Prognostic factors in left-sided endocarditis: results from the andalusian multicenter cohort

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite medical advances, mortality in infective endocarditis (IE) is still very high. Previous studies on prognosis in IE have observed conflicting results. The aim of this study was to identify predictors of in-hospital mortality in a large multicenter cohort of left-sided IE.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An observational multicenter study was conducted from January 1984 to December 2006 in seven hospitals in Andalusia, Spain. Seven hundred and five left-side IE patients were included. The main outcome measure was in-hospital mortality. Several prognostic factors were analysed by univariate tests and then by multilogistic regression model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The overall mortality was 29.5% (25.5% from 1984 to 1995 and 31.9% from 1996 to 2006; Odds Ratio 1.25; 95% Confidence Interval: 0.97-1.60; p = 0.07). In univariate analysis, age, comorbidity, especially chronic liver disease, prosthetic valve, virulent microorganism such as <it>Staphylococcus aureus</it>, <it>Streptococcus agalactiae </it>and fungi, and complications (septic shock, severe heart failure, renal insufficiency, neurologic manifestations and perivalvular extension) were related with higher mortality. Independent factors for mortality in multivariate analysis were: Charlson comorbidity score (OR: 1.2; 95% CI: 1.1-1.3), prosthetic endocarditis (OR: 1.9; CI: 1.2-3.1), <it>Staphylococcus aureus </it>aetiology (OR: 2.1; CI: 1.3-3.5), severe heart failure (OR: 5.4; CI: 3.3-8.8), neurologic manifestations (OR: 1.9; CI: 1.2-2.9), septic shock (OR: 4.2; CI: 2.3-7.7), perivalvular extension (OR: 2.4; CI: 1.3-4.5) and acute renal failure (OR: 1.69; CI: 1.0-2.6). Conversely, <it>Streptococcus viridans </it>group etiology (OR: 0.4; CI: 0.2-0.7) and surgical treatment (OR: 0.5; CI: 0.3-0.8) were protective factors.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Several characteristics of left-sided endocarditis enable selection of a patient group at higher risk of mortality. This group may benefit from more specialised attention in referral centers and should help to identify those patients who might benefit from more aggressive diagnostic and/or therapeutic procedures.</p

Prevalence of disability in a composite ≥75 year-old population in Spain: A screening survey based on the International Classification of Functioning

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The prevalence and predictors of functional status and disability of elderly people have been studied in several European countries including Spain. However, there has been no population-based study incorporating the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework as the basis for assessing disability. The present study reports prevalence rates for mild, moderate, and severe/extreme disability by the domains of activities and participation of the ICF.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Nine populations surveyed in previous prevalence studies contributed probabilistic and geographically defined samples in June 2005. The study sample was composed of 503 subjects aged ≥75 years. We implemented a two-phase screening design using the MMSE and the World Health Organization-Disability Assessment Schedule 2^ndedition (WHO-DAS II, 12 items) as cognitive and disability screening tools, respectively. Participants scoring within the positive range of the disability screening were administered the full WHO-DAS II (36 items; score range: 0-100) assessing the following areas: Understanding and communication, Getting along with people, Life activities, Getting around, Participation in society, and Self-care. Each disability area assessed by WHO-DAS II (36 items) was reported according to the ICF severity ranges (No problem, 0-4; Mild disability, 5-24; Moderate disability, 25-49; Severe/Extreme disability, 50-100).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The age-adjusted disability prevalence figures were: 39.17 ± 2.18%, 15.31 ± 1.61%, and 10.14 ± 1.35% for mild, moderate, and severe/extreme disability, respectively. Severe and extreme disability prevalence in mobility and life activities was three times higher than the average, and highest among women. Sex variations were minimal, although life activities for women of 85 years and over had more severe/extreme disability as compared to men (OR = 5.15 95% CI 3.19-8.32).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Disability is highly prevalent among the Spanish elderly. Sex- and age-specific variations of disability are associated with particular disability domains.</p

Cardiopoietic cell therapy for advanced ischemic heart failure: results at 39 weeks of the prospective, randomized, double blind, sham-controlled CHART-1 clinical trial

Cardiopoietic cells, produced through cardiogenic conditioning of patients' mesenchymal stem cells, have shown preliminary efficacy. The Congestive Heart Failure Cardiopoietic Regenerative Therapy (CHART-1) trial aimed to validate cardiopoiesis-based biotherapy in a larger heart failure cohort

SKA-Phase 1 sensitivity to synchrotron radio emission from multi-TeV Dark Matter candidates

