Experience of CT Guided Procedures in the Diagnosis of 55 patients with Intrathoracic Lesions from May 2009 to Feb 2011 at Ribat University Hospital(Sudan)

Objective: To present the experience of our center in the use of computed tomography (CT)guided Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) and core tissue biopsy procedures as an effective way for obtaining adequate material from intra-thoracic lesions, with the aim of assessing their diagnostic yield and complications.Methods: the study included 55 patients who underwent CT-guided procedures between May 2009 and February 2011. All fine needle aspirations were performed with 20-gauge needles while coretissue biopsies were performed with 14 –gauge needles under CT guidance. The diagnostic yield of these procedures, complications, and patient’s feedback were studied.Results: Diagnosis was malignant lesions in 18(32.1%), benign in 35(62.5%), and in 2(0.036%) patients the sample was inadequate. So the diagnostic yield of CT guided procedures was 96.36%. 16 (89%) of the malignant sample were non-small cell lung cancer and 2(11%) were small cell lung cancer. The results of both procedures (fine needle aspirations and core tissue biopsies) done on the same lesion were similar in (93.7%) of the results. Patients who underwent other procedures before this (e.g. bronchoscopy) had similar results in 25% of the samples. Complications reported were hemoptysis in 5 (9.1%), pneumothorax in 2 (3.6%) and surgical emphysema in 1 (1.8%) patient. 5 (9.2%) of the patients described the pain of the procedure as intolerable.Conclusions: CT guided procedure has high diagnostic yield and is recommended for obtaining tissues for histological assessment. Tissue biopsy offers no substantial advantage over FNA in the evaluation of malignant lung lesions

Can remote STI/HIV testing and eClinical Care be compatible with robust public health surveillance?

In this paper we outline the current data capture systems for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and sexually transmitted infection (STI) surveillance used by Public Health England (PHE), and how these will be affected by the introduction of novel testing platforms and changing patient pathways. We outline the Chlamydia Online Clinical Care Pathway (COCCP), developed as part of the Electronic Self-Testing for Sexually Transmitted Infections (eSTI(2)) Consortium, which ensures that surveillance data continue to be routinely collected and transmitted to PHE. We conclude that both novel diagnostic testing platforms and established data capture systems must be adaptable to ensure continued robust public health surveillance

Puerperal Superior Sagittal Sinus Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism: A Case Report and Review of Literature

Superior sagittal sinus thrombosis is a rare and often misdiagnosed disorder. Its occurrence with pulmonary embolism (PE) is much rarer, more so when it occurs in the setting of puerperium. Although cerebral sagittal sinus thrombosis can occur at any time during life, women are particularly vulnerable before delivery and during the puerperal period due to the hypercoagulable state of pregnancy. We report a case which describes the challenging clinical course of a young woman who developed superior sagittal sinus thrombosis and PE during puerperium.Keywords: Embolism, puerperium, pulmonary, sagittal sinus, thrombosi

Community Aliveness: Discovering Interaction Decay Patterns in Online Social Communities

Online Social Communities (OSCs) provide a medium for connecting people, sharing news, eliciting information, and finding jobs, among others. The dynamics of the interaction among the members of OSCs is not always growth dynamics. Instead, a $\textit{decay}$ or $\textit{inactivity}$ dynamics often happens, which makes an OSC obsolete. Understanding the behavior and the characteristics of the members of an inactive community help to sustain the growth dynamics of these communities and, possibly, prevents them from being out of service. In this work, we provide two prediction models for predicting the interaction decay of community members, namely: a Simple Threshold Model (STM) and a supervised machine learning classification framework. We conducted evaluation experiments for our prediction models supported by a $\textit{ground truth}$ of decayed communities extracted from the StackExchange platform. The results of the experiments revealed that it is possible, with satisfactory prediction performance in terms of the F1-score and the accuracy, to predict the decay of the activity of the members of these communities using network-based attributes and network-exogenous attributes of the members. The upper bound of the prediction performance of the methods we used is $0.91$ and $0.83$ for the F1-score and the accuracy, respectively. These results indicate that network-based attributes are correlated with the activity of the members and that we can find decay patterns in terms of these attributes. The results also showed that the structure of the decayed communities can be used to support the alive communities by discovering inactive members.Comment: pre-print for the 4th European Network Intelligence Conference - 11-12 September 2017 Duisburg, German

