Hospital admissions for alcohol-related problems in concomitance with weekends, New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve: Myth or reality?

This retrospective observational study was carried out by searching the database of the laboratory information system for identifying all requests for alcohol testing placed from emergency departments and intensive care units of the University Hospital of Verona between June 29th, 2012 and December 31st, 2018. The study population consisted of 7488 patients. The number of alcohol tests was more than double in concomitance with New Year’s Eve than in the rest of the year (7.6±6.1 vs 3.1±2.8 requests/day; P<0.001), whereas blood alcohol concentration was similar (1.55 vs 1.12 g/L; P=0.308). The risk of measuring alcohol concentrations >0.1 g/L and >1.0 g/L was 1.9-fold and 1.6-fold higher in concomitance with New Year’s Eve. In multivariate analysis, younger age, female sex and alcohol testing during New Year’s Eve remained significant predictors of alcohol concentrations >0.1 g/L and >1.0 g/L. The requests for alcohol testing were similar in concomitance with Christmas Eve and in other periods of the year, whilst number of requests (4.0±3.2 vs 2.8±2.5 requests/day; P<0.001) and concentration (1.37 vs 0.77 g/L; P<0.001) were higher during weekends than in other weekdays

Vacuolating encephalopathy and retinopathy associated with a nodavirus-like agent: a probable cause of mass mortality of wild Golden grey mullet (Liza aurata) and Sharpnose grey mullet (Liza saliens) in Iranian waters of the Caspian Sea

Mullets are dominant fishes in the catch composition in the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea and after (Rutilus frisii kutum Kamensky, 1901) have a worthy role in production of marine proteins and incomings of north provinces of Iran. Mullets stocks decreased dramatically in recent decades in the Caspian Sea and catch amount reached from 6446 MT on 2002 to 2151 MT in 2012. Mysterious mortalities occurred in wild mullet (Liza auratu) and (Liza saliens) in Iranian waters of Caspian Sea in recent years. Regarding to investigation of causative agent of mentioned outbreak about 322 suspected samples were collected from coastal capture sites of Iranian north provinces in 2008 till 2011. Moribund fish revealed skin darkening, erratic swimming, belly-up at rest and high distension of swim bladder. Target tissues such as brain and eye were removed and then fixed for histopathology and TEM assay. Widespread and massive vacuolation were observed in brain, spinal cord, retina and optical nerve and intracytoplasmic vacuoles and virus particles in retina. So concerning to clinical signs, histopathological and TEM findings, it could be concluded that nodavirus-like agent could be probable cause of mass mortality of wild mullet in Iranian waters of the Caspian Sea

MytiBase: a knowledgebase of mussel (M. galloprovincialis) transcribed sequences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although Bivalves are among the most studied marine organisms due to their ecological role, economic importance and use in pollution biomonitoring, very little information is available on the genome sequences of mussels. This study reports the functional analysis of a large-scale Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) sequencing from different tissues of <it>Mytilus galloprovincialis </it>(the Mediterranean mussel) challenged with toxic pollutants, temperature and potentially pathogenic bacteria.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have constructed and sequenced seventeen cDNA libraries from different Mediterranean mussel tissues: gills, digestive gland, foot, anterior and posterior adductor muscle, mantle and haemocytes. A total of 24,939 clones were sequenced from these libraries generating 18,788 high-quality ESTs which were assembled into 2,446 overlapping clusters and 4,666 singletons resulting in a total of 7,112 non-redundant sequences. In particular, a high-quality normalized cDNA library (Nor01) was constructed as determined by the high rate of gene discovery (65.6%). Bioinformatic screening of the non-redundant <it>M. galloprovincialis </it>sequences identified 159 microsatellite-containing ESTs. Clusters, consensuses, related similarities and gene ontology searches have been organized in a dedicated, searchable database <url>http://mussel.cribi.unipd.it</url>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We defined the first species-specific catalogue of <it>M. galloprovincialis </it>ESTs including 7,112 unique transcribed sequences. Putative microsatellite markers were identified. This annotated catalogue represents a valuable platform for expression studies, marker validation and genetic linkage analysis for investigations in the biology of Mediterranean mussels.</p

