Dorsal Prefrontal Cortex Impairment in Methoxetamine-Induced Psychosis: an 18F-FDG PET/CT Case Study

Submitted15 June 2018. Accepted 13 December 2018. Epub ahead of print 13 February 2019Novel psychoactive substances (NPSs) have currently become a major public health concern because of relatively easy accessibility to these compounds and difficulty in identifying them with routine laboratory techniques. Here, we report the 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computerized tomography ( 18 F-FDG PET/CT) case study of a 23-year-old man who developed a substance-induced psychotic disorder after having intravenously injected himself with an unspecified amount of methoxetamine (MXE), a ketamine derivative hallucinogen. From a clinical perspective, a blunted affective responsiveness with diminished social drive and sense of purpose, along with a profound detachment from the environment, was observed. Psychometric and neuropsychological assessments highlighted severe dissociative symptoms and lack of motivation, along with a mild impairment of verbal fluency, working memory, and attention. Patient’s 18 F-FDG PET/CT scans displayed a significant bilateral deficit of tracer uptake within the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). DLPFC activity is critical to goal-oriented cognitive functions, including working memory and sustained attention. DLPFC is also involved in both the temporal integration across multiple sensory modes and in the volitional control of actions, leading to the possibility to construct logically coherent temporal configurations of thought, speech, and behavior. This report highlights that a single acute MXE intoxication may produce severe brain impairment.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Clinical characteristics and prognostic factors in COVID-19 patients aged ≥80 years

Aim: The aim of the present study was to describe the clinical presentation of patients aged ≥80 years with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and provide insights regarding the prognostic factors and the risk stratification in this population. Methods: This was a single-center, retrospective, observational study, carried out in a referral center for COVID-19 in central Italy. We reviewed the clinical records of patients consecutively admitted for confirmed COVID-19 over a 1-month period (1-31 March 2020). We excluded asymptomatic discharged patients. We identified risk factors for death, by a uni- and multivariate Cox regression analysis. To improve model fitting and hazard estimation, continuous parameters where dichotomized by using Youden's index. Results: Overall, 69 patients, aged 80-98 years, met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study cohort. The median age was 84 years (82-89 years is interquartile range); 37 patients (53.6%) were men. Globally, 14 patients (20.3%) presented a mild, 30 (43.5%) a severe and 25 (36.2%) a critical COVID-19 disease. A total of 23 (33.3%) patients had died at 30 days' follow up. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that severe dementia, pO2 ≤90 at admission and lactate dehydrogenase >464 U/L were independent risk factors for death. Conclusions: The present data suggest that risk of death could be not age dependent in patients aged ≥80 years, whereas severe dementia emerged is a relevant risk factor in this population. Severe COVID-19, as expressed by elevated lactate dehydrogenase and low oxygen saturation at emergency department admission, is associated with a rapid progression to death in these patients

Rapid clinical management of leishmaniasis in emergency department: a case report with clinical review of recent literature

Systemic or localized lympho-adenomegaly is a common cause of access to the emergency department (ED), and differential diagnosis is often complicated. The combination of anamnesis, physical examination, laboratory tests, and instrumental diagnosis are extremely important to orientate toward a rapid and correct therapy, even if a prompt discrimination of the etiology of this lymphadenomegaly is not often possible. Our aim with this review is to improve the management of a dierential diagnosis between hematological and infective diseases as leishmaniasis in ED and suggest quick diagnostic techniques that might be useful for early identification. Together in the review, we describe a case report of a young man aected from visceral leishmaniasis who presented to our ED and was incorrectly addressed to the wrong ward for the study of his condition. Subsequently, we focus on the clinical presentation of visceral leishmaniasis and compare it to the most common dierential diagnoses that are usually taken into account in the management of such patients

One Year of COVID-19: Lessons Learned in a Hand Trauma Center

2020 will be remembered worldwide as the year of COVID-19 outbreak. The onset of this pandemic abruptly changed everybody's life and, in a particular manner, doctors' lives. Our hand surgery department became rapidly one of the first COVID-19-specialized wards in Italy, impacting considerably the authors' routines and activities. In this paper, the authors focus on how the demographics of patients with hand trauma changed and how they had to modify their activity. The authors retrospectively took into consideration all patients reaching their emergency department (ED) with hand trauma between 9 March 2020 (the day of the beginning of the first lockdown in Italy) and 8 March 2021 and compared them to those who reached the ED in the three previous years. Authors have analyzed the number of patients, their gender and age, the severity of their trauma, where the trauma occurred, the type of lesion, the percentage of patients who underwent surgery, and the percentage of patients who had an emergency admission. In the last year, the number of patients reaching the ED for a hand trauma has been reduced by two thirds (975 patients during the past year), the mean age of those patients has slightly increased, the severity of cases has increased, places of trauma and type of lesions have changed, and, lastly, the percentage of patients needing surgery who were admitted immediately has increased. This paper shows how the type of patients reaching the ED changed and discusses how surgeons evolved and modified their habits in treating those patients during the first lockdown and the year that followed

A new clinical score for cranial CT in ED non-trauma patients: Definition and first validation.

