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PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Review parenteral therapeutic choices in treatment of hypertensive crises by mechanism of action and summarize recent literature on the management of hypertensive crises. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent data have documented the safety and efficacy of labetalol and nicardipine in treatment of hypertensive crises as well as characterized the hypertensive emergency population to a much greater extent. Based on recent data, hypertensive emergencies are seen in 0.5% of all emergency room visits. Ischemic stroke and heart failure/pulmonary edema are the most common forms of organ damage seen in hypertensive emergencies. There are many therapeutic choices in treatment of hypertensive crises with varied mechanisms of action. Large randomized, controlled trial evidence is lacking in this therapeutic area; however, recent data have documented the safety and efficacy of labetalol and nicardipine.

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BACKGROUND: Concussion is one of the most common injuries in male professional Rugby Union ('rugby') and accounts for significant time loss from training and competition. Despite the most recent Concussion in Sport Group consensus statement recommending a focus on the identification of modifiable risk factors, limited evidence for their existence is available. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between cervical proprioception and concussion incidence in a group of professional male rugby players over the course of a full season. METHODS: 165 players were assessed at pre-, mid- and end of season time points using the Cervical Joint Position Error Test (CJPET). Associations with diagnosed concussion injuries are presented as incidence rate ratios with 95% confidence intervals. We present the Incidence Rate Ratios (IRR) for a 10% increase in each variable and compared results against concussion using match minutes to account for risk exposure. RESULTS: During the study period, 45 concussions were incurred by 44 players [or 19.7 concussions per 1000 player-match hours]. There was a significant association between right rotation repositioning error and concussion, with a 5% increase in concussion rate for each 10% increase in gross right rotation error (P = 0.021). CONCLUSION: Poor gross right rotation repositioning error is a modifiable intrinsic risk factor for concussion in professional male rugby players. Interventions to improve proprioceptive function may act as an effective method for reducing concussion incidence in this population.

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An 82-year-old man with an extensive medical history presented to the emergency room with complaints of generalised weakness and cough. He tested positive for COVID-19 10 days prior to presenting to the emergency room. Although his symptoms started a week prior to diagnosis, his weakness increased, warranting emergency response. A comprehensive metabolic panel was drawn from the patient on admission, indicating markedly high liver function tests (LFTs) ≥20 times above the upper limit of normal. On day 1 of admission, the decision was still made to start remdesivir (5-day course) due to decompensated acute respiratory failure as well as dexamethasone. The patient's LFTs significantly improved throughout his hospital stay. The patient made a full recovery and was discharged on day 10 of hospitalisation.

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A new tomographic inversion technique is presented for the identification of plasma filaments in wide-angle visible camera data. The technique works on the assumption that background subtracted images of filaments can be represented as a superposition of uniformly emitting magnetic equilibrium field lines. A large collection of equilibrium magnetic field lines is traced and projected onto the camera field of view and combined to form a geometry matrix describing the coordinate transformation from magnetic field aligned coordinates to image pixel coordinates. Inverting this matrix enables the reprojection of the emission in the camera images onto a field aligned basis, from which filaments are readily identifiable. The inversion is a poorly conditioned problem which is overcome using a least-squares approach with Laplacian regularization. Blobs are identified using the "watershed" algorithm and 2D Gaussians are fitted to get the positions, widths, and amplitudes of the filaments. A synthetic camera diagnostic generating images containing experimentally representative filaments is utilized to rigorously benchmark the accuracy and reliability of the technique. 74% of synthetic filaments above the detection amplitude threshold are successfully detected, with 98.8% of detected filaments being true positives. The accuracy with which filament properties and their probability density functions are recovered is discussed, along with sources of error and methods to minimize them.

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We report a likely false-positive phencyclidine (PCP) result detected with a urine drug screen (UDS) (Medtox, St Paul, Minnesota, USA) in the setting of therapeutic desvenlafaxine (Pristiq) use. Desvenlafaxine (O-desmethylvenlafaxine) is the active metabolite of venlafaxine (Effexor). Prior reports have confirmed venlafaxine use resulting in a false-positive for PCP on a UDS. However, there has been a paucity of reporting of commercially available desvenlafaxine formulations (Pristiq, Khedezla) resulting in false-positives for PCP on a UDS.

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UNLABELLED: Healthcare is becoming more complex and costly in both European (Slovak) and American models. Healthcare in the United States (U.S.) is undergoing a particularly dramatic change. Physician and hospital reimbursement are becoming less procedure focused and increasingly outcome focused. Efforts at Mercy Hospital have shown promise in terms of collaborative team based care improving performance on glucose control outcome metrics, linked to reimbursement. Our performance on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) post-operative glucose control metric for cardiac surgery patients increased from a 63.6% pass rate to a 95.1% pass rate after implementing interventions involving physician-pharmacist team based care.Having a multidisciplinary team that is able to adapt quickly to changing expectations in the healthcare environment has aided our institution. As healthcare becomes increasingly saturated with technology, data and quality metrics, collaborative efforts resulting in increased quality and physician efficiency are desirable. CONCLUSION: Multidisciplinary collaboration (including physician-pharmacist collaboration) appears to be a viable route to improved performance in an outcome based healthcare system (Fig. 2, Ref. 12).

