Tag: pubmed

Arq Bras Cardiol. 2021 Sep;117(3):531-541. doi: 10.36660/abc.20200353.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Risk stratification remains clinically challenging in patients with heart failure (HF) of non-ischemic etiology. Galectin-3 is a serum marker of fibrosis that might help in prognostication.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the role of galectin-3 as a predictor of major arrhythmic events and overall mortality.

METHODS: We conducted a prospective cohort study that enrolled 148 non-ischemic HF patients. All patients underwent a comprehensive baseline clinical and laboratory assessment, including levels of serum galectin-3. The primary outcome was the occurrence of arrhythmic syncope, appropriate implantable cardioverter defibrillator therapy, sustained ventricular tachycardia, or sudden cardiac death. The secondary outcome was all-cause death. For all statistical tests, a two-tailed p-value<0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS: In a median follow-up of 941 days, the primary and secondary outcomes occurred in 26 (17.5%) and 30 (20%) patients, respectively. Serum galectin-3>22.5 ng/mL (highest quartile) did not predict serious arrhythmic events (HR: 1.98, p=0.152). Independent predictors of the primary outcome were left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD)>73mm (HR: 3.70, p=0.001), exercise periodic breathing (EPB) on cardiopulmonary exercise testing (HR: 2.67, p=0.01), and non-sustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT)>8 beats on Holter monitoring (HR: 3.47, p=0.027). Predictors of all-cause death were galectin-3>22.5 ng/mL (HR: 3.69, p=0.001), LVEDD>73mm (HR: 3.35, p=0.003), EPB (HR: 3.06, p=0.006), and NSVT>8 beats (HR: 3.95, p=0.007). The absence of all risk predictors was associated with a 91.1% negative predictive value for the primary outcome and 96.6% for total mortality.

CONCLUSIONS: In non-ischemic HF patients, elevated galectin-3 levels did not predict major arrhythmic events but were associated with total mortality. Absence of risk predictors revealed a prevalent subgroup of HF patients with an excellent prognosis.

PMID:34550239 | DOI:10.36660/abc.20200353

An Acad Bras Cienc. 2021 Sep 20;93(suppl 3):e20200860. doi: 10.1590/0001-3765202120200860. eCollection 2021.

ABSTRACT

The use of agrochemicals in agriculture may impact aquatic ecosystems, particularly influencing the stream insect communities. Among aquatic insects, the family Chironomidae is the most abundant and species-diverse insect group found in freshwater ecosystems. However, in the southern hemisphere, studies with Chironomidae are still sparse, compared to Europe and North America. The present study evaluates the responses of Chironomidae species (Insecta: Diptera) to pyrimethanil fungicide in a mesocosm experiment. Water contamination and chironomid community were monitored over 10 months. After five months of monitoring, the pyrimethanil fungicide was completely degraded and there was a statistically significant increase in the Margalef Richness and Shannon-Wiener Index (H’) in the control units when compared with the contaminated mesocosms (p = 0.003). Our results point out that the utilization of agrochemicals can be a harmful factor influencing negatively the Chironomidae populations. This finding has key implications for insect conservation strategies and ecological management environments.

PMID:34550199 | DOI:10.1590/0001-3765202120200860

Codas. 2021 Sep 17;33(4):e20200106. doi: 10.1590/2317-1782/20202020106. eCollection 2021.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This study investigated the self-perception of 49 women, monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, about their tongue position for the alveolar articulation of the fricatives [s] and [z].

METHODS: The video recording of speech samples of these 49 women (ages 18 to 28) were analyzed by three Speech-Language Pathologists. They were classified into two groups: Group 1 (G1, n=25), with no alterations in the tongue position during the production of [s] and [z], and Group 2 (G2, n=24), with alterations in the tongue position during the production of [s] and [z]. The tongue position self-perception experiment required the participants to identify the specific tongue constriction point in the production of [s] and [z] (apical, laminal, or “other”) during the reading of 24 words and 24 pseudowords. The Friedman test, with posterior paired comparisons, was used for the intragroup analysis. The Mann-Whitney test was used for intergroup comparisons. The statistical significance adopted was 5% (p<0.05).

RESULTS: G1 reported apical and laminal tongue constrictions while GE reported these constrictions plus other tongue adjustments. The presence of other tongue adjustments differentiated the groups, G1 and G2 (p=0,002). There were significant differences between [s] and [z] for G1, with the laminal position occurring more often in [s] compared to [z].

CONCLUSION: Women with and without alteration in the tongue position reported apical and laminal constrictions. Howerer, other tongue adjustments were self-perceived in the presence of altered tongue position.

PMID:34550214 | DOI:10.1590/2317-1782/20202020106

Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2021 Aug;79(8):676-681. doi: 10.1590/0004-282X-ANP-2020-0053.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects food intake as the disease progresses. The assessment of nutritional status is essential to identify early nutritional deficits.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the nutritional status and food intake of patients diagnosed with PD.

