BackgroundThe aim of our study was to assess current practice patterns and attitudes towards diagnosis and management of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients in Latin America.MethodsA Cross-sectional survey was developed and up to 455 physicians were enrolled. We used a rigorous method of validation using the translated version of the AIR Survey.ResultsMean age was 47.5 years (SD 12.6) with 20.4 years (SD 12.3) of practice. In around 30% of physicians were reported access to radiologist, pathologist and multidisciplinary team. Despite almost all physicians reported that (ATS/ERS/JRS/ALAT) guidelines are useful, half of them prescribed corticoids for treatment of disease. Most respondents (69.9%) reported cough as the presenting symptom. Around 80% considered IPF to be an important clinical disorder, and felt that identifying patients at risk for IPF was important or extremely important. However, only 59.7% felt confident in managing patients with IPF, and similar numbers (60.8%) felt confident about their knowledge. Pulmonologist have more confidence and management of IPF that no pulmonologist.ConclusionThe results of this survey of Latin American physicians could help to fill gaps regarding awareness, management and treatment of IPF and improve earlier diagnosis of IPF.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12890-017-0569-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Introduction: COVID-19 has been identified by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic. Objectives: The study aims at presenting data on COVID-19 hospitalization cases from march 2020 to January 2021 in Hospital Metropolitano of Quito, Ecuador. Methods: Retrospective study in 515 hospitalization records from adult subjects. Results: We included 332 males and 183 females, 91 patients were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and the mean (±SD) length of ICU stay was 13.5 ± 8.2 days and mean (±SD) length of hospital stay was 5.9 (±3.3) days. It was observed 7.2% of deaths. Thirty-four percent of the patient admitted in ICU died and had a higher mean age compared to survivors (65.6 ± 13.4 vs 56.3 ± 16.1, P = 0.000). The most prevalent comorbidities were hypertension, hypothyroidism and diabetes. There were significant differences in the neutrophil counts, D-dimer levels, creatinine, glucose, IL6, triglycerides (TGL), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), troponin, sodium and potassium count between survivors and non survivors. The most frequent symptoms were dyspnea, fever and cough. Conclusions: Patients admitted to the intensive care unit had longer length of stay, were older and with lower oxygen saturation level. The laboratory parameters were significantly higher in patients who died. Abnormal count of neutrophils and LDH as well as age were risk factors for mortality in these patients.
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