Spanish cardiac catheterization in congenital heart diseases registry. First official report from the ACI-SEC and the GTH-SECPCC (2020)

Introduction and objectives: The Interventional Cardiology Association of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (ACI-SEC) and the Spanish Society of Pediatric Cardiology Working Group on Interventional Cardiology (GTH-SECPCC) introduce their annual activity report for 2020, the starting year of the pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Methods: All Spanish centers with cath labs and interventional activity in congenital heart diseases were invited to participate. Data were collected online, and analyzed by an external company together with members from the ACI-SEC and the GTH-SECPCC. Results: A total of 16 centers participated (all of them public) including 30 cath labs experienced in the management of congenital heart diseases, 7 of them (23.3%) dedicated exclusively to pediatric patients. A total of 1046 diagnostic studies, and 1468 interventional cardiac catheterizations were registered. The interventional procedures were considered successful in 93.4% of the cases with rates of major procedural complications and mortality of 2%, and 0.1%, respectively. The most frequent procedures were atrial septal defect closure (377 cases), pulmonary angioplasty (244 cases), and the percutaneous closure of the patent ductus arteriosus (199 cases). Conclusions: This report is the first publication from the Spanish Cardiac Catheterization in Congenital Heart Diseases Registry. The data recorded are conditioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. Diagnostic cardiac catheterization still plays a key role in this field. Most interventional techniques have reported excellent security and efficacy rates.

Assessing the accuracy of multiple prognostic scores for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in patients with advanced solid tumors

Background: Many patients fail to achieve a clinical benefit from ICI. Several scores have been developed to improve ICI candidates selection but it is uncertain which one better predicts patients’ outcome. Here, we performed a direct comparison of the most successful scores. Methods: This is a sub-analysis of the immunoblood prospective observational study that enrolled patients diagnosed with advanced solid tumors treated with ICI. Main clinicopathological data were retrieved from medical records and responses assessed according to RECIST 1.1 criteria. LIPI, RMH, PMH, dNLR, NLR, PIPO and GRIm scores were calculated. Receiving operator characteristics (ROC) curves and their area under curve (AUC) were used to predict PFS and durable clinical benefit (DCB;stable disease≥6 months or better). Associations with PFS, OS and DCB, where assessed with Cox and logistic regressions. Scores’ correlation was assessed with Spearman rho. Significance was set at p<0.05. Results: We recruited 155 patients (65% male, mean age 63). NSCLC (28%), colorectal (20%) breast (9%) H&N (6%) cancer and melanoma (6%) were the most frequent tumor types. Frequency of the high risk/bad outcome group of each score were: LIPI 13%, RMH 36%, PMH 54%, GRIm 14%, PIPO 6%, NLR 32% and dNRL 27%. Fair accuracy in identifying patients at higher risk of progression or mild accuracy in predicting DCB were observed for the RMH (AUC PFS: 0.7, 95%CI: 0.6-0.8;AUC DCB: 0.6, 0.5-0.8) and LIPI (AUC PFS: 0.7, 95%CI: 0.6-0.8;AUC: 0.6, 0.5-0.7) scores. All other scores provided poor/no accuracy. No significant difference was observed between RMH and LIPI AUC for PFS and DCB (both p>0.05). Additionally, only LIPI and RMH were associated with PFS (p=0.001;p<0.001), OS (p<0.001;p=0.001) and DCB (p=0.034;p=0.010) at univariate analyses. At multivariate analyses RMH and LIPI remained significantly associated with PFS (p=0.030;p=0.021) and OS (p=0.012;p<0.001). A strong correlation between both scores (rho=0.72, p<0.001) was observed. Conclusions: RMH and LIPI scores were sufficiently reliable in assessing the prognosis of patients with advanced solid tumors treated with ICI. They were superior to other analyzed scores in our population and highly correlated. Legal entity responsible for the study: Hospital Clinic y Provincial de Barcelona, Medical Oncology Department. Funding: Has not received any funding. Disclosure: J. Garcia-Corbacho: Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board, FGFR inhibitors implementation in clinical practice: Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker, Participation in clinical trials of the company as PI: Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical, Boehringer Ingelheim, Astellas, Cytomx, Incyte, Lilly, Menarini, Merck, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Amgen, Daiichi Sankyo. L. Mezquita: Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board: Takeda, AstraZeneca, Roche;Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Roche, BMS, AstraZeneca, Takeda;Financial Interests, Personal, Research Grant, SEOM Beca Retorno 2019: BI;Financial Interests, Personal, Research Grant, ESMO TR Research Fellowship 2019: BMS;Financial Interests, Institutional, Research Grant, COVID research Grant: Amgen;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker: Inivata, Stilla. N. Baste Rotllan: Non-Financial Interests, Advisory Role: Eisai, MSD, Merck Serono, BioNTech, Roche, BMS, Exelixis. A. Prat: Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Roche;Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker, Lecture fees: Novartis, Daiichi Sankyo;Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board, Advisory role/consultancy: Novartis, Pfizer, BMS, Puma, Oncolytics Biotech, MSD, Guardant Health, Peptomyc;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker, Clinical trials: Daiichi Sankyo;Financial Interests, Institutional, Other, Contracted research: Boehringer, Medica Scientia Inno. Research;Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board: AstraZeneca;Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker, Leadership role: Reveal Genomics, SL.;Financial I terests, Personal, Stocks/Shares: Reveal Genomics, Oncolytics Biotech;Financial Interests, Personal, Royalties: Reveal Genomics;Financial Interests, Institutional, Invited Speaker: Roche, AstraZeneca, Novartis;Financial Interests, Personal and Institutional, Invited Speaker: Daiichi Sankyo;Non-Financial Interests, Institutional, Other, Leadership roles: Patronage committee: SOLTI Foundation, Actitud Frente al Cáncer Foundation. All other authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Lifting health professionals' morale during the covid-19 pandemic: Moderating emotions to support ethical decisions

