Cryptogenic stroke

Although in the last few years emerging conventional and unconventional radiological and laboratory techniques have shed light on different pathophysiologic causes of stroke, nowadays almost 25% of ischemic strokes results of undetermined etiology. Different diagnostic criteria have been developed to define cryptogenic stroke and to establish its prevalence in stroke units. Different studies tried to unravel mechanisms of cryptogenic stroke and to evaluate adequate primary and secondary preventive measures, but standardized diagnostic and therapeutic strategies are still missing. In this review we report the most relevant updated notions in cryptogenic stroke providing an overview of the definition, the recommendations for diagnostic evaluation and the updated treatment strategies for secondary prevention

Complexity in internal medicine wards: A novel screening method and implications for management

Rationale: Complexity is increasingly recognized as a critical variable in health care. However, there is still lack of practical tools to assess it and tackle the challenges that stem from it, particularly within hospitals. Aims and objective: To validate a simple novel screening method based on both objective and subjective criteria to identify patients with clinically complex hospitalization events. To evaluate the prevalence of patients with complex events, identify their features, and compare them with those of the other patients and to those of patients with multimorbidities. Method: We monitored the level of complexity of the hospitalization events of 240 patients admitted to an internal medicine ward in Tuscany over the course of 56 days. We compared the demographic features, the length of stay, and the prognosis of patients with and without complex events. Results: Sixty-nine patients (28.8% of the sample) had a complex episode during their stay, and 115 (47.9%) had phases of low complexity. Patients with complex episodes were younger and more comorbid than patients without. They stayed longer in-hospital (+4.5 days; 95% CI: 2.5-6.5) and had higher mortality (OR: 24.93; 95% CI: 6.97-171.63) and a lower probability of home discharge (OR: 0.25; 95% CI: 0.13-0.48). Conclusions: The results show that using a simple screening method is possible to identify complex patients within IM wards and that every day, about one-third of the patients are complex. The results are discussed in implications for the dynamic management of patients with complex and simple phases during hospitalization

A round robin experiment of elemental sensitivity factors in low-energy ion scattering

In a round robin experiment a set of five polycrystalline, metallic samples is studied by low-energy ion scattering (LEIS) in five different laboratories, The energy range is 0.6-3.5 keV and He and Ne ions are used. Even though different experimental setups are used the evaluated elemental sensitivity factors agree within +/-20%. Reproducibility within single laboratories is better than 10%. In an additional study carried out in three laboratories the surface composition of an alloy, Cu55Pd45, was determined, using in situ calibration standards, These surface composition measurements agreed within +/-3 at% demonstrating that quantitative composition determination is possible using this procedure. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Tocilizumab for patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. The single-arm TOCIVID-19 prospective trial

BackgroundTocilizumab blocks pro-inflammatory activity of interleukin-6 (IL-6), involved in pathogenesis of pneumonia the most frequent cause of death in COVID-19 patients.MethodsA multicenter, single-arm, hypothesis-driven trial was planned, according to a phase 2 design, to study the effect of tocilizumab on lethality rates at 14 and 30 days (co-primary endpoints, a priori expected rates being 20 and 35%, respectively). A further prospective cohort of patients, consecutively enrolled after the first cohort was accomplished, was used as a secondary validation dataset. The two cohorts were evaluated jointly in an exploratory multivariable logistic regression model to assess prognostic variables on survival.ResultsIn the primary intention-to-treat (ITT) phase 2 population, 180/301 (59.8%) subjects received tocilizumab, and 67 deaths were observed overall. Lethality rates were equal to 18.4% (97.5% CI: 13.6-24.0, P=0.52) and 22.4% (97.5% CI: 17.2-28.3, P<0.001) at 14 and 30 days, respectively. Lethality rates were lower in the validation dataset, that included 920 patients. No signal of specific drug toxicity was reported. In the exploratory multivariable logistic regression analysis, older age and lower PaO2/FiO2 ratio negatively affected survival, while the concurrent use of steroids was associated with greater survival. A statistically significant interaction was found between tocilizumab and respiratory support, suggesting that tocilizumab might be more effective in patients not requiring mechanical respiratory support at baseline.ConclusionsTocilizumab reduced lethality rate at 30 days compared with null hypothesis, without significant toxicity. Possibly, this effect could be limited to patients not requiring mechanical respiratory support at baseline.Registration EudraCT (2020-001110-38); clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04317092)

Correction to: Tocilizumab for patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. The single-arm TOCIVID-19 prospective trial (Journal of Translational Medicine, (2020), 18, 1, (405), 10.1186/s12967-020-02573-9)

Following publication of the original article [1] the authors identified that the collaborators of the TOCIVID-19 investigators, Italy were only available in the supplementary file. The original article has been updated so that the collaborators are correctly acknowledged. For clarity, all collaborators are listed in this correction article