COMORBIDITIES AND SYNDEMICS IN THE COVID-19 AGE: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR BRINGING SEPARATED BRANCHES OF MEDICINE CLOSER TO EACH OTHER

The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a unique disaster has stressed the extreme importance of the three issues for medicine, society and humanity in general: comorbidity, pandemic and syndemic. There are many reasons why the study of comorbidities and syndemics of COVID-19 is of great importance for researchers, clinicians and health policy makers who are responsible for health care organization and funding in a bid to develop more effective and efficient prevention and treatmen t. Thinking about COVID-19 through a syndemics concept and taking biological, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions into account, physicians could be more effective in clinical practice and community-based interventions. The outcome of SARSCoV- 2 infection is determined by the virus-host interaction, with pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 being related to the presence of comorbid diseases. The risk for severe COVID-19 clinical manifestations and death increases with age of patients and comorbidity. General mechanisms of multi-system dysfunction and multi-organ damage reported in COVID-19 are probably related to ubiquitous expression of ACE2 in many tissues and its important role in the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) functioning. Physicians all over the world should be aware of COVID-19 related comorbidities, multisystem disorders and syndemics, as well as treatment and preventive strategies. COVID-19 age is a right time to reconsider the state of science and practice in comorbidity medicine field from the both epistemological and treatment perspective. Comorbidities and multimorbidities are indifferent to medical specializations, so the integrative and complementary medicine is an imperative in the both education and practice. Shifting the paradigm from vertical and mono-morbid interventions to comorbidity, multimorbidity and multi-system disease approaches enhances effectiveness and efficiency of human resources utilization. The aim of this review is to summarize the theoretical concepts and clinical experience and research regarding comorbidity in general, and specifically related to the COVID-19 pandemic, syndemics and infodemic

Ultrasound – An Underutilized Diagnostic Tool For Ventricular Assist Device Driveline Infections

Patients with ventricular assist device (VAD) driveline infections (DLI) have reduced quality of life and increased risk of severe complications, such as sepsis, hemorrhagic or ischemic stroke, and wound infections. The management of VAD patients imposes a significant financial burden due to prolonged in-hospital stays, frequent re-admissions, expensive diagnostics, and the need for antibiotic therapy and/or surgical intervention. There is considerable room for improvement in DLI management, particularly in the early detection and treatment stages. Ultrasound, an easily applicable device available in almost every hospital, offers an unrecognized potential for the early detection of DLI. By increasing awareness about the potential advantages of ultrasound in DLI management, especially in specialized tertiary centers with a high number of VAD patients, this method may contribute to creating valuable databases, establishing recommendations, and improving outcomes

Sex-related Differences In Acute Coronary Care Among Patients With Myocardial Infarction: The Role Of Pre-hospital Delay

Background: We sought to investigate sex-related differences in access to care among patients with myocardial infarction (STEMI) in order to identify gender-related factors associated with outcomes. Methods: We studied 7457 patients enrolled in the ISACS-TC registry 2010-2014 (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01218776). Outcome measures were: inhospital mortality, time delay to call emergency medical services (EMS), home-to-hospital delay using EMS, door-to-needle and door-to-balloon times and the overall time to treatment from symptom onset. Constant variables included in logistic regression analyses were: age, risk factors, severity of clinical presentation, reperfusion therapies, and concurrent acute medications. Time to treatment from symptom onset was used as dummy variable. Results: Women were less likely than men to receive care within the benchmark time for reperfusion therapy (time to treatment from symptom onset 60 min in 70.3% of women vs 29.7% of men. There were no significant differences in door-to-needle (median; 28 min vs 26 min) and door-to-balloon (median: 45 min vs 45 min) times. Major (z >4)determinants of poorer rates of reperfusion therapies included time to treatment from symptom onset >12 hours (adjusted OR: 5.37, CI: 4.58 - 6.31) Killip class > 2 (OR: 1.53, CI: 1.27-1.86) and history of prior heart failure (OR: 2.77, CI, 1.99 to 3.87). After adjustment, women had greater inhospital mortality rates than men (OR: 1.34, CI: 1.01-1.77). Sex differences in in-hospital mortality rates were no longer observed in the cohort, when time to treatment from symptom onset <12 hours was included in the multivariable analysis (OR: 1.31, CI: 0.98 -1.74). Conclusion: Sex differences in outcomes persist among STEMI patients, as fewer women receive timely reperfusion therapy. Pre-hospital delays in women experiencing STEMI remain unacceptably long

Sex-related Differences In Acute Coronary Care Among Patients With Myocardial Infarction: The Role Of Pre-hospital Delay

