BRIVA-LIFE–A multicenter retrospective study of the long-term use of brivaracetam in clinical practice

Objectives: Evaluate long-term effectiveness and tolerability of brivaracetam in clinical practice in patients with focal epilepsy. Materials and Methods: This was a multicenter retrospective study. Patients aged =16 years were started on brivaracetam from November 2016 to June 2017 and followed over 1 year. Data were obtained from medical records at 3, 6 and 12 months after treatment initiation for evaluation of safety- and seizure-related outcomes. Results: A total of 575 patients were included in analyses; most had been treated with =4 lifetime antiepileptic drugs. Target dosage was achieved by 30.6% of patients on the first day. Analysis of primary variables at 12 months revealed that mean reduction in seizure frequency was 36.0%, 39.7% of patients were =50% responders and 17.5% were seizure-free. Seizure-freedom was achieved by 37.5% of patients aged =65 years. Incidence of adverse events (AEs) and psychiatric AEs (PAEs) was 39.8% and 14.3%, respectively, and discontinuation due to these was 8.9% and 3.7%, respectively. Somnolence, irritability, and dizziness were the most frequently reported AEs. At baseline, 228 (39.7%) patients were being treated with levetiracetam; most switched to brivaracetam (dose ratio 1:10-15). Among those who switched because of PAEs (n = 53), 9 (17%) reported PAEs on brivaracetam, and 3 (5.7%) discontinued because of PAEs. Tolerability was not highly affected among patients with learning disability or psychiatric comorbidity. Conclusions: In a large population of patients with predominantly drug-resistant epilepsy, brivaracetam was effective and well-tolerated; no unexpected AEs occurred over 1 year, and the incidence of PAEs was lower compared with levetiracetam

RICORS2040 : The need for collaborative research in chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still confuse CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is 'solved' by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated ageing and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality that is 10- to 100-fold higher than similar-age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by ~40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth greatest global cause of death by 2040 and the second greatest cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when one in four Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded Centres for Biomedical Research (CIBER) network structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients and the European Kidney Health Alliance. Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network Red de Investigación Renal have now applied for the Redes de Investigación Cooperativa Orientadas a Resultados en Salud (RICORS) call for collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Federación Nacional de Asociaciones para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true

SUPLEMENTO DEL XV CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE ACTIVIDAD FÍSICA Y DEPORTE. 17,18 y 19 DE OCTUBRE DEL 2018. ENSENADA, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MÉXICO

Compendio, en formato artículo, de los mejores trabajos presentados en el XV CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE ACTIVIDAD FÍSICA Y DEPORTE celebrado los días  17,18 y 19 de octubre del 2018 en la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California en la ciudad de Ensenada, Baja California, México:La nutrición en la actividad física y deportiva: alimentos funcionales con nanotecnología, aplicaciones potenciales. González González, K.Y.; Huerta Plaza, B.A.; Amaya Parra, G. (118-130)Perfil antropométrico, físico y hábitos alimentarios en escolares indígenas de Tijuana México. Avendaño Cano, D.L.; Gómez Miranda, L.M.; Aburto Corona, J.A. (131-142)Relación entre el clima de aprendizaje en Educación Física y la percepción de los estudiantes en las competencias del profesorado. Baños, R; Ortiz-Camacho, M.M.; Baena-Extremera, A.; Granero-Gallegos, A.; Machado-Parra, J.P.; Rentería, I.; Acosta, I.; Ramírez, L. (143-153)Valoración de capacidades físicas, composición corporal y consumo de vitaminas en una competencia de Crossfit. Cervantes-Hernández, N.; Hernández Nájera, N.; Carrasco Legleu, C.E.; Candia Lujan, R.; Enríquez Del Castillo, L.A. (154-164)Relación de la actividad física, características antropométricas y VO2máx en jóvenes universitarios: características por género. Enríquez-del Castillo, L.A.; Cervantes-Hernández, N.; Carrasco-Legleu, C.E.; Candia Luján, R. (165-174)Entrenamiento vibratorio de cuerpo completo y sus efectos sobre la composición corporal en jóvenes universitarios. Flores-Chico, B.; Bañuelos-Teres, L.E.; Buendía Lozada, E.R.P. (175-183)Actualización curricular, plan 2016 de la Licenciatura en Cultura Física de la BUAP. Flores-Chico, B.; Flores-Flores, A.; López de La Rosa, LE.; Aguilar-Enríquez, R.I.; Caballero Gómez, JM; Villanueva-Huerta, JA. (184-192)Evaluación psicológica y de la musculatura isquiosural de basquetbolistas universitarias en distintas etapas deportivas. Moranchel-Charros, R.; Martínez-Velázquez, E.S. (193-203)Efecto del ejercicio físico sobre la fuerza, resistencia y riesgo de caída en mujeres adultas. Ortiz Ortiz, M; Espinoza Gutiérrez, R; Gómez Miranda, LM.; Guzmán Gutiérrez, EC.; Calleja Núñez, JJ. (204-212)Desigualdad vs igualdad numérica y su efecto en la técnica de jugadores de fútbol infantil. Vega-Orozco, SI; Gavotto Nogales, OI; Bernal Reyes, F; Horta Gim, MA; Sarabia Sainz, HM. (213-224

