Acute Necrotizing Encephalopathy in Adult Patients With COVID-19: A Systematic Review of Case Reports and Case Series

Background@#and Purpose Acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE) is a rare neurological disorder that is often associated with viral infections. Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a few COVID-19-associated ANE cases have been reported. Since very little is known about ANE, the present study aimed to determine the clinical, biochemical, and radiological characteristics of affected patients. @*Methods@#A search was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science databases for articles published up to August 30, 2022 using relevant keywords. Case reports and series in the English language that reported ANE in adult patients with COVID-19 confirmed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction were included in this study. Data on the demographic, clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics of patients were extracted and analyzed using the SPSS software (version 26). @*Results@#The study included 30 patients (18 males) with COVID-19 and ANE who were aged 49.87±18.68 years (mean±standard deviation). Fever was the most-prevalent symptom at presentation (66.7%). Elevated C-reactive protein was observed in the laboratory assessments of 13 patients. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging were the most-common radiological modalities used for brain assessments. The most commonly prescribed medications were methylprednisolone (30%) and remdesivir (26.7%). Sixteen patients died prior to discharge. @*Conclusions@#The diagnosis of COVID-19-associated ANE requires a thorough knowledge of the disease. Since the clinical presentations of ANE are neither sensitive nor specific, further laboratory and brain radiological evaluations will be needed to confirm the diagnosis. The suspicion of ANE should be raised among patients with COVID-19 who present with progressive neurological symptoms.

Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) in Brain Tumors / 대한핵의학회잡지

Annually, the incidence of brain tumors has slightly increased and also the patient prognosis is still disappointing, especially for high-grade neoplasms. So, researchers seek methods to improve therapeutic index as a critical aim of treatment. One of these new challenging methods is radioimmunotherapy (RIT) that involves recruiting a coupling of radionuclide component with monoclonal antibody (mAb) which are targeted against cell surface tumor–related antigens or antigens of cells within the tumor microenvironment. In the context of cancer care, precision medicine is exemplified by RIT; precision medicine can offer a tailored treatment to meet the needs for treatment of brain tumors. This review aims to discuss the molecular targets used in radioimmunotherapy of brain tumors, available and future radioimmunopharmaceutics, clinical trials of radioimmunotherapy in brain neoplasms, and eventually, conclusion and future perspective of application of radioimmunotherapy in neurooncology cancer care.

Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) in Brain Tumors / 대한핵의학회잡지

Annually, the incidence of brain tumors has slightly increased and also the patient prognosis is still disappointing, especially for high-grade neoplasms. So, researchers seek methods to improve therapeutic index as a critical aim of treatment. One of these new challenging methods is radioimmunotherapy (RIT) that involves recruiting a coupling of radionuclide component with monoclonal antibody (mAb) which are targeted against cell surface tumor–related antigens or antigens of cells within the tumor microenvironment. In the context of cancer care, precision medicine is exemplified by RIT; precision medicine can offer a tailored treatment to meet the needs for treatment of brain tumors. This review aims to discuss the molecular targets used in radioimmunotherapy of brain tumors, available and future radioimmunopharmaceutics, clinical trials of radioimmunotherapy in brain neoplasms, and eventually, conclusion and future perspective of application of radioimmunotherapy in neurooncology cancer care.

Sulfur dioxide AQI modeling by artificial neural network in Tehran between 2007 and 2013

Background: Air pollution and concerns about health impacts have been raised in metropolitan cities like Tehran. Trend and prediction of air pollutants can show the effectiveness of strategies for the management and control of air pollution. Artificial neural network [ANN] technique is widely used as a reliable method for modeling of air pollutants in urban areas. Therefore, the aim of current study was to evaluate the trend of sulfur dioxide [SO2] air quality index [AQI] in Tehran using ANN

Methods: The dataset of SO[2] concentration and AQI in Tehran between 2007 and 2013 for 2550 days were obtained from air quality monitoring fix stations belonging to the Department of Environment [DOE]. These data were used as input for the ANN and nonlinear autoregressive [NAR] model using Matlab [R2014a] software

Results: Daily and annual mean concentration of SO[2]except 2008 [0.037 ppm] was less than the EPA standard [0.14 and 0.03 ppm, respectively]. Trend of SO[2] AQI showed the variation of SO[2]during different days, but the study declined overtime and the predicted trend is higher than the actual trend

Conclusion: The trend of SO[2] AQI in this study, despite daily fluctuations in ambient air of Tehran over the period of the study have decreased and the difference between the predicted and actual trends can be related to various factors, such as change in management and control of SO[2] emissions strategy and lack of effective parameters in SO[2] emissions in predicting model

Can children enhance their family's health knowledge? An infectious disease prevention program

The purpose of this study is to propose an innovative method of knowledge transfer that aims to improve health literacy about pediatric infectious diseases prevention in families. Children have an appreciable role in this scheme. This study is a before and after trial that has been conducted in Hamedan in 2009. After changing seven infectious disease topics into childish poems, we selected five kindergartens randomly and taught these poetries to the children. Teaching process held after a pretest containing 24 questions that examined 103 of parents about mentioned topics. The same post-test was given after 4 months of teaching process. The mean of correct answers to the pretest was 59.22% comparable with 81.00% for post-test [P<0.00]. Gender and knowledge degree could not change the results significantly. Assuming one's correct answers to the questions as his/her Knowledge Mark, the mean of this variable increased to 5.32 by this method. This cost-effective and joyful method had successful results in promoting health knowledge. Children are able to play an active role in family's health situation. Learning within family atmosphere without any obligations makes our scheme a solution for paving the knowledge transferring way

Description of some dermatoscopic features of acral pigmented lesions in Iranian patients: a preliminary study

Proper differentiation between acral malignant melanoma and benign pigmented lesions like melanocytic nevi is of great value. To avoid unnecessary biopsies, dermatoscopy has been introduced as a non-invasive modality and has improved the clinical diagnostic accuracy in recent decades. We aimed to describe dermoscopic patterns of acral pigmented lesions of patients in the clinic of dermatology in Razi Hospital, Tehran, Iran. This study was conducted as a descriptional study among a total of 62 pigmented lesions located on volar skin of palms and soles. After initial clinical evaluation, lesions were examined entirely by dermoscopy. All the patterns within a lesion were described, and lesions suspicious of malignancy [clinically or dermatoscopically] were selected for histopathological evaluation. Of our 62 lesions, three lesions were not melanocytic. According to our final clinicopathological diagnosis, 47 lesions were benign melanocytic nevi and 12 lesions were malignant melanoma. Parallel furrow pattern was the most frequent among our benign lesions [51.1%] followed by lattice-like pattern [23.4%] and acral reticular pattern [21.3%]. Diffuse multi-component pattern, parallel ridge pattern and abrupt edge were respectively most common patterns among malignant melanomas. Acral benign melanocytic nevi and malignant melanomas respectively have well distinctive characteristics in dermatoscopy among our patients

Cutaneous manifestations in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis [RA] is a chronic inflammatory joint disease with different extra-articular manifestations. Among those extra-articular manifestations, there are significant cutaneous manifestations which may result in first admission to a dermatologist. In this article some specific and non-specific skin lesions of RA such as rheumatoid nodules, exacerbated nodules, rheumatoid vasculitis, Bywaters, pyoderma gangrenosum and neutrophilic rheumatoid dermatoses are discussed. Some of these lesions such as rheumatoid nodules are very common and some others are very rare