Objectives: The aim of our study was to investigate the relation of some sociodemographic factors and delays presentation in breast cancer. Patients and method: This was an observational study in Breast Unit of Aristide Le Dantec Teaching Hospital in Dakar. Were included in the study all patients followed for breast cancer from January 2008 to December 2014. The following variables were selected and stratified: age, place of living, educational attainment, menopausal status, socioeconomic status and family history of breast cancer. For each variable, an association with the stage and presentation delay was assessed. Results: Two hundred and fifty nine (259) patients met the inclusion criteria. No correlation was found between the studied socio-demographic factors and delay. Negative history of family breast cancer was associated with presentation delay. The only factor associated with locally advanced breast cancer after adjusting confounding factors was low level of income. Conclusion: A significant percentage of women with breast cancer in Senegal are experiencing presentation delay. Coordinated efforts with public health department are needed to educate the focused groups and mitigate the barriers.
The metabolomic profile of vaso-occlusive crisis, compared to the basal state of sickle cell disease, has never been reported to our knowledge. Using a standardized targeted metabolomic approach, performed on plasma and erythrocyte fractions, we compared these two states of the disease in the same group of 40 patients. Among the 188 metabolites analyzed, 153 were accurately measured in plasma and 143 in red blood cells. Supervised paired partial least squares discriminant analysis (pPLS-DA) showed good predictive performance for test sets with median area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curves of 99% and mean p-values of 0.0005 and 0.0002 in plasma and erythrocytes, respectively. A total of 63 metabolites allowed discrimination between the two groups in the plasma, whereas 61 allowed discrimination in the erythrocytes. Overall, this signature points to altered arginine and nitric oxide metabolism, pain pathophysiology, hypoxia and energetic crisis, and membrane remodeling of red blood cells. It also revealed the alteration of metabolite concentrations that had not been previously associated with sickle cell disease. Our results demonstrate that the vaso-occlusive crisis has a specific metabolomic signature, distinct from that observed at steady state, which may be potentially helpful for finding predictive biomarkers for this acute life-threatening episode.
Introduction
To investigate the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 in pregnancy in Senegal.
Methods
This was a cross-sectional and descriptive study of all cases of COVID-19 including nine pregnant women who were admitted in COVID-19 treatment centers in Senegal from March 2 to May 15, 2020. SARS-COV-2 infection was confirmed by PCR. Patients’ characteristics, clinical features, treatment and outcome were obtained with a customized data collection form.
Results
The frequency of the association COVID-19 and pregnancy was 0.5%. The age range of the patients was 18-42 years with an average 28 years, and the range of gestational weeks at admission was 7 weeks to 32 weeks. None of the patients had underlying diseases. All the patients presented with a headache and only four of them had fever. Other symptoms were also observed: two patients had a cough, two had rhinorrhea, and two patients reported poor appetite. The median time to recovery was 13.6 days, corresponding to the number of days in hospital. None of the nine pregnant women developed severe COVID-19 pneumonia or died.
Conclusion
Pregnant women appear to have the same contamination predispositions and clinical features of SARS-COV-2 infection as the general population. This study shows no evidence that pregnant women are more susceptible to infection with coronavirus.
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