In the era of radio astronomy, the high sensitivity of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) could play a decisive role in the detection of new radio sources. In this work, we study the SKA sensitivity to the synchrotron radio emission expected by the annihilation of TeV DM candidate in the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy. On the one hand, we consider model-independent DM candidates: we find out that with 1000 h of data-taking, SKA1-MID will be able to exclude up to 10 TeV thermal DM candidates that annihilate in W+W− and bb¯ channels. We also study as these constraints improve by including a density enhancement due to a DM-spike associated with an intermediate-mass black hole in Draco. On the other hand, we consider extra-dimensional brane-world DM candidates, dubbed branons. In this specific scenario, SKA allows us to set constraints on the branon parameter space (f , M), where f is related to the coupling of the branon to the Standard Model particles and M is the mass of the branon itself. In particular, we consider two different branon DM candidates. We find out that SKA will be able to set more stringent constraints on the branon DM candidate required in order to fit the AMS-02 data, yet the sensitivity of the instrument should be improved in order to study the branon candidate for the Galactic Centre. Nonetheless, we show that SKA represents - among other detectors - the most promising instrument for multi-wavelength detection of synchrotron radio emission by annihilating multi-TeV DMThis work was partly supported by the projects FIS2014-52837-P (Spanish MINECO) and FIS2016-78859-P (AEI/FEDER, UE). AdlCD acknowledges financial support from projects FPA2 014-53375-C2-1-P Spanish Ministry of Economy and Science, CA15117 CANTATA and CA16104 COST Actions EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020, CSIC I-LINK1019 Project, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Science, University of Cape Town Launching Grants Programme and National Research Foundation grants 99077 2016–2018 (Ref. No. CSUR150628121624), 110966 Ref. No. BS1705-09230233 and the NRF Incentive Funding for Rated Researchers, Ref. No. IFR170131220846. VG’s contribution to this work has been supported by Juan de la Cierva-Formación FJCI-2016-29213 grant, the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación through the grants FPA2015-65929-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE) and IFT Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa SEV-2016-0597, INFN project QGSKY, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and partially by the H2020 CSA Twinning project No. 692194 ORBI-T-WINNINGO. VG thanks S. Camera, D. Gaggero, P. Ullio and the DAMASCO group for useful discussions and also acknowledges the support of the Spanish Red Consolider MultiDark FPA2017-90566-RED

Analysis of branon dark matter and extra-dimensional models with AMS-02

In the context of brane-world extra-dimensional theories, we compute the positron production from branon dark matter annihilations and compare with the AMS-02 data. Three different scenarios have been considered; the first two assume that either pulsars or dark matter may explain separately the whole positron fraction as measured by AMS-02, whereas the third one assumes that a suitable combination of these two contributions is needed. For all of them, exclusion diagrams for the brane mass and the tension of the brane, were obtained. Our analysis has been performed for a minimal, a medium and a maximum diffusion model in one extra dimension for both pseudo-Isothermal and Navarro–Frenk–White dark matter halos. Combined with previous cosmological analyses and experimental data in colliders, constraints here enable us to set further bounds on the parameter space of branons. In particular, in the case when pulsars fit the whole AMS-02 data, we have excluded mass-tension regions for masses and tensions smaller than 60.75 TeV and 8.56 TeV respectively. With regard to the scenario in which AMS-02 data are explained by a combination of dark matter and pulsars, masses and tensions smaller than 27.32 TeV and 3.85 TeV respectively turn out to be excluded. Finally, in the scenario with no pulsar contribution, a branon with a mass 38.1±0.2 TeV and a tension 4.99±0.04 TeV can fit well the experimental data

