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Background@#With the emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and inability of healthcare systems to control the disease, various therapeutic theories with controversial responses have been proposed. Plasmapheresis was administered as a medication.However, the knowledge of its efficacy and indications is inadequate. This study evaluated the use of plasmapheresis in critically ill patients with cancer. @*Methods@#This randomized clinical trial was conducted on 86 patients with malignancies, including a control group (N=41) and an intervention group (N=45) with severe COVID-19 during 2020-21. Both groups were treated with routine medications for COVID-19 management according to national guidelines, and plasmapheresis was applied to the intervention group. C-reactive protein (CRP), D-dimer, ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase, hemoglobin, and white blood cell, polymorphonuclear, lymphocyte, and platelet levels were measured at admission and at the end of plasmapheresis. Other variables included neutrophil recovery, intensive care unit admission, intubation requirements, length of hospital stay, and hospitalization outcomes. @*Results@#CRP (P ＜0.001), D-dimer (P ＜0.001), ferritin (P =0.039), and hemoglobin (P =0.006) levels were significantly different between the groups after the intervention. Neutrophil recovery was remarkably higher in the case than in the control group (P ＜0.001). However, plasmapheresis did not affect the length of hospital stay (P =0.076), which could have significantly increased survival rates (P ＜0.001). @*Conclusion@#Based on the study findings, plasmapheresis led to a significant improvement in laboratory markers and survival rate in patients with severe COVID-19. These findings reinforce the value of plasmapheresis in cancer patients as a critical population suffering from neutropenia and insufficient immune responses.
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Background@#Considering that pulmonary embolism (PE) is one of the leading causes of mortality among pregnant women and that the D-dimer level in pregnancy can be highly fluctuating, a new and reliable D-dimer reference value is essential to identifying PE in this group of patients. Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic effect of D-dimer testing in pregnant women with suspected PE. @*Methods@#This study recruited 100 women with confirmed pregnancy or six weeks after delivery or abortion with suspected PE symptoms. Wells criteria, D-dimer values, and pregnancy trimesters were recorded. Definitive PE results were obtained using multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) or pulmonary ventilation/perfusion scans. @*Results@#D-dimer cut-off point in PE diagnosis was higher than 1,447 µg/L [sensitivity, 87.5%; specificity, 63.04%; area under the curve (AUC)=0.735; P =0.003]. In addition, the combination of Wells criteria with the D-dimer test indicated that the cut-off points of D-dimer in PE likely and unlikely women were 1,962 and 1,447 µg/L, respectively, and had acceptable and significant diagnostic value in PE detection. In addition, the diagnostic value of D-dimer in pregnancy trimesters was not found to be significant (P ＞0.05). @*Conclusion@#The new cut-off points of 1,447 and 1,962 µg/L were determined for D-dimer in pregnant women with likely and unlikely PE, respectively. Moreover, the new cut-off points in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy were 1,701 µg/L and 1,451 µg/L, respectively, which indicated no statistically acceptable diagnostic value.
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Background@#Considering that pulmonary embolism (PE) is one of the leading causes of mortality among pregnant women and that the D-dimer level in pregnancy can be highly fluctuating, a new and reliable D-dimer reference value is essential to identifying PE in this group of patients. Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic effect of D-dimer testing in pregnant women with suspected PE. @*Methods@#This study recruited 100 women with confirmed pregnancy or six weeks after delivery or abortion with suspected PE symptoms. Wells criteria, D-dimer values, and pregnancy trimesters were recorded. Definitive PE results were obtained using multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) or pulmonary ventilation/perfusion scans. @*Results@#D-dimer cut-off point in PE diagnosis was higher than 1,447 µg/L [sensitivity, 87.5%; specificity, 63.04%; area under the curve (AUC)=0.735; P =0.003]. In addition, the combination of Wells criteria with the D-dimer test indicated that the cut-off points of D-dimer in PE likely and unlikely women were 1,962 and 1,447 µg/L, respectively, and had acceptable and significant diagnostic value in PE detection. In addition, the diagnostic value of D-dimer in pregnancy trimesters was not found to be significant (P ＞0.05). @*Conclusion@#The new cut-off points of 1,447 and 1,962 µg/L were determined for D-dimer in pregnant women with likely and unlikely PE, respectively. Moreover, the new cut-off points in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy were 1,701 µg/L and 1,451 µg/L, respectively, which indicated no statistically acceptable diagnostic value.
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Background@#Since the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), various clinical manifestations ranging from asymptomatic to severe, life-threatening courses have been presented. It is well known that COVID-19 patients are at an increased risk of pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) development; however, the associated demographic, medical, and clinical factors for developing PTE remain unknown. The current study aimed to assess the characteristics of patients with PTE. @*Methods@#This case-control study was derived from an ongoing population-based investigation of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. The case group included 99 patients with PTE confirmed by computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA), and the controls (N=132) were age-matched patients selected from the PTE-suspected patients with a negative CTPA. The demographic, medical, and clinical characteristics of the study population were entered into the study checklist and compared. A logistic regression test was used to determine the factors associated with PTE development. @*Results@#Among the 13,099 admitted patients, 690 (5.26%) were suspected of having PTE according to their clinical manifestations. CTPA was performed for suspected cases, and PTE was confirmed in 132 patients (19.13%). Logistic regression assessments revealed that male gender (OR, 2.39; 95%CI, 1.38‒4.13), decreased oxygen saturation (OR, 2.33; 95%CI, 1.27‒4.26), and lower hemoglobin (OR, 0.83, 0.95), and albumin (OR, 0.31; 95%CI, 0.18‒0.53) levels were associated with PTE development. @*Conclusion@#PTE was confirmed in one-fifth of suspected patients who underwent CTPA imaging. Male sex, decreased oxygen saturation, and lower levels of hemoglobin and albumin were independent predictors of PTE in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.
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Leishmaniasis is a worldwide uncontrolled parasitic disease due to the lack of effective drug and vaccine. To speed up effective drug development, we need powerful methods to rapidly assess drug effectiveness against the intracellular form of Leishmania in high throughput assays. Reporter gene technology has proven to be an excellent tool for drug screening in vitro. The effects of reporter proteins on parasite infectivity should be identified both in vitro and in vivo. In this research, we initially compared the infectivity rate of recombinant Leishmania major expressing stably enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) alone or EGFP-luciferase (EGFP-LUC) with the wild-type strain. Next, we evaluated the sensitivity of these parasites to amphotericin B (AmB) as a standard drug in 2 parasitic phases, promastigote and amastigote. This comparison was made by MTT and nitric oxide (NO) assay and by quantifying the specific signals derived from reporter genes like EGFP intensity and luciferase activity. To study the amastigote form, both B10R and THP-1 macrophage cell lines were infected in the stationary phase and were exposed to AmB at different time points. Our results clearly revealed that the 3 parasite lines had similar in vitro infectivity rates with comparable parasite-induced levels of NO following interferon-gamma/lipopolysaccharide induction. Based on our results we proposed the more reporter gene, the faster and more sensitive evaluation of the drug efficiency.