To determine the mortality of patients with severe COVID-19 in the intensive care unit (ICU) in relation to age, gender, co-morbidities, ventilatory status, and length of stay (LOS). Methods This was a cross-sectional study based on data retrieved for 204 patients admitted to the ICU of Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar, Pakistan, from April to August 2020. Study variables were age, gender, comorbid conditions, ventilatory status, and length of stay (LOS). The data were analyzed using SPSS version 21 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). The independent t-test and the chi-square test were used to compare the means and frequencies of variables. Multivariate regression analysis was used to predict the likelihood of mortality. Results The overall mortality was 77%. Non-invasive ventilation (NIV) was administered to 61.8% of patients. Mortality was higher for invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) (93.6% vs 66.7%, p<0.001) and for over 60 years (87.3% vs 72.3%, p=0.019). Mortality without co-morbidities was 75.2%. Comparative mortality rates for at least one co-morbidity (79.7%), diabetes mellitus (80.0%), hypertension (100%), diabetes mellitus and hypertension both (87.1%), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (75%) were insignificant. The LOS for survivors was longer (8.9±8.9 versus 5.4±5.2 days, p=0.017). The LOS < 24h was associated with higher mortality (85.9% vs 72.9%, p=0.040). On multivariable regression, the likelihood of mortality was high for IMV (7.330, 95% CI 2.667-20.143, p<0.001) and elderly (>60 years) patients (2.607, 95%CI 1.063-6.394, p=0.036). Mortality decreased with LOS longer than 24h (0.412, 95%CI 0.173-0.982, p=0.045). Comorbidities did not have any effect on mortality. Conclusions Age more than 60 years and IMV were independent risk factors for higher mortality. Longer ICU stay, specifically more than 24 hours, was associated with lower mortality but LOS less than 24 hours might not have a causal relationship with mortality. The odds of survival were not affected by co-morbidities.
Objectives: To determine the association between ABO/Rh-D blood types and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection in Pakistan. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 1935 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were included using consecutive sampling. Age and gender-matched sample of 1935 blood donors was used as a comparison group. Chi-square test and binary logistic regression were used for inferential statistics. Results: Significantly higher proportion of blood type-B was observed in COVID-19 group (35.9% vs 31.9%, p=0.009). Blood type-AB was found more frequently (14.2% vs 11.8%, p=0.03) in the comparison group. The Rh-D Positive blood types were 93.3% in COVID-19 group and 94.9% in comparison group (p=0.03). The odds of blood type-B, AB and Rh-D positive to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 were 1.195 (95% CI 1.04 – 1.36, p=0.009), 0.80 (95% CI 0.66 – 0.97, p=0.03) and 0.75 (95% CI 0.57- 0.98, p = 0.03), respectively. Blood types A and O did not have significant association with SARS-CoV-2 PCR result (p = 0.22 and 0.88, respectively). Conclusions: There is significant association between blood types B & AB and susceptibility to COVID-19. There is no association between blood types A and O with COVID-19. Rh- D positive blood types are less susceptible to COVID-19. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.1.3655 How to cite this:Rahim F, Amin S, Bahadur S, Noor M, Mahmood A, Gul H. ABO / Rh-D Blood types and susceptibility to Corona Virus Disease-19 in Peshawar, Pakistan. Pak J Med Sci. 2021;37(1):4-8. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.1.3655 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Water solubility, tensile strength (TS), wet strength (WS) and elongation at break (%E) of whey protein isolate (WPI) films were compared to that of collagen films and natural casings. Increase in heat‐curing temperature and time caused decreased (P < 0.001) water solubility and increased TS and WS of the films. Heat‐cured WPI films with similar properties (solubility, TS, WS and %E) to collagen films were obtained by optimizing heat‐curing conditions. Overall, natural casings had lower solubility, TS and %E but higher WS than collagen and heat‐cured WPI films. Heat‐cured WPI films have the potential as an alternative to collagen films and casings.
Available online Keywords: EDM PMEDM Silicone carbide powder RSM FEM WLT Total heat flux Fatigue life A B S T R A C TThis paper deals with studying the effect of powder mixing electrical discharge machining (PMEDM) parameters using copper and graphite electrodes on the white layer thickness (WLT), the total heat flux generated and the fatigue life. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to plan and design the experimental work matrices for two groups of experiments: for the first EDM group, kerosene dielectric was used alone, whereas the second was treated by adding the SiC micro powders mixing to dielectric fluid (PMEDM). The total heat flux generated and fatigue lives after EDM and PMEDM models were developed by FEM using ANSYS 15.0 software. The graphite electrodes gave a total heat flux higher than copper electrodes by 82.4%, while using the SiC powder and graphite electrodes gave a higher total heat flux than copper electrodes by 91.5%. The lowest WLT values of 5.0 μm and 5.57 μm are reached at a high current and low current with low pulse on time using the copper and graphite electrodes and the SiC powder, respectively. This means that there is an improvement in WLT by 134% and 110%, respectively, when compared with the use of same electrodes and kerosene dielectric alone. The graphite electrodes with PMEDM and SiC powder improved the experimental fatigue safety factor by 7.30% compared with the use of copper electrodes and by 14.61% and 18.61% compared with results using the kerosene dielectric alone with copper and graphite electrodes, respectively.
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