Background: We sought to investigate sex-related differences in access to care among patients with myocardial infarction (STEMI) in order to identify gender-related factors associated with outcomes. Methods: We studied 7457 patients enrolled in the ISACS-TC registry 2010-2014 (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01218776). Outcome measures were: inhospital mortality, time delay to call emergency medical services (EMS), home-to-hospital delay using EMS, door-to-needle and door-to-balloon times and the overall time to treatment from symptom onset. Constant variables included in logistic regression analyses were: age, risk factors, severity of clinical presentation, reperfusion therapies, and concurrent acute medications. Time to treatment from symptom onset was used as dummy variable. Results: Women were less likely than men to receive care within the benchmark time for reperfusion therapy (time to treatment from symptom onset 60 min in 70.3% of women vs 29.7% of men. There were no significant differences in door-to-needle (median; 28 min vs 26 min) and door-to-balloon (median: 45 min vs 45 min) times. Major (z >4)determinants of poorer rates of reperfusion therapies included time to treatment from symptom onset >12 hours (adjusted OR: 5.37, CI: 4.58 - 6.31) Killip class > 2 (OR: 1.53, CI: 1.27-1.86) and history of prior heart failure (OR: 2.77, CI, 1.99 to 3.87). After adjustment, women had greater inhospital mortality rates than men (OR: 1.34, CI: 1.01-1.77). Sex differences in in-hospital mortality rates were no longer observed in the cohort, when time to treatment from symptom onset <12 hours was included in the multivariable analysis (OR: 1.31, CI: 0.98 -1.74). Conclusion: Sex differences in outcomes persist among STEMI patients, as fewer women receive timely reperfusion therapy. Pre-hospital delays in women experiencing STEMI remain unacceptably long

Heart re-transplantation in Eurotransplant

Internationally 3% of the donor hearts are distributed to re-transplant patients. In Eurotransplant, only patients with a primary graft dysfunction (PGD) within 1 week after heart transplantation (HTX) are indicated for high urgency listing. The aim of this study is to provide evidence for the discussion on whether these patients should still be allocated with priority. All consecutive HTX performed in the period 1981-2015 were included. Multivariate Cox' model was built including: donor and recipient age and gender, ischaemia time, recipient diagnose, urgency status and era. The study population included 18 490 HTX, of these 463 (2.6%) were repeat transplants. The major indications for re-HTX were cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) (50%), PGD (26%) and acute rejection (21%). In a multivariate model, compared with first HTX hazards ratio and 95% confidence interval for repeat HTX were 2.27 (1.83-2.82) for PGD, 2.24 (1.76-2.85) for acute rejection and 1.22 (1.00-1.48) for CAV (P < 0.0001). Outcome after cardiac re-HTX strongly depends on the indication for re-HTX with acceptable outcomes for CAV. In contrast, just 47.5% of all hearts transplanted in patients who were re-transplanted for PGD still functioned at 1-month post-transplant. Alternative options like VA-ECMO should be first offered before opting for acute re-transplantation

Percutaneous coronary intervention in Europe 1992-2003

peer reviewedAims: The purpose of this registry is to collect data on trends in interventional cardiology within Europe. Special interest focuses on relative increases and ratios in newer revascularization approaches and its distribution in different regions in Europe. We report the data of the year 2003 and give an overview of the development of coronary interventions since 1992, when the first data collection was performed. Methods and results: Questionnaires were distributed yearly to delegates of all national societies of cardiology represented in the European Society of Cardiology to collect the case numbers of all local institutions and operators. The overall numbers of coronary angiographies increased from 1992 to 2003 from 684,000 to 1,993,000 (from 1,250 to 3,500 per million inhabitants). The respective numbers for percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI-coronary angioplasty) and coronary stenting procedures increased from 184,000 to 733,000 (from 335 to 1,300) and from 3,000 to 610,000 (from 5 to 1,100), respectively. Germany has been the most active country for the past years with 653,000 angiographies (7,800), 222,000 angioplasties (2,500), and 180,000 stenting procedures (2,200) in 2003. The indication has shifted towards acute coronary syndromes, as demonstrated by raising rates of interventions for acute myocardial infarction over the last decade. The procedures are more readily performed and safer, as shown by increasing rate of “ad hoc” PCI and decreasing need for emergency coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). In 2003, use of drug-eluting stents had further increased. However, an enormous variability is reported with the highest rate in Portugal (55%). Conclusion: Interventional cardiology in Europe is still expanding, mainly but not exclusively due to rapid growth in the eastern European countries. A number of new coronary revascularization procedures introduced over the years have all but disappeared. Only stenting has experienced an exponential growth. The same can be forecast for drug-eluting stenting