The Outcome of Rectal Cancer Patients during SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Introduction: Rectal cancer is a complex pathology that requires a multidisciplinary approach according to current guidelines, and surgery is one of the main stages of treatment, the type of intervention being established in relation to the location of the tumor at the rectal level. Material and method: The present study aims to analyze the diagnostic features, study the evolution, treatment and complications of patients with rectal cancer in a period marked by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. After completing the inclusion criteria, but also the exclusion group, the remaining group consisted of 55 patients with rectal cancer. Results: For the 55 patients, abdominal-pelvic rectal amputation was performed in 17 cases, rectosigmoid resection with colostomy in 13 cases, and rectosigmoid resection with anastomosis in 25 cases. It was also taken into account that the access to medical services was delayed compared to the pre-pandemic period, the increase of the time interval between the treatment stages being an important aspect of the study. Complications associated with surgery have been reported in 13 patients, the most common being the pelvic abscess. Conclusions: The results of the study show a high incidence rate in the age group 60-69 years, with a predominance of males, a delay in making the diagnosis of certainty, an extension of the period from the beginning of neoadjuvant treatment to access to surgery, and the rate of postoperative complications is similar to that described in other studies conducted during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but also outside it. © 2022 Iran University of Medical Sciences - Center of Nursing Care Research. All rights reserved.

Challenges and Opportunities for the E-Learning Users During COVID-19 Pandemic Times

The restrictive measures, taken worldwide, for the COVID-19 pandemic transferred teaching activities into the online environment. These circumstances have forced the restructuring of the face-to-face teaching process. We focused our research on measuring student’s perception, through a questionnaire distributed online. Our survey focused on the changes of the learning process, during COVID-19 pandemic, and how teachers have reacted to these changes to overcome students’ limitations in online learning. This chapter explores in the first part the exploratory insights within the literature, and in the second part, with empirical evidence which highlights those students prefer the hybrid teaching system, and that teachers have managed to overcome the barriers/obstacles generated by the transition from traditional to the online teaching system. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.