The current COVID-19 pandemic creates a difficult and unprecedented time. With each passing day, the care of the health team itself is essential;and not only physical care, but also for mental health. The authors describe their experience in disseminating recommendations through short videos to help professionals maintain an objective view of the reality they are experiencing. Thus, knowing how to tabulate daily the evolution of the patients that each professional has been entrusted to care for - the hospitalized, the deaths and, very importantly, the discharge of the recovered - provides a sense of reality. Cinema, an educational resource used in medical education, which is also included in these videos, helps to clarify the recommendations made above and to maintain emotional balance. The authors conclude that providing a realistic view of the situation that the team is experiencing in this crisis and highlighting the positive facts and achievements could be a valuable means of help from medical educators behind the scenes. © 2021 University of Montreal. All rights reserved.

Clinical and histological characterization of vesicular COVID-19 rashes: a prospective study in a tertiary care hospital.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Vesicular skin rashes have been reported as associated with COVID-19, but there is little information about this cutaneous manifestation. We designed a prospective observational study of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who had vesicular lesions. Clinical characterization of skin findings was conducted by dermatologists. When possible, histological analysis and detection of SARS-CoV-2 in the content of the vesicles was performed. In total, 24 patients were included. A disseminated pattern was found in 18 patients (75%), and a localized pattern was found in 6 (25%). Median duration of the skin rash was 10 days. Of the 24 patients, 19 (79.2%) developed the skin rash after the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. Histological examination in two patients was consistent with viral infection, SARS-CoV-2 was not detected in four patients. This single-centre study shows the clinical characteristics of vesicular skin rashes in patients with COVID-19.

Classification of the cutaneous manifestations of COVID-19: a rapid prospective nationwide consensus study in Spain with 375 cases.

BACKGROUND: The cutaneous manifestations of COVID-19 disease are poorly characterized. OBJECTIVES: To describe the cutaneous manifestations of COVID-19 disease and to relate them to other clinical findings. METHODS: We carried out a nationwide case collection survey of images and clinical data. Using a consensus we described five clinical patterns. We later described the association of these patterns with patient demographics, the timing in relation to symptoms of the disease, the severity and the prognosis. RESULTS: The lesions may be classified as acral areas of erythema with vesicles or pustules (pseudo-chilblain) (19%), other vesicular eruptions (9%), urticarial lesions (19%), maculopapular eruptions (47%) and livedo or necrosis (6%). Vesicular eruptions appear early in the course of the disease (15% before other symptoms). The pseudo-chilblain pattern frequently appears late in the evolution of the COVID-19 disease (59% after other symptoms), while the rest tend to appear with other symptoms of COVID-19. The severity of COVID-19 shows a gradient from less severe disease in acral lesions to more severe in the latter groups. The results are similar for confirmed and suspected cases, in terms of both clinical and epidemiological findings. Alternative diagnoses are discussed but seem unlikely for the most specific patterns (pseudo-chilblain and vesicular). CONCLUSIONS: We provide a description of the cutaneous manifestations associated with COVID-19 infection. These may help clinicians approach patients with the disease and recognize cases presenting with few symptoms. What is already known about this topic? Previous descriptions of cutaneous manifestations of COVID-19 were case reports and mostly lacked illustrations. What does this study add? We describe a large, representative sample of patients with unexplained skin manifestations and a diagnosis of COVID-19, using a consensus method to define morphological patterns associated with COVID-19. We describe five clinical patterns associated with different patient demographics, timing and prognosis, and provide illustrations of these patterns to allow for easy recognition.