Analysis of branon dark matter and extra-dimensional models with AMS-02

In the context of brane-world extra-dimensional theories, we compute the positron production from branon dark matter annihilations and compare with the AMS-02 data. Three different scenarios have been considered; the first two assume that either pulsars or dark matter may explain separately the whole positron fraction as measured by AMS-02, whereas the third one assumes that a suitable combination of these two contributions is needed. For all of them, exclusion diagrams for the brane mass and the tension of the brane, were obtained. Our analysis has been performed for a minimal, a medium and a maximum diffusion model in one extra dimension for both pseudo-Isothermal and Navarro–Frenk–White dark matter halos. Combined with previous cosmological analyses and experimental data in colliders, constraints here enable us to set further bounds on the parameter space of branons. In particular, in the case when pulsars fit the whole AMS-02 data, we have excluded mass-tension regions for masses and tensions smaller than 60.75 TeV and 8.56 TeV respectively. With regard to the scenario in which AMS-02 data are explained by a combination of dark matter and pulsars, masses and tensions smaller than 27.32 TeV and 3.85 TeV respectively turn out to be excluded. Finally, in the scenario with no pulsar contribution, a branon with a mass 38.1±0.2 TeV and a tension 4.99±0.04 TeV can fit well the experimental data.In the following work, we compute the positron production from branon dark matter annihilations in order to constrain extra-dimensional theories. By having assumed that the positron fraction measured by AMS-02 is well explained just with astrophysical sources, exclusion diagrams for the branon mass and the tension of the brane, the two parameters characterising the branon phenomenology become possible. Our analysis has been performed for a minimal and a medium diffusion model in one extra dimension for both pseudo-isothermal and Navarro Frenck White dark matter haloes. Our constraints in the dark matter mass candidate range between 200 GeV and 100 TeV. Combined with previous cosmological analyses and experimental data in colliders, it allows us to set bounds on the parameter space of branons. In particular, we have discarded regions in the mass-tension diagram up to a branon mass of 28 TeV for the pseudo-Isothermal prole and minimal diffusion, and 63 TeV for the Navarro-Frenck-White profile and medium diffusion

Tendencias de la Mortalidad en España, 1952-1996. Efecto de la edad, de la cohorte de nacimiento y del periodo de muerte

Proyecto financiado por el Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria FIS 00/306 (EPY 1101/00)En este trabajo pretendemos: 1) actualizar la información sobre tendencias de la mortalidad por cáncer en España; 2) incorporar importantes grupos de causas a este análisis como son las cardiovasculares, neurológicas, procesos transmisibles y causas externas; 3) conocer las tendencias recientes de la mortalidad en España; 4) desarrollar una biblioteca de herramientas que faciliten la aplicación de modelos edad-periodo-cohorte a los datos de incidencia y mortalidad.Índice, Presentación, Introducción, Justificación del uso de modelos edad-período-cohorte en el, Material y métodos, Regresión de Poisson. Modelos edad-período-cohorte, Presentación de resultados, Comentarios generales, Osmond vs Decarli, Causas de mortalidad diferentes de cáncer Homologaciones de causas estudiadas entre las diferentes ediciones de la CIE, Tabla I: Causas o grupo de causas estudiadas, Bibliografía (I) Resultados, Tuberculosis, Enfermedad meningocócica, Septicemia, Cáncer de labio, Cáncer de lengua, Cáncer de glándulas salivares, Cáncer de cavidad bucal, Cáncer de faringe, Cáncer de esófago, Cáncer de estómago Cáncer de intestino delgado, Cáncer de colon y recto, Cáncer de páncreas`, Cáncer de peritoneo, Cáncer de fosas nasales, oído medio y senos, Cáncer de laringe, Cáncer de pulmón, Cáncer de hueso, Cáncer de tejido conjuntivo y otros tejidos blandos, Melanoma maligno cutáneo Otros tumores de la piel, Cáncer de mama en mujeres, Cáncer de útero Cáncer de ovario, Cáncer de otros órganos genitales. Mujeres, Cáncer de próstata, Cáncer de testículo, Cáncer de pene y de otros órganos genitales masculinos, Cáncer de vejiga, Cáncer de riñón y de otros órganos urinarios, Cáncer de sistema nervioso, Cáncer de tiroides Enfermedad de Hodgkin, Linfomas no hodgkinianos, Mieloma múltiple Leucemias, Diabetes mellitus, Psicosis orgánicas senil y presenil Esquizofrenia, Enfermedad de Parkinson, Enfermedad de neurona motora Esclerosis múltiple, Epilepsia, Enfermedad isquémica del corazón Insuficiencia cardíaca, Enfermedad cerebrovacular, Neumonía, Gripe Bronquitis, enfisema y asma, Bronquitis crónica y la no especificada Enfisema, Asma, Cirrosis hepática, Accidentes de tráfico, Envenamiento accidental, Suicidio, Homicidio, Bibliografía (II),Anexo 1. Tasas ajustadas de mortalidad en escala normal y semilogarítmica, Tendencia relativa anual para 1952-1996 y últimos 15 años, 1982-1996, Tasas ajustadas truncadas(0-34, 35-64, >/65), Tasas específicas por grupos de edad, sexo y año (quinquenio), tasas ajustadas y riesgo acumulado 0-74 año