METHODS: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional, and quantitative study. A structured questionnaire with restricted questions was applied to identify the sociodemographic profile and anthropometric measurements were taken. To evaluate the disease stage, the modified Hoehn & Yahr scale was used. Food intake was evaluated using the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). The acquired information was organized in the Microsoft Office Excel 2010 program and statistical analysis was performed using the BioEstat 5.3 program.

RESULTS: The research was carried out with 40 patients; the majority was male (60%), over 60 years old (52.5%), single (55%), with a high school degree (42.5%), retirees (80%), and receiving one minimum salary (42.5%). Most were classified with eutrophic (42.5%) and overweight (42.5%). About food consumption, the most common foods were banana (60%), fish (52.5%), acerola (45%), and orange (32%). Among the high-risk foods, red meat (82.5%), fried foods (30%), heavy cream (25%), and filled sandwich cookies (25%) were the most common.

CONCLUSIONS: Most patients had a high consumption of red meat and processed foods, with relevant consumption of some fruits and low consumption of grains and oilseeds. The disease stage was not associated with nutritional status.

PMID:34550185 | DOI:10.1590/0004-282X-ANP-2020-0053

Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2021 Aug;79(8):716-723. doi: 10.1590/0004-282X-ANP-2020-0032.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Peripheral neural surgical decompression (PNSD) is used as a complementary therapy to the clinical treatment of neuritis to preserve neural function.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the long-term (≥ 1 year) clinical and functional results for PNSD in leprosy neuritis.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study included leprosy patients who were in late postoperative period (LPO) of surgical decompression of ulnar, median, tibial, and fibular nerves. Socioeconomic, epidemiological, and clinical data were collected. The following instruments were used in this evaluation: visual analogue pain scale (VAS), Douleur Neuropathique en 4 Questions (DN4), SALSA scale, and simplified neurological assessment protocol. The preoperative (PrO) and 180-day postoperative (PO180) results were compared.

RESULTS: We evaluated 246 nerves from 90 patients: 56.6% were on multidrug therapy (MDT) and 43.3% discharged from MDT. Motor scores and pain intensity showed statistically significant improvement (p<0.01). There was an increase in sensory scores only for bilateral ulnar nerves (p<0.05). Of the operated cases, 26.0% of patients were referred for surgery of ulnar neuritis and 23.6% of tibial neuritis. Neuropathic pain was reported in 41% of cases. Daily dose of prednisone reduced from 39.6 mg (±3.0) in PrO, 16.3 mg (±5.2) in PO180, to 1.7 mg (±0.8) in LPO. The SALSA scale results showed mild activity limitation in 51% and moderate in 34% of patients. Eighty percent of individuals reported that the results reached their expectations.

CONCLUSIONS: PNSD in leprosy was effective in the long term to decrease the prevalence and intensity of pain, improve motor function, and reduce the dose of corticosteroids, which is reflected in the patients’ satisfaction.

PMID:34550184 | DOI:10.1590/0004-282X-ANP-2020-0032

Arq Bras Cardiol. 2021 Sep 20:S0066-782X2021005015201. doi: 10.36660/abc.20200186. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Recent epidemiological studies have shown that alterations in microbiota and its metabolites are associated with systemic arterial hypertension. Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is one of the most common bacterial pathogens, and the potential association between H. pylori infection and hypertension are controversial.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to clarify their association and provide a new theoretical basis for uncovering the pathogenesis of hypertension.

METHODS: Case-control and cross-sectional studies on the association between H. pylori and hypertension published from 1996 to 2019 indexed in PubMed, Google Scholar, Chinese Wan Fang Data, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The pooled odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated. I2 was performed to evaluate the statistical heterogeneity. Publication bias was evaluated using Begg’s and Egger’s test. The extracted data was analyzed in Stata 12.0. Statistical significance was defined as p-value < 0.05.

RESULTS: A total of 17 studies involving 6,376 cases of hypertension and 10,850 controls were enrolled. H. pylori infection rate in hypertension patients and controls were 64.9% and 56.3%, respectively. A significantly positive association was shown between H. pylori infection and hypertension with an overall OR of 2.07 (95% CI: 1.46-2.94; p < 0.05). Subgroup analysis revealed that the prevalence of H. pylori infection was associated with hypertension in the region of Asia and the case-control group, ORs (95% CI) were 2.26 (1.51-3.38) and 2.53 (1.72-3.72), respectively. After stratifying by detection methods, differences still existed in subgroups (all p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis indicated that H. pylori infection is positively associated with hypertension.

