KardiaTool: An Integrated POC Solution for Non-invasive Diagnosis and Therapy Monitoring of Heart Failure Patients

The aim of this work is to present KardiaTool platform, an integrated Point of Care (POC) solution for noninvasive diagnosis and therapy monitoring of Heart Failure (HF) patients. The KardiaTool platform consists of two components, KardiaPOC and KardiaSoft. KardiaPOC is an easy to use portable device with a disposable Lab-on-Chip (LOC) for the rapid, accurate, non-invasive and simultaneous quantitative assessment of four HF related biomarkers, from saliva samples. KardiaSoft is a decision support software based on predictive modeling techniques that analyzes the POC data and other patient's data, and delivers information related to HF diagnosis and therapy monitoring. It is expected that identifying a source comparable to blood, for biomarker information extraction, such as saliva, that is cost-effective, less invasive, more convenient and acceptable for both patients and healthcare professionals would be beneficial for the healthcare community. In this work the architecture and the functionalities of the KardiaTool platform are presented

Παράγοντες κινδύνου για την υπερέμεση κύησης: συστηματική ανασκόπηση

Σκοπός: Η υπερέμεση της κύησης (ΥΚ) είναι η κύρια αιτία νοσηλείας κατά τη διάρκεια του πρώτου τριμήνου της κύησης, που συνδέεται με σοβαρές επιπλοκές. Ωστόσο, δεν έχουν γίνει αρκετές μελέτες για τους προγνωστικούς παράγοντες της ΥΚ. Στόχο αυτής της συστηματικής ανασκόπησης αποτέλεσε η εντόπιση και κριτική αξιολόγηση των μελετών που διερευνούν τους προγνωστικούς παράγοντες για την εμφάνιση ΥΚ. Υλικά και Μέθοδος: Μια συστηματική ανασκόπηση πραγματοποιήθηκε από δύο ερευνητές στις ιατρικές βάσεις δεδομένων: PubMed / MEDLINE, Central (Cochrane) και EMBASE. Δεν υπήρχαν περιορισμοί όσον αφορά την ημερομηνία δημοσίευσης και τη γλώσσα. Ο έλεγχος των διαθέσιμων μελετών διεξήχθη από δύο ανεξάρτητους ελεγκτές, καθώς και η αξιολόγηση της ποιότητας συμπεριλαμβανόμενων μελετών ολοκληρώθηκε χρησιμοποιώντας την κλίμακα αξιολόγησης της ποιότητας Newcastle-Ottawa. Αποτελέσματα : Η αναζήτησή μας περιελάμβανε 308 άρθρα, εκ των οποίων 14 μελέτες παρατήρησης πληρούσαν τα κριτήρια εισόδου, οδηγώντας σε τελικό αριθμό 1400 συμμετεχόντων. Τέσσερις μελέτες χαμηλής ποιότητας, 8 μεσαίες και 2 υψηλής ποιότητας εντοπίστηκαν. Σε τέσσερις μελέτες σχετικά με τη λοίμωξη H. Pylori, δεν υπήρξε συσχέτιση μεταξύ μόλυνσης από Η. Pylori και ΥΚ, σε αντίθεση με δύο άλλες μελέτες που κατέληξαν στο συμπέρασμα ότι η λοίμωξη μπορεί να προκαλέσει ΥΚ. Η BMI πριν την εγκυμοσύνη, ο λιπώδης ιστός, η ηλικία της μητέρας, η λεπτίνη, η γκρελίνη και οι β-hCG, οι Τ4 και οι ορμόνες fT4 συσχετίζονται με την HG και μπορούν να θεωρηθούν ως δείκτες πρόβλεψης για ΥΚ. Η πιο αξιόπιστη ήταν η μελέτη κοόρτης των Gungor et al. και η μελέτη των Lee et αl. Οι Gungor et αl. διαπίστωσαν ότι η λεπτίνη και η νεσφατίνης-1 μπορεί να παίζουν ρόλο στην παθολογία της ΥΚ. Σύμφωνα με τους Lee et al., η μόλυνση με Η. Pylori δεν σχετίζεται με την ΥΚ. Συμπεράσματα: Είναι επιτακτικό να διεξαχθούν περισσότερες και μεγαλύτερες μελέτες για την επικύρωση αυτών των αποτελεσμάτων, ώστε να ταυτοποιηθούν οι προγνωστικοί παράγοντες της εμφάνισης ΥΚ.Background: Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is the main cause of hospitalization during the first trimester of pregnancy. Although it has been associated with serious complications, little is known about its predictive factors. The aim of this systematic review was to search for and critically appraise the studies that investigate the predictive factors for HG. Patients and Methods: A systematic search was performed by two reviewers on PubMed (MEDLINE), CENTRAL (Cochrane) and EMBASE. No restrictions regarding publication date and language were implied. Screening of available studies was carried out by two reviewers, as well as the quality assessment of the included studies, based on the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for observational studies. Results: The search located308 articles, of which 14 observational studies (four low-, eight medium- and two high-quality) involving 1400 women met the eligibility criteria. In four studies, there was no association between Helicobacter (H.) Pylori infection and HG, in contrast to two studies which demonstrated such an association. Pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), adipose tissue, maternal age, leptin, ghrelin, beta-chorionic gonadotropin (β-hCG), total (T4) and free thyroxine(fT4) correlated with HG in various studies and could be considered as predictive markers. Regarding the high-quality evidence, a cohort study associated leptin and nephatin-1 with HG, whereas across-sectional study found no association between H. pylori infection and HG. Conclusions: More studies of high quality and adequate sample size have to be carried out to identify the predictive factors for HG

Proper names as anaphoric expressions in short crime stories: Doing more than referring within and across paragraphs

The paper reports the results of a quantitative and qualitative study concerning the pragmatic functions of proper names used anaphorically in a corpus of six British crime stories by three different authors. It evokes previous studies claiming that person references in conversation may do more than referring, and it relies on previous works on marked/overspecified anaphoric expressions in narrative texts. The analysis attempts to pin down the pragmatically-derived meanings resulting from anaphoric name forms occurring within paragraphs, that is, at paragraph starts and in the remaining paragraph sentences, and across paragraphs, that is, in contiguous paragraphs as well as in all the paragraphs of a story. Even though anaphoric name forms generally are still underexplored, they turn out to be the second category of anaphoric expressions being used after third-person pronouns. The results disconfirm that paragraphs preserve continued pronominalization. Various shifts, e.g. of topic, viewpoint, and utterer shifts can occur within paragraphs just as at paragraph starts. Selected passages show in detail which form suggests which shift in which context. Moreover, repetitions of the same name form within paragraphs and throughout stories suggest further implied meanings dealing with the relationships between characters and the authors' manipulations of person references. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Rare Skeletal Complications in the Setting of Primary Hyperparathyroidism

Parathyroid carcinoma represents an extremely rare neoplasm with diverse clinical manifestations which vary from asymptomatic patients to severe complications of hypercalcemia or parathyrotoxicosis while skeletal involvement is rather common. Herein we aimed at presenting a unique case of a young patient with rare aggressive skeletal complications of parathyroid cancer that initially were misdiagnosed. Ossification of the cervical ligamentum flavum and skull tumor illustrates erosive bonny lesions of hyperparathyroidism that in association with previous medical history of recurrent nephrolithiasis and biochemical findings guide the diagnosis. We suggest that increased awareness and holistic approach are needed in order to recognize and further investigate signs and symptoms of hyperparathyroidism