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Reeves Anker posted an update 6 hours, 49 minutes ago
RESULTS The mean age of participants was 36.5 ± 7.9 years. In the fully adjusted model, men in the top quintile of legume and nut consumption were 66% less likely to be anxious than those in the bottom quintile (OR 0.34; 95% CI 0.14-0.82). However, such significant relationship was not observed among women (OR 1.06; 95% CI 0.63-1.77). We failed to find any other significant association between legume and nut consumption and depression or psychological distress after adjustment for potential confounders either in men or women. CONCLUSIONS We found that consumption of legume and nuts was associated with lower odds of anxiety in men, but not in women. No other significant association was seen among participants. Legume and nut consumption might be promising and, along with medications, could be used to prevent, control or delay psychological disorders.PURPOSE Many patients diagnosed with advanced cancer have malignant pleural effusion that does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. These patients often have respiratory symptoms, especially dyspnea. In order to relieve these symptoms, various procedures including chemical pleurodesis have been performed. Although talc is the most widely used and effective sclerosing agent, there it has various adverse effects. The objective of this study was to determine whether Viscum (ABNOVA Viscum® Fraxini Injection, manufactured by ABNOVA GmbH, Germany) could be used as an agent to replace talc in clinical practice. METHODS Data of 56 patients with malignant pleural effusion who received chemical pleurodesis after tube thoracostomy from January 2003 to December 2017 were retrospectively reviewed to analyze clinical course and response after pleurodesis with each agent. RESULTS After pleurodesis, changes in numeric rating scale (NRS) was 1.4 ± 1.6 in the talc group and 0.5 ± 1.5 in the Viscum group (p = 0.108). Changes in white blood cell counts after pleurodesis were 4154.8 ± 6710.7 in the talc group and 3487.3 ± 6067.7 in the Viscum group (p = 0.702). Changes in C-reactive protein (CRP) were 9.03 ± 6.86 in the talc group and 6.3 ± 7.5 in the Viscum group (p = 0.366). The success rate of pleurodesis was 93.3% in the talc group and 96% in the Viscum group (p = 0.225). CONCLUSION Viscum pleurodesis showed comparable treatment results with talc pleurodesis while its adverse effects such as chest pain and fever tended to be relatively weak.PURPOSE The use of mobile health (mHealth) technologies to augment patient care enables providers to communicate remotely with patients enhancing the quality of care and patient engagement. Few studies evaluated predictive factors of its acceptance and subsequent implementation, especially in medically underserved populations. METHODS A cross-sectional study of 151 cancer patients was conducted at an academic medical center in the USA. A trained interviewer performed structured interviews regarding the barriers and facilitators of patients’ current and desired use of mHealth technology for healthcare services. RESULTS Of the 151 participants, 35.8% were male and ages ranged from 21 to 104 years. 73.5% of participants currently have daily access to internet, and 68.2% currently own a smartphone capable of displaying mobile applications. Among all participants, acceptability of a daily mHealth application was significantly higher in patients with a college-level degree (OR 2.78, CI95% 1.25-5.88) and lower in patients > 80 years of age (OR 0.05, CI95% 0.01-0.23). Differences in acceptability when adjusted for current smartphone use and daily access to internet were nonsignificant. Among smartphone users, the desire to increase cancer knowledge was associated with a higher likelihood of utilizing a mHealth application (OR 261.53, CI95% 10.13-6748.71). CONCLUSION The study suggests that factors such as age, educational achievement, and access to internet are significant predictors of acceptability of a mHealth application among cancer patients. Healthcare organizations should consider these factors when launching patient engagement platforms.PURPOSE A large number of AML patients present with infection at the time of initial presentation in Indian settings. There is lack of published data on the proportion of patients with infection at initial presentation and its impact on induction mortality. METHODS A retrospective audit of patients with newly diagnosed AML more than 14 years of age, who underwent standard induction chemotherapy between the periods of January 2011 to December 2018, was done. Infection at presentation if any was documented. Induction mortality was defined as death happening within 28 days of starting induction chemotherapy. RESULTS Among a total of 315 cases of AML, 96 (30%) patients underwent induction chemotherapy with 7 + 3 regimen. bpV manufacturer Documented infection at baseline was present in 30 (31%) of patients. Another 10 patients had fever at the time of presentation but without any documented infection focus. Fifteen patients died within 4 weeks of induction amounting to induction mortality of 15.6%. Induction mortality was 28% among patients with infection at baseline compared with 7% without baseline infections (P = 0.01). CONCLUSION Around 40% of patients had fever at the time of presentation, and 31% had documented infections. Baseline infections led to increase in induction mortality. We would like to propose that infection at baseline is to be considered as one of the potential variables in the predictive scoring system for induction mortality in developing countries.Copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) have been extensively explored for use in agriculture. Previous studies have indicated that application of CuO NPs might be promising for development and conservation of plants, pest control, and for the recovery of degraded soils. However, depending on the applied concentration copper can cause phytotoxic effects. In this work, biosynthesized CuO NPs (using green tea extract) were evaluated on their effects on lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) seedling growth, which were exposed at concentrations ranged between 0.2 and 300 μg mL-1. From the biosynthesized were obtained ultra-small CuO NPs (~ 6.6 nm), with high stability in aqueous suspension. Toxicity bioassays have shown that at low concentrations (up to 40 μg mL-1), CuO NPs did not affect or even enhanced the seed germination. At higher concentrations (higher than 40 μg mL-1), inhibition of seed germination and radicle growth ranging from 35 to 75% was observed. With the increase of CuO NPs concentrations, nitrite and S-nitrosothiols levels in radicles increased, whereas superoxide dismutase and total antioxidant activities decreased.