PMID:34550168 | DOI:10.36660/abc.20200186

Arq Bras Cardiol. 2021 Sep 20:S0066-782X2021005015203. doi: 10.36660/abc.20200963. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with cardiovascular clinical manifestations, including cardiac arrhythmias.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the incidence of cardiac arrhythmias (atrial tachyarrhythmia, bradyarrhythmia, and sustained ventricular tachycardia) and cardiac arrest (CA) in a cohort of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in a tertiary university-affiliated hospital.

METHODS: Cohort study with retrospective analysis of electronic medical records. For comparison between groups, a value of p <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS: We included 241 consecutive patients diagnosed with COVID-19 (mean age, 57.8 ± 15.0 years; 51.5% men; 80.5% white), 35.3% of whom received invasive mechanical ventilation (MV). The overall mortality was 26.6%, being 58.8% among those on MV. Cardiac arrhythmias were identified in 8.7% of the patients, the most common being atrial tachyarrhythmia (76.2%). Patients with arrhythmias had higher mortality (52.4% versus 24.1%, p = 0.005). On multivariate analysis, only the presence of heart failure (HF) was associated with a higher risk of arrhythmias (hazard ratio, 11.9; 95% CI: 3.6-39.5; p <0.001). During hospitalization, 3.3% of the patients experienced CA, with a predominance of non-shockable rhythms. All patients experiencing CA died during hospitalization.

CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of cardiac arrhythmias in patients admitted with COVID-19 to a Brazilian tertiary hospital was 8.7%, and atrial tachyarrhythmia was the most common. Presence of HF was associated with an increased risk of arrhythmias. Patients with COVID-19 experiencing CA have high mortality.

PMID:34550170 | DOI:10.36660/abc.20200963

An Acad Bras Cienc. 2021 Sep 17;93(4):e20190316. doi: 10.1590/0001-3765202120190316. eCollection 2021.

ABSTRACT

The interpretation of odds ratios (OR) as prevalence ratios (PR) in cross-sectional studies have been criticized since this equivalence is not true unless under specific circumstances. The logistic regression model is a very well known statistical tool for analysis of binary outcomes and frequently used to obtain adjusted OR. Here, we introduce the prLogistic for the R statistical computing environment which can be obtained from The Comprehensive R Archive Network, https://cran.r-project.org/package=prLogistic. The package prLogistic was built to assist the estimation of PR via logistic regression models adjusted by delta method and bootstrap for analysis of independent and correlated binary data. Two applications are presented to illustrate its use for analysis of independent observations and data from clustered studies.

PMID:34550162 | DOI:10.1590/0001-3765202120190316

An Acad Bras Cienc. 2021 Sep 17;93(4):e20190586. doi: 10.1590/0001-3765202120190586. eCollection 2021.

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a new three-parameter lifetime model called the Topp-Leone odd log-logistic exponential distribution is proposed. Its density function can be expressed as a linear mixture of exponentiated exponential densities and can be reversed-J shaped, skewed to the left and to the right. Further, the hazard rate function of the new model can be monotone, unimodal, constant, J-shaped, constant-increasing-decreasing and decreasing-increasing-decreasing and bathtub-shaped. Our main focus is on estimation from a frequentist point of view, yet, some statistical and reliability characteristics for the proposed model are derived. We briefly describe different estimators namely, the maximum likelihood estimators, ordinary least-squares estimators, weighted least-squares estimators, percentile estimators, maximum product of spacings estimators, Cramér-von-Mises minimum distance estimators, Anderson-Darling estimators and right-tail Anderson-Darling estimators. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to compare the performance of the proposed methods of estimation for both small and large samples. We illustrate the performance of the proposed distribution by means of two real data sets and both the data sets show the new distribution is more appropriate as compared to some other well-known distributions.

PMID:34550163 | DOI:10.1590/0001-3765202120190586

Soft Matter. 2021 Sep 22;17(36):8343-8353. doi: 10.1039/d1sm00891a.

ABSTRACT

Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) is a powerful mesoscopic modelling technique that is routinely used to predict complex fluid morphology and structural properties. While its ability to quickly scan the conformational space is well known, it is unclear if DPD can correctly calculate the viscosity of complex fluids. In this work, we estimate the viscosity of several unentangled polymer solutions using both the Einstein and Green-Kubo formulas. For this purpose, an Einstein relation is derived analogous to the revised Green-Kubo formula suggested by Jung and Schmid, J. Chem. Phys., 2016, 144, 204104. We show that the DPD simulations reproduce the dynamical behaviour predicted by the theory irrespectively of the values of the conservative and friction parameters used and estimate a Schmidt number compatible to that of a fluid system. Moreover, we observe that the Einstein method requires shorter trajectories to achieve the same statistical accuracy as the Green-Kubo formula. This work shows that DPD can confidently be used to calculate the viscosity of complex fluids and that the statistical accuracy of short trajectories can be improved by using our revised Einstein formula.

PMID:34550156 | DOI:10.1039/d1sm00891a