de permanência na emergência não apresentou diferença estatística significativa comparando os pacientes distribuídos nas classes PSI entre os dois anos. Houve diferença estatística somente entre as medianas dos custos entre os anos para os custos com recursos humanos no PSI I (p=0,022), custos com infraestrutura nos PSI III e V (p=0,043 e p=0,009, respectivamente) e custos com antibióticos nos PSI III e IV (p=0,02 e p=0,001, respectivamente). Quando subdivididos quanto à adequação do esquema antibiótico, óbito intra-hospitalar, admissão em UTI e reinternação por causa infecciosa em 30 dias, não houve diferença estatística (p=0,979, p=0,148, p=0,253, p=0,628, respectivamente). Discussão: Os custos totais com pacientes PSI I, II, III, IV, V atendidos em uma emergência não teve o custo alterado pela medida restritiva.Objective: To analyze the costs of patients with low, medium and high risk community bronchopneumonia (PSI class I, II, III, IV, V) in a hospital emergency before and after a restrictive care measure. Methodology: The costing method used was time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC). The activities were mapped and the standard times were determined. Human resources, infrastructure, testing and antibiotics levels were compared one year before and one year after the start of the restriction. The costs were also evaluated, by PSI classes, regarding the length of hospital stay and the adequacy of the empiric antibiotic scheme. Outcomes were evaluated as in-hospital death, rehospitalization due to infectious cause in 30 days and ICU admission. Categorical variables were compared using the chi-square test and continuous variables, given the non-parametric distribution, were compared using the Mann-Whitney test. P <0.05 was considered significant. Results: The total time spent in the emergency room did not present a significant statistical difference comparing the patients distributed in the PSI classes between the two years. There was a statistical difference only between the medians of the costs between the years for human resources costs in PSI I (p = 0.022), infrastructure costs in PSI III and V (p = 0.043 and p = 0.009, respectively) and costs with antibiotics in PSI III and IV (p = 0.02 and p = 0.001, respectively). When subdivided according to the adequacy of the antibiotic scheme, in-hospital death, admission to ICU and readmission for infectious causes in 30 days, there was no statistical difference (p = 0.979, p = 0.148, p = 0.253, p = 0.628, respectively). Discussion: The total costs of PSI patients I, II, III, IV, V attended in an emergency did not have the cost altered by the restrictive measure

Análise descritiva do perfil de pacientes que utilizaram alteplase como terapia trombolítica no acidente vascular cerebral isquêmico na emergência de um hospital terciário

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Effectiveness of spinal manipulation and myofascial release compared with spinal manipulation alone on health-related outcomes in individuals with non-specific low back pain:randomized controlled trial

Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of spinal manipulation combined with myofascial release compared with spinal manipulation alone, in individuals with chronic non-specific low back pain (CNLBP). Design: Randomized controlled trial with three months follow-up. Setting: Rehabilitation clinic. Participants: Seventy-two individuals (between 18 and 50 years of age; CNLBP ≥12 consecutive weeks) were enrolled and randomly allocated to one of two groups: (1) Spinal manipulation and myofascial release – SMMRG; n = 36) or (2) Spinal manipulation alone (SMG; n = 36). Interventions: Combined spinal manipulation (characterized by high velocity/low amplitude thrusts) of the sacroiliac and lumbar spine and myofascial release of lumbar and sacroiliac muscles vs manipulation of the sacroiliac and lumbar spine alone, twice a week, for three weeks. Main outcome measures: Assessments were performed at baseline, three weeks post intervention and three months follow-up. Primary outcomes were pain intensity and disability. Secondary outcomes were quality of life, pressure pain-threshold and dynamic balance. Results: No significant differences were found between SMMRG vs SMG in pain intensity and disability post intervention and at follow-up. We found an overall significant difference between-groups for CNLBP disability (SMG-SMMRG: mean difference of 5.0; 95% confidence interval of difference 9.9; −0.1), though this effect was not clinically important and was not sustained at follow-up. Conclusions: We demonstrated that spinal manipulation combined with myofascial release was not more effective compared to spinal manipulation alone for patients with CNLBP. Clinical trial registration number: NCT03113292

Administration of Mycobacterium leprae rHsp65 Aggravates Experimental Autoimmune Uveitis in Mice