Introduction:Well recognized guidelines are available for the use of cranial computed tomography (CCT) in traumatic patients,while no definitely accepted standards exists to for CCT in patientswithout history of head injury. The aimof this study is to propose an easy clinical score to stratify the need of CCT inemergency department (ED) patients with suspect non-traumatic intracranial pathology. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated patients presenting to the ED for neurological deficit, postural instability, acute headache, alteredmental status, seizures, confusion, dizziness, vertigo, syncope, and pre-syncope.Webuild a score for positive CCT prediction by using a logistic regression model on clinical factors significant at univariate analysis. The score was validated on a population of prospectively observed patients. Results: We reviewed clinical data of 1156 patients; positivity of CCT was 15.2%. Persistent neurological deficit, new onset acute headache, seizures and/or altered state of consciousness, and transient neurological disorders were independent predictors of positive CCT. We observed 508 patients in a validation prospective cohort; CCT was positive in 11.3%. Our score performed well in validation population with a ROC AUC of 0.787 (CI 95% 0.748\u20130.822). Avoiding CT in score 0 patients would have saved 82 (16.2%) exams. No patients with score 0 had a positive CCT findings; score sensitivity was 100.0 (CI 95% 93.7\u2013100.0). Conclusions: A score for risk stratification of patients with suspect of intra-cranial pathology could reduce CT request in ED, avoiding a significant number of CCT while minimizing the risk of missing positive results

Guillain–Barré syndrome from an emergency department view: how to better predict the outcome?

Objective In Guillain–Barre syndrome (GBS), respiratory failure is the most serious manifestation and mechanical ventilation (MV) is required in approximately 20% of the patients. In this retrospective study, we aimed to evaluate clinical factors that can be evaluated in the Emergency Department which may influence the short-term prognosis of GBS patients. Methods Data were acquired regarding age, sex, antecedent infections, neurological signs and symptoms, cerebrospinal fluid examination, nerve conduction studies, treatment of GBS, need for MV, length of stay in the hospital, and discharge destination (home or rehabilitation). Charlson Comorbidity Index and modified Erasmus GBS outcome score (mEGOS) were collected on admission. Results Seventy-eight GBS patients were recruited with a mean age of 53.9 (range 19-81). Sixty-nine (88.46%) were diagnosed with GBS and nine (11.54%) had classic Miller-Fisher syndrome. Mean values for the Charlson Comorbidity index were 1.20 ± 1.81, and the values of mEGOS were 2.4 ± 1.6. The rate of home discharge and rehabilitation was similar between elderly and younger patients. Patients who required MV had higher mEGOS (p-value=0.061). Regarding the electrophysiological subtypes, we did not observe a significant difference between AIDP and AMAN/AMSAN concerning the need for MV, the type of discharge, values of mEGOS and Charlson Comorbidity Index. Discussion A significant correlation was found between mEGOS and the need for MV. Age did not influence the short-term prognosis of GBS patients. mEGOS may be a useful tool for predicting outcomes in patients with GBS and higher mEGOS scores on admission significantly correlated with poor outcomes

Frailty Network in an Acute Care Setting: The New Perspective for Frail Older People

The incidence of elderly patients who come to the emergency room is progressively increasing. The specialization of the physician units might not be adequate for the evaluation of this complexity. The present study aimed to present a standard procedure, called ‘The Geriatric Frailty Network’, operating at the Policlinico Gemelli IRCCS Foundation, which is configured specifically for the level II assessment of frail elderly patients. This was a retrospective study in 1191 patients aged over 65, who were evaluated by the Geriatric Frailty Unit directly after emergency department admission for one year. All patients underwent multidimensional geriatric evaluation. Data were collected on demographics, co-morbidity, disease severity, and Clinical Frailty Scale. Among all patients, 723 were discharged directly from the emergency room with early identification of continuity of care path. Globally, 468 patients were hospitalized with an early assessment of frailty that facilitated the discharge process. The geriatric frailty network model aims to assist the emergency room and ward doctor in the prevention of the most common geriatric syndromes and reduce the number of incongruous hospitalization

Ursodeoxycholic acid does not affect the clinical outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection: A retrospective study of propensity score-matched cohorts

Background: Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) has been recently proposed as a modulator of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor expression, with potential effects on COVID-19.Aim and Study Design: We retrospectively evaluated the clinical course and outcome of subjects taking UDCA admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 compared with matched infected subjects. Differences regarding the severity and outcome of the disease between treated and non-treated subjects were assessed. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and log-rank test were used to evaluate the effect of UDCA on all-cause intra-hospital mortality.Results: Among 6444 subjects with confirmed COVID-19 admitted to the emergency department (ED) from 1 March 2020 to 31 December 2022, 109 subjects were taking UDCA. After matching 629 subjects were included in the study: 521 in the no UDCA group and 108 in the UDCA group. In our matched cohort, 144 subjects (22.9%) died, 118 (22.6%) in the no-UDCA group and 26 (24.1%) in the UDCA group. The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed no significant difference in survival between groups. In univariate regression analysis, the presence of pneumonia, National Early Warning Score (NEWS) score, and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) were significant independent predictors of death. At multivariate Cox regression analysis, age, NEWS, pneumonia and CCI index were confirmed significant independent predictors of death. UDCA treatment was not a predictor of survival both in univariate and multivariate regressions.Conclusions: UDCA treatment does not appear to have significant effects on the outcome of COVID-19. Specially designed prospective studies are needed to evaluate efficacy in preventing infection and severe disease

COVID-19 and intestinal inflammation: Role of fecal calprotectin

N/