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BACKGROUND: Medication discrepancies may occur at transitions in care and negatively impact patient outcomes. OBJECTIVE: To determine if involving clinical pharmacists in hospital care, medication reconciliation and discharge medication plan communication can reduce medication discrepancies with a prospective, randomized, blinded, controlled trial. SETTING: A large, tertiary care, academic medical center. METHOD: The intervention consisted of clinical pharmacist medication reconciliation, patient education and improved communication of the discharge medication plan, as devised by the hospital physician and care team, to primary care physicians and community pharmacists. Medication discrepancies were identified by blinded research pharmacists who reviewed primary care physician and pharmacy records at discharge through 90 days post-discharge to create 30- and 90-day medication lists. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Rate of medication discrepancies compared across groups. RESULTS: A total of 592 subjects from internal medicine, family medicine, cardiology and orthopedic services were evaluated for this study. Clinically important medication discrepancies in the primary care physician record were different between groups 30 days after hospital discharge following a clinical pharmacist's intervention. The mean number of medication discrepancies per patient for the enhanced group being nearly half the number in the control group. However, this effect did not persist to 90 days post-discharge and did not extend to community pharmacy records. CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrates the involvement of pharmacists in hospital care, medication reconciliation and discharge medication plan communication may affect the quality of the outpatient medical record.

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PURPOSE: The effect of hospital pharmacists' enhanced communication with patients and community providers on the underutilization of key cardiovascular medications was studied. METHODS: Patients enrolled in the Iowa Continuity of Care study were eligible for inclusion in this study if they had a diagnosis of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, heart failure, coronary artery disease, or a combination of these diagnoses. Eligible patients also had to be admitted to the internal medicine, family medicine, cardiology, or orthopedics services and receive their usual medical care in the community and their prescriptions from a community pharmacy. Patients were randomized to receive minimal intervention, enhanced intervention, or usual care. For the minimal- and enhanced-intervention groups, pharmacy case managers (PCMs) performed comprehensive medication reconciliations and identified drug-related problems within 24 hours of admission. The PCMs made recommendations to the inpatient care team and to patients' community physicians. For patients in the enhanced-intervention group, the PCM developed a discharge care plan containing the patient's discharge medication list. PCMs made specific recommendations to optimize regimens that did not meet current guidelines or medications that were underutilized. Medication underutilization was assessed at admission, discharge, 30 days after discharge, and 90 days after discharge. RESULTS: A total of 732 patients were enrolled in this study. There were no significant differences among the three study groups. Overall, the rate of underutilization remained constant among all three groups, despite enhanced pharmacist involvement in both intervention groups. CONCLUSION: Enhanced interventions by PCMs had no effect on the underutilization of key cardiovascular drugs during hospitalization or after hospital discharge.

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PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Inadequately controlled blood pressure is considered an important risk factor for both chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression and cardiovascular disease progression in CKD patients. Patients with CKD and hypertension are typically followed in primary care practice settings and blood pressure is not controlled in a sizeable proportion. This review will focus on the evidence which demonstrates the important role of the pharmacist in collaboration with physicians within primary care practices to improve blood pressure management in CKD patients. RECENT FINDINGS: Several lines of evidence show that pharmacists working in collaboration with primary care physicians can improve blood pressure management as compared with usual care with a physician alone. The major effects of pharmacist intervention are to intensify antihypertensive regimens and improve medication adherence. SUMMARY: Currently, hypertension is not well controlled in a significant proportion of individuals with CKD. Recent studies in the CKD population support evidence from the general population that pharmacists as part of the collaborative care team improves blood pressure management. Research is needed to demonstrate cost-effectiveness of collaborative care models in management of hypertension and other comorbid conditions in CKD patients.

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In 2005, a clinical trial in South Africa found that circumcision of young men could reduce their risk of acquiring HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection by over 60%. In the following year, two more trials in Africa confirmed this finding, leading the World Health Organization to recommend male circumcision as a public health strategy for HIV prevention in high-incidence countries. In order to inform public health policy in Papua New Guinea (PNG), two major research projects were initiated with the goals of investigating the status of penile cutting practices and assessing understandings, acceptability, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of male circumcision for HIV prevention. In addition, behavioural surveillance surveys systematically asked questions on penile cutting practices and an ethnographic literature review informed historical perspectives of penile cutting in PNG. Key findings from these research activities were presented at a National Policy Forum on Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention held in Port Moresby in November 2011. The Forum made three key recommendations: (1) the formation of a joint National Department of HealthlNational AIDS Council Secretariat Policy Committee on male circumcision; (2) the establishment of an integrated harm reduction program; and (3) that future policy on wide-scale roll-out of male circumcision for HIV prevention in PNG be informed by a combination of data from (a) male circumcision intervention pilot programs and (b) research on the potential protective effect of other forms of penile cutting.