Pissi pissi bau bau

Il testo e lo spettacolo Lo spettacolo debutta il 3 aprile 1977, al Teatro Enal (oggi Teatro2) di Parma, ed è anche presentato a Milano, in primavera, tra le attività dei Collettivi Omosessuali Milanesi, nella casa occupata di Via Morigi. Sebbene il testo indichi due autori specifici, si tratta di una elaborazione nata dai Collettivi Omosessuali Padani (COP) all’interno dei quali si raccoglie il Kollettivo Teatrale Trousses, Merletti, Cappuccini e Cappelliere (KTTMCC). Il gruppo diventa uno d..

The future of laboratory medicine in the era of precision medicine

The future of laboratory medicine in the era of precision medicin

Elements of Biomedical Laboratory Organization

The organization of a biomedical laboratory is complex, multifaceted, and represents the result of a series of reforms that over the years have determined its structure and functioning. The aim of this chapter is to provide the basic elements and legislative references to understand the organizational context of a biomedical laboratory, the role of different structures, and various professional profiles in the different articulations and duties

Willingness-to-pay threshold for preventing spurious hemolysis during blood sample collection

Willingness-to-pay threshold for preventing spurious hemolysis during blood sample collection

Are we getting better at the preanalytical phase or just better at measuring it?

There is now consolidated evidence that the vast majority of laboratory errors occur in the extra-analytical phases of the total testing process, and especially in the preanalytical phase. Although development and dissemination of best practice recommendations for this crucial area of diagnostic testing have greatly contributed to reinforce error identification and reporting strategies, it is also undeniable that the combination of greater consciousness about preanalytical issues and technological advancements have helped decreasing the inherent vulnerability of many preanalytical activities, thus finally making the preanalytical phase less vulnerable to errors, slips and lapses. Many potential strategies can be adopted for reducing preanalytical errors, including education and training of healthcare staff on phlebotomy practice and preanalytical errors, greater observance of available phlebotomy guidelines, dissemination of specimen collection modules or phlebotomist check-lists, certification of phlebotomists, transmission of periodic preanalytical quality reports to phlebotomists, establishment of direct feed-back between laboratory professionals and phlebotomists, use of quality and validated blood collection systems for drawing blood, along with introduction of harmonized means for recording preanalytical errors

Current epidemiology of low back pain

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is a major disabling pathology, whose clinical, societal and economic burden remains mostly overlooked. Therefore, we aim to provide here a concise overview on the recent worldwide epidemiology of this condition. Methods: An electronic search was performed in the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) repository, a large worldwide database of health-related data, using the keyword \u201clow back pain\u201d. The result of our electronic search was downloaded in comma-separated values (CSV), imported into an Excel file and analyzed. Results: The current estimates of incidence, prevalence and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of LBPs are 245.9 million cases/year (3.2%; 15th worldwide cause), 577.0 million cases (7.6%; 15th worldwide cause) and 64.9 million DALYs (2.6% of all DALYs; 6th worldwide cause), respectively. All these measures displayed a considerable ~50% increase during the last 20 years. The burden of all LBP cases is marginally higher in women than in men, exhibits gradual increase from the birth age, reaching the peak between 40\u201350 years, and then progressively declining. An analysis within each age range shows that prevalence of LBP among all human diseases grows in parallel with ageing, with the most notable increase after 80 years. The risk of LBD increases in parallel with socio-demographic index (SDI), being over 3-fold higher in high than in low SDI countries. According to a linear fit based on data of the last 20 years, incidence, prevalence and DALYs of LBP may further increase by ~1.4 fold by the year 2050. Conclusions: LBP poses a significant worldwide epidemiologic burden, especially in women, adults and high SDI countries, displaying an escalating trend that is not expected to reverse soon