The 60kDa heat shock protein family, Hsp60, constitutes an abundant and highly conserved class of molecules that are highly expressed in chronic-inflammatory and autoimmune processes. Experimental autoimmune uveitis [EAU] is a T cell mediated intraocular inflammatory disease that resembles human uveitis. Mycobacterial and homologous Hsp60 peptides induces uveitis in rats, however their participation in aggravating the disease is poorly known. We here evaluate the effects of the Mycobacterium leprae Hsp65 in the development/progression of EAU and the autoimmune response against the eye through the induction of the endogenous disequilibrium by enhancing the entropy of the immunobiological system with the addition of homologous Hsp. B10.RIII mice were immunized subcutaneously with interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein [IRBP], followed by intraperitoneally inoculation of M. leprae recombinant Hsp65 [rHsp65]. We evaluated the proliferative response, cytokine production and the percentage of CD4+IL-17+, CD4+IFN-γ+ and CD4+Foxp3+ cells ex vivo, by flow cytometry. Disease severity was determined by eye histological examination and serum levels of anti-IRBP and anti-Hsp60/65 measured by ELISA. EAU scores increased in the Hsp65 group and were associated with an expansion of CD4+IFN-γ+ and CD4+IL-17+ T cells, corroborating with higher levels of IFN-γ. Our data indicate that rHsp65 is one of the managers with a significant impact over the immune response during autoimmunity, skewing it to a pathogenic state, promoting both Th1 and Th17 commitment. It seems comprehensible that the specificity and primary function of Hsp60 molecules can be considered as a potential pathogenic factor acting as a whistleblower announcing chronic-inflammatory diseases progression

Study protocol: differential effects of diet and physical activity based interventions in pregnancy on maternal and fetal outcomes--individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis and health economic evaluation.

© 2014 Ruifrok et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.BACKGROUND: Pregnant women who gain excess weight are at risk of complications during pregnancy and in the long term. Interventions based on diet and physical activity minimise gestational weight gain with varied effect on clinical outcomes. The effect of interventions on varied groups of women based on body mass index, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, parity, and underlying medical conditions is not clear. Our individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis of randomised trials will assess the differential effect of diet- and physical activity-based interventions on maternal weight gain and pregnancy outcomes in clinically relevant subgroups of women. METHODS/DESIGN: Randomised trials on diet and physical activity in pregnancy will be identified by searching the following databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, BIOSIS, LILACS, Pascal, Science Citation Index, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, and Health Technology Assessment Database. Primary researchers of the identified trials are invited to join the International Weight Management in Pregnancy Collaborative Network and share their individual patient data. We will reanalyse each study separately and confirm the findings with the original authors. Then, for each intervention type and outcome, we will perform as appropriate either a one-step or a two-step IPD meta-analysis to obtain summary estimates of effects and 95% confidence intervals, for all women combined and for each subgroup of interest. The primary outcomes are gestational weight gain and composite adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. The difference in effects between subgroups will be estimated and between-study heterogeneity suitably quantified and explored. The potential for publication bias and availability bias in the IPD obtained will be investigated. We will conduct a model-based economic evaluation to assess the cost effectiveness of the interventions to manage weight gain in pregnancy and undertake a value of information analysis to inform future research. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO 2013: CRD42013003804.This study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) HTA (Health Technology Assessment) UK programme 12/01

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors

Relationship of admission blood proteomic biomarkers levels to lesion type and lesion burden in traumatic brain injury: a CENTER-TBI study

Background: We aimed to understand the relationship between serum biomarker concentration and lesion type and volume found on computed tomography (CT) following all severities of TBI. Methods: Concentrations of six serum biomarkers (GFAP, NFL, NSE, S100B, t-tau and UCH-L1) were measured in samples obtained <24 hours post-injury from 2869 patients with all severities of TBI, enrolled in the CENTER-TBI prospective cohort study (NCT02210221). Imaging phenotypes were defined as intraparenchymal haemorrhage (IPH), oedema, subdural haematoma (SDH), extradural haematoma (EDH), traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage (tSAH), diffuse axonal injury (DAI), and intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH). Multivariable polynomial regression was performed to examine the association between biomarker levels and both distinct lesion types and lesion volumes. Hierarchical clustering was used to explore imaging phenotypes; and principal component analysis and k-means clustering of acute biomarker concentrations to explore patterns of biomarker clustering. Findings: 2869 patient were included, 68% (n=1946) male with a median age of 49 years (range 2-96). All severities of TBI (mild, moderate and severe) were included for analysis with majority (n=1946, 68%) having a mild injury (GCS 13-15). Patients with severe diffuse injury (Marshall III/IV) showed significantly higher levels of all measured biomarkers, with the exception of NFL, than patients with focal mass lesions (Marshall grades V/VI). Patients with either DAI+IVH or SDH+IPH+tSAH, had significantly higher biomarker concentrations than patients with EDH. Higher biomarker concentrations were associated with greater volume of IPH (GFAP, S100B, t-tau;adj r2 range:0·48-0·49; p<0·05), oedema (GFAP, NFL, NSE, t-tau, UCH-L1;adj r2 range:0·44-0·44; p<0·01), IVH (S100B;adj r2 range:0.48-0.49; p<0.05), Unsupervised k-means biomarker clustering revealed two clusters explaining 83·9% of variance, with phenotyping characteristics related to clinical injury severity. Interpretation: Interpretation: Biomarker concentration within 24 hours of TBI is primarily related to severity of injury and intracranial disease burden, rather than pathoanatomical type of injury