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Human behaviour can be viewed as a collective phenomenon, determined partly by the group to which individuals belong. Collectivities of health behaviour have been found in alcohol consumption, hypertension, obesity, mental illness, and sodium intake in that the average level of risk is associated with the percentage of individuals at extremely high risk.The goal was to investigate whether sexual behaviour may be collectively determined. A cross-sectional US survey was conducted. Across 45 states, the mean number of lifetime sex partners excluding persons with >10, >20, and >40 lifetime partners was strongly associated with the proportion with >10, > 20 and > 40 lifetime sex partners, respectively, among men and women. Sexual activity may represent collectively determined behaviour. If so, interventions to reduce high-risk sexual behaviour to prevent HIV or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) may be more effective if they address the entire population, rather than target only those at the extremes of risk.

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Salmonellosis is the leading cause of death caused by foodborne bacterial pathogens in the United States. Approximately 90% of salmonella infections are sporadic, but most of what is known about salmonellosis has come from outbreak investigations. We studied the risk for sporadic salmonellosis among 115 persons aged > or = 15 years reported to the Louisiana Office of Public Health during May 1998-April 1999, compared with 115 age-matched controls. Significantly more case-patients than controls had chronic underlying medical conditions [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 4.3; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.2-8.7]. Although reported consumption of specific food items likely to contain salmonella was not associated with illness, inconsistent handwashing between preparation of meat and non-meat items was associated with illness (aOR = 8.3; CI = 1.1-61.8). Enhanced measures to provide a consistently safe food supply and promote safer food preparation in households will depend on prevention of sporadic salmonellosis.

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Despite increasing use of folate prior to conception, neural tube defects remain among the most common birth defects in the United States. The Study objective was to investigate the maternal and child characteristics associated with having an infant born with a neural tube defect (NTD) in Colorado between 1989 and 1998. Data were derived from a population-based case control study of all live-born infants in Colorado from 1989 to 1998 (n=551,285), utilizing birth certificate records and a statewide neural tube defect registry. Chi-square analysis and multiple logistic regression were used to assess the strength of association between sociodemographic characteristics and the main outcome measure, the birth of a child with an NTD. Final analysis was limited to those children born to mothers who themselves were born in either the United States or Mexico. In this ten-year period, there were 251 confirmed cases of NTDs in Colorado, 224 of whom were born to women who were born in either the United States or Mexico. Significant bivariate associations were found between NTDs and the following: female sex of the child, lower maternal age, maternal country of birth in Mexico, and maternal education less than tenth grade. The single strongest predictor of having a child with an NTD was low maternal education (adjusted OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.1-3.1). Low maternal education is an important predictor of having a child with an NTD. In order to further reduce the incidence of neural tube defects, interventions should target women of low educational status.

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Complete avoidance of breast-feeding is the surest way to avoid mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV through breast-feeding, but replacement feeding exposes infants, especially those born in developing countries, to the risk of other infectious diseases with consequent increase in morbidity and mortality. One study has suggested that exclusive breast-feeding during the first months of life carries a lower risk of HIV transmission than when other foods are given in addition to breast milk. Other studies have provided limited data on the risks of HIV transmission according to different patterns of breast-feeding, but studies have used different definitions of breast-feeding patterns and have analysed their data with adjustment on different risk factors. This hampers our ability to understand the mechanisms underlying HIV transmission through breast milk and the risks associated with different infant feeding practices. Consequently it is difficult to determine the best interventions to reduce the risk of transmission and the development of optimal policies. In collaboration with research teams involved with infant feeding research, the World Health Organization has developed a tool to assist studies on MTCTto collect information in a standardized manner, using common definitions and terms. The purpose is to facilitate comparisons between studies and the quantification of the risks of transmission according to various feeding patterns, after adjusting for potential confounding variables. The tool includes a core questionnaire to record infant feeding practices and other key information on the mother's and the infant's health. It also provides guidance on methods of analysis and presentation of the complex data on infant feeding. The tool can be used in prospective research studies on MTCT prevention, as well as providing the framework to assess infant feeding patterns in intervention programmes, such as those providing intensive counselling to mothers on infant feeding. The tool will facilitate the compilation of information from these studies which will ultimately provide scientific basis for updating guidelines and policies on infant feeding by mothers infected with HIV.

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