Registro Español de Trasplante Cardiaco. XXXI Informe Oficial de la Asociación de Insuficiencia Cardiaca de la Sociedad Española de Cardiología

Introducción y objetivos Se presentan las características clínicas y los resultados de los trasplantes cardiacos realizados en España con la actualización correspondiente a 2019. Métodos Se describen las características clínicas y los resultados de los trasplantes cardiacos realizados en 2019, así como las tendencias de estos en el periodo 2010-2018. Resultados En 2019 se realizaron 300 trasplantes (8.794 desde 1984; 2.745 entre 2010 y 2019). Respecto a años previos, los cambios más llamativos son el descenso hasta el 38% de los trasplantes realizados en código urgente, y la consolidación en el cambio de asistencia circulatoria pretrasplante, con la práctica desaparición del balón de contrapulsación (0, 7%), la estabilización del uso del oxigenador extracorpóreo de membrana (9, 6%) y el aumento de los dispositivos de asistencia ventricular (29%). La supervivencia en el trienio 2016-2018 es similar a la del trienio 2013-2015 (p = 0, 34), y ambas mejores que la del trienio 2010-2012 (p = 0, 002 y p = 0, 01 respectivamente). Conclusiones Se mantienen estables tanto la actividad del trasplante cardiaco en España como los resultados en supervivencia en los últimos 2 trienios. Hay una tendencia a realizar menos trasplantes urgentes, la mayoría con dispositivos de asistencia ventricular. Introduction and objectives: The present report describes the clinical characteristics and outcomes of heart transplants in Spain and updates the data to 2019. Methods: We describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of heart transplants performed in Spain in 2019, as well as trends in this procedure from 2010 to 2018. Results: In 2019, 300 transplants were performed (8794 since 1984; 2745 between 2010 and 2019). Compared with previous years, the most notable findings were the decreasing rate of urgent transplants (38%), and the consolidation of the type of circulatory support prior to transplant, with an almost complete disappearance of counterpulsation balloon (0.7%), stabilization in the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (9.6%), and an increase in the use of ventricular assist devices (29.0%). Survival from 2016 to 2018 was similar to that from 2013 to 2015 (P = .34). Survival in both these periods was better than that from 2010 to 2012 (P = .002 and P = .01, respectively). Conclusions: Heart transplant activity has remained stable during the last few years, as have outcomes (in terms of survival). There has been a trend to a lower rate of urgent transplants and to a higher use of ventricular assist devices prior to transplant

International nosocomial infection control consortium (INICC) report, data summary of 36 countries, for 2004-2009

The results of a surveillance study conducted by the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) from January 2004 through December 2009 in 422 intensive care units (ICUs) of 36 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe are reported. During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN; formerly the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system [NNIS]) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infections, we gathered prospective data from 313,008 patients hospitalized in the consortium's ICUs for an aggregate of 2,194,897 ICU bed-days. Despite the fact that the use of devices in the developing countries' ICUs was remarkably similar to that reported in US ICUs in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were significantly higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals; the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection in the INICC ICUs of 6.8 per 1,000 central line-days was more than 3-fold higher than the 2.0 per 1,000 central line-days reported in comparable US ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia also was far higher (15.8 vs 3.3 per 1,000 ventilator-days), as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (6.3 vs. 3.3 per 1,000 catheter-days). Notably, the frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates to imipenem (47.2% vs 23.0%), Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (76.3% vs 27.1%), Escherichia coli isolates to ceftazidime (66.7% vs 8.1%), Staphylococcus aureus isolates to methicillin (84.4% vs 56.8%), were also higher in the consortium's ICUs, and the crude unadjusted excess mortalities of device-related infections ranged from 7.3% (for catheter-associated urinary tract infection) to 15.2% (for ventilator-associated pneumonia). Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Riociguat treatment in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

Objective: The soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat is approved for the treatment of adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and inoperable or persistent/recurrent chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) following Phase

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on 10^3 pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype

Low-Temperature Modelling of Electron-Velocity-Overshoot Effects on 70-250 nm Gate-Length MOSFETs

Modelling of the increase of MOSFET transconductance produced by electron-velocity overshoot as channel lengths are reduced has been performed at low temperature. The results obtained have been compared to room-temperature ones. To accomplish this, the charge-control model has been used to obtain a simple analytical expression to account for electron-velocity overshoot effects on the performance of very short channel MOSFETs. This model can be easily included in circuit simulators of systems with a huge number of components. Experimental verification of the accuracy of this model is provided. The improvement of MOSFET transconductance due to electron-velocity overshoot is found to be greater at low temperature than at room temperature

Low temperature mobility improvement in high-mobility strained-Si/Si1-xGex multilayer MOSFETs

Electron density and mobility curves have been simulated for buried strained-Si/SiGe MOSFET. A Monte Carlo simulator including electron quantization, nonparabolicity and a new model for Coulomb scattering has been used at different temperatures. It has been demonstrated that the improved confinement of the electron charge in the strained-Si quantum well at low temperatures greatly reduces Coulomb scattering in these structures. The inversion charge in the superficial channel is reduced in comparison with operation at room temperature. Therefore, apart from lower Coulomb scattering rates, surface-roughness and phonon scattering is also lower