Highlights
The new antigen tests for COVID19 are an indispensable tool in the control of the pandemic due to their adequate sensitivity and specificity.
The implementation of the point of care technique in primary care is feasible and has good results.
Less than 5 days of evolution of the onset of symptoms and CT less than 27 in the PCR would define the results of the antigen techniques.
The spectrum of COVID-19 infection includes acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), although the histological basis for these disorders has not been thoroughly explored. Post-mortem pulmonary and bone marrow biopsies were performed in 33 patients. Samples were studied with a combination of morphological and immunohistochemical techniques. Bone marrow studies were also performed in three living patients. Bone marrow post-mortem studies showed striking lesions of histiocytic hyperplasia with hemophagocytosis (HHH) in most (16/17) cases. This was also observed in three alive patients, where it mimicked the changes observed in hemophagocytic histiocytosis. Pulmonary changes included a combination of diffuse alveolar damage with fibrinous microthrombi predominantly involving small vessels, in particular the alveolar capillary. These findings were associated with the analytical and clinical symptoms, which helps us understand the respiratory insufficiency and reveal the histological substrate for the macrophage activation syndrome-like exhibited by these patients. Our results confirm that COVID-19 infection triggers a systemic immune-inflammatory disease and allow specific therapies to be proposed.
Background: Real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is the current recommended laboratory method to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 acute infection, several factors such as requirement of special equipment, time consuming, high cost and skilled staff limit the use of these time-consuming molecular techniques. A more rapid and high-throughput method is in growing demand
Methods: Evaluate the performances of the Panbio COVID-19 AG Rapid Test Device (Nasopharyngeal), a rapid immunochromatographic test for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen, in comparison to RT-qPCR.
Results: The RDT evaluated in this study showed a high sensitivity and specificity in samples mainly obtained during the first week of symptoms and with high viral loads.
Conclusions: This assay seems to be an effective strategy for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic for the rapid identification and isolation of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.
The incidence of mesh-related infection after abdominal wall hernia repair is low, generally between 1 and 4%; however, worldwide, this corresponds to tens of thousands of difficult cases to treat annually. Adopting best practices in prevention is one of the keys to reduce the incidence of mesh-related infection. Once the infection is established, however, only a limited number of options are available that provides an efficient and successful treatment outcome. Over the past few years, there has been a tremendous amount of research dedicated to the functionalization of prosthetic meshes with antimicrobial properties, with some receiving regulatory approval and are currently available for clinical use. In this context, it is important to review the clinical importance of mesh infection, its risk factors, prophylaxis and pathogenicity. In addition, we give an overview of the main functionalization approaches that have been applied on meshes to confer anti-bacterial protection, the respective benefits and limitations, and finally some relevant future directions.
Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre-including this research content-immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
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