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Griffin Albright posted an update 6 months, 1 week ago
The European and American colonoscopy guidelines recommend mandatory photodocumentation of caecal intubation to allow retrospective analysis and improve outcomes. We aim to demonstrate whether photodocumentation of caecal intubation improves colonoscopy outcomes.
We extracted images and procedural data from 317 consecutive colonoscopies. Images were anonymised and reviewed by four expert reviewers who scored their certainty that caecal intubation was achieved. Statistical analysis correlated adequately and inadequately photodocumented cases with polyp detection rate (PDR) and adenoma detection rate (ADR).
The patients’ mean age was 59.4 years and 52% were male. Eighty-one percent were performed by consultant endoscopists and 19% by specialist registrar. Sixty-five percent of these procedures were performed by gastroenterologists and 35% by surgical endoscopists. Fifty-three percent were deemed to have adequately demonstrated photographic evidence of caecal intubation. Statistical analysis comparing adeqtive confidence intervals, this might suggest that a larger sample size could result in significance in favour of photodocumentation of caecal intubation. Future studies would be warranted. However, endoscopists that take more images were more likely to have proven caecal intubation.Isolated defects in the mitochondrial respiratory chain complex II (CII; succinate-ubiquinone oxidoreductase) are extremely rare and mainly result from bi-allelic mutations in one of the nuclear encoded subunits SDHA, SDHB and SDHD, which comprise CII and the assembly CII factor SDHAF1. We report an adolescent female who presented with global developmental delay, intellectual disability and childhood onset progressive bilateral optic atrophy. Whole exome sequencing of the patient and her unaffected parents identified the novel heterozygous de novo variant c.1984C > T in the SDHA gene. Biochemical assessment of CII in the patient’s derived fibroblasts and lymphocytes displayed considerably decreased CII residual activity compared with normal controls, when normalized to the integral mitochondrial enzyme citrate synthase. Protein modeling of the consequent p.Arg662Cys variant suggested that this substitution will compromise the structural integrity of the FAD-binding protein at the C-terminus that will ultimately impair the FAD binding to SDHA, thus decreasing the entire CII activity. Our study emphasizes the role of certain heterozygous SDHA mutations in a distinct clinical phenotype dominated by optic atrophy and neurological impairment. This is the second mutation that has been reported to cause this phenotype. Furthermore, it adds developmental delay and cognitive disability to the expanding spectrum of the disorder. We propose to add SDHA to next generation sequencing gene panels of optic atrophy.Recent evidence highlights the role of adiponectin in the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yielding conflicting results. The aims of this study were (1) To assess the adiponectin levels of children with ASD and typical developing (TP); (2) To investigate the relationship between adiponectin levels and symptom severity of children with ASD. This is a single-center cross-sectional study from China. see more From December 2017 to November 2019, first-diagnosis and drug-naïve children with ASD were included. Same TP children who were matched with clinical groups by gender and age were included as the control group. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit was used to determine serum concentrations of adiponectin. We recorded 176 children (88 were ASD and 88 were TP children) and 77.3% (n = 136) were boys and the mean age was 4.3 years (standard deviations 1.2). The mean (S.D.) levels of adiponectin were 9.01(2.19) and 11.55(2.32) μg/ml for those with ASD and TP subjects. The difference between those two groups was significant (t = 7.169, p less then 0.001). There was a negative correlation between serum levels of adiponectin and Childhood Autism Rating Scale score (r = -0.498, p less then 0.001). At admission, 39 ASD (54.5%) had a minor autism (CARS less then 37). In these children, the mean (S.D.) adiponectin level was higher than that observed in children with moderate-to-severe clinical severity (10.09 vs.8.15 μg/ml, P less then 0.001). This study shows that serum adiponectin. Levels are decreased in ASD when compared with in healthy children. The findings also indicate an inverse association between serum adiponectin levels and severity of symptoms in ASD.The COVID-19 infection has rapidly spread around the world and a second wave is sweeping in many countries. Different clinical and epidemiological aspects characterize the disease and their understanding is necessary to better face the management of the pandemic in progress. The Italian society of arterial hypertension with the SARS-RAS study has contributed significantly to the knowledge of the interaction between inhibition of the renin-angiotensin system and COVID-19 infection. Furthermore, the study results help to understand some of the main aspects related to mortality and morbidity deriving from the infection through a multicentre analysis throughout the national territory.Extending Pieterse’s (1996) tripartite cultural globalization theory consisting of homogenization, hybridization and polarization, the current article outlines a set of exemplifications and justifications of a fourth theoretical underpinning labeled parallelization. The theory implies that at a global scale, crucial events that appear paradoxical or contradictory occur at the same time, such as carbon emissions due to growth-fixated global capitalism, while the causes of carbon emissions lead to greater resilience against the consequences of carbon emissions as wealth accumulates. Other examples discussed are large-scale migration flows which lead to increased segregation in host societies while integration of migrants occur as a parallel process; secularization visa-à-vis the resurgence of religions; clear indications of that the biological component of cognitive abilities decreases due to fertility patterns in many locations around the globe, while the IQ test scores have risen as a consequence of various environmental factors.