Religion and Health: Exploration of attitudes and health perceptions of faith healing users in urban Ghana

Background: The main aim of the study was to explore the attitudes and health perceptions of faith healing users in Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana. This has become necessary because faith healing practice is an important area but remains neglected in the health care literature. In an age when biowestern medicine is touted as the cure for most diseases, understanding how and why individuals seek alternative treatment, specifically faith healing modalities may help to develop more effective health care interventions. Methods: We employed exploratory study design of purely qualitative research approach involving 40 conveniently selected participants from four different purposively selected faith healing centres to get a maximum variation of experiences and opinions on the time of consultation, perceived effectiveness and challenges of faith healing practices in Ghana. In-depth interviews were conducted from 10th June to 30th July, 2017. Data were thematically analysed and presented based on the a posteriori inductive reduction approach. Results: The main findings were that faith healers served as the first port of call for disease curing and prevention for most users. Consumers of faith healing perceived their health status to be good due to the perceived effectiveness of faith healing for curing of health problems. However, users faced challenges such as stigmatisation and victimisation in seeking health care. Conclusion: This study has provided the first baseline evidence in this important area of inquiry that has been neglected in the scholarly discourse in Ghana. By implication, users' positive attitudes and perceptions toward faith healing call for integration policies that allow formal medical services to have open idea to faith healing practices in Ghana

Family History of Non-communicable Disease and its Relationship in Acute Coronary Syndrome with or without Diabetes Mellitus

Worldwide, non-communicable diseases which involve heart disease, diabetes mellitus and hypertension, represent a major risk factor that increases morbidity and mortality of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The Objective of this study is to assess the Association of family history of non-communicable diseases in ACS patients with diabetes mellitus. This study is descriptive study of 175 ACS patients reported to the cardiology department in a tertiary care center in Ajman, UAE. Patient records were viewed on the computer database and all the necessary information required to achieve the objectives were extracted and filled in the checklist prepared. The data was analyzed by SPSS 20 and Chi square test was done to assess the association. The results shows that the non-communicable diseases reported were diabetes mellitus, hypertension and heart diseases. The degree of relation was divided into first and second degrees. The first degree of relation included (father, mother, brother, sister or more than one of them. The second degree of relation included (uncle, cousin, aunt, grandfather, grandmother etc.). There were 11(91.7%) patients with first degree family history of DM and 1(8.3%) patient with second degree relation. Out of the 14 patients that gave positive family history of hypertension only one was second degree of relation and all the rest were first degree of relation. Regarding the most common non-communicable disease, heart disease, 18(94.7%) patients had first degree relatives and 1(5.3%) second degree relative with history of heart disease. As a conclusion we can say that among the ACS patients with family history of heart diseases, majority of them (94.7%) had in first degree relatives whereas in the case of family history of hypertension and diabetes, it was also highly reported in first degree relatives with 92.9% and 91.7% respectively. It was also found family history of DM has a major role for the occurrence of DM in ACS patients

CAR-T cell. the long and winding road to solid tumors

Adoptive cell therapy of solid tumors with reprogrammed T cells can be considered the "next generation" of cancer hallmarks. CAR-T cells fail to be as effective as in liquid tumors for the inability to reach and survive in the microenvironment surrounding the neoplastic foci. The intricate net of cross-interactions occurring between tumor components, stromal and immune cells leads to an ineffective anergic status favoring the evasion from the host's defenses. Our goal is hereby to trace the road imposed by solid tumors to CAR-T cells, highlighting pitfalls and strategies to be developed and refined to possibly overcome these hurdles