Lesson learned from the pandemic: Isolation and hygiene measures for COVID-19 could reduce the nosocomial infection rates in oncology wards.

INTRODUCTION: It was previously demonstrated that seasonal influenza incidence was significantly decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, possibly due to respiratory and hygiene precautions. From this point, we hypothesized that the COVID-19 precautions could lead to a decrease in nosocomial infection rates in oncology inpatient wards. METHODS: We evaluated the nosocomial infection rates in an inpatient palliative oncology ward in the first 3 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in our country and compared this rate with the same time frame of the previous year in our institution. RESULTS: The percentage of nosocomial infections complicating the hospitalization episodes were significantly reduced in the first 3 months of the pandemic compared to the previous year (43 vs. 55 nosocomial infection episodes; 18.6% vs. 32.2%, p = 0.002). The decrease in the nosocomial infections was consistent in the different types of infections, namely pneumonia (4.8% vs. 7.6%), urinary tract infection (5.2% vs. 7.6%), bacteremia (5.2% vs. 7%) and intraabdominal infections (2.6% vs. 3.5%). The median monthly disinfectant use was significantly increased to 98 liters (interquartile range: 82 - 114) in 2020 compared to 72 L (interquartile range: 36 - 72) in 2019 (p = 0.046). CONCLUSION: The continuation of the simple and feasible hygiene and distancing measures for healthcare workers and patient relatives and adaptations for earlier discharge could be beneficial for preventing nosocomial infections in oncology wards. These measures could be implemented routinely even after the COVID-19 pandemic for patient safety, especially in settings with higher nosocomial infection rates like inpatients palliative care units.

Altered tryptophan absorption and metabolism could underlie long-term symptoms in survivors of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has been lasting for more than one year and there is little known about the long-term health effects of the disease. Long-COVID is a new term that is used to describe the enduring symptoms of COVID-19 survivors. Huang et al. reported that fatigue, muscle weakness, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and depression were the most common complaints in COVID-19 survivors after 6 months of the infection. A recent meta-analysis showed that 80% of COVID-19 survivors have developed at least one long-term symptom and the most common five were fatigue, headache, attention deficit disorder, hair loss, and dyspnea. In this paper, we discuss the hypothesis that altered tryptophan absorption and metabolism could be the main contributor to the long-term symptoms in COVID-19 survivors.

Thirty-day readmission rate of COVID-19 patients discharged from a tertiary care university hospital in Turkey: an observational, single-center study.

BACKGROUND: The 30-day readmission rate is an important indicator of patient safety and hospital's quality performance. In this study, we aimed to find out the 30-day readmission rate of mild and moderate severity coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) patients discharged from a tertiary care university hospital and to demonstrate the possible factors associated with readmission. METHODS: This is an observational, single-center study. Epidemiological and clinical data of patients who were hospitalized with a diagnosis of COVID-19 were retrieved from a research database where patient information was recorded prospectively. Readmission data were sought from the hospital information management system and the National Health Information System to detect if the patients were readmitted to any hospital within 30 days of discharge. Adult patients (≥18 years old) hospitalized in COVID-19 wards with a diagnosis of mild or moderate COVID-19 between 20 March 2020 (when the first case was admitted to our hospital) and 26 April 2020 were included. RESULTS: From 26 March to 1 May, there were 154 mild or moderate severity (non-critical) COVID-19 patients discharged from COVID-19 wards, of which 11 (7.1%) were readmitted. The median time of readmission was 8.1 days (interquartile range [IQR] = 5.2). Two patients (18.1%) were categorized to have mild disease and the remaining 9 (81.9%) as moderate disease. Two patients who were over 65 years of age and had metastatic cancers and hypertension developed sepsis and died in the hospital during the readmission episode. Malignancy (18.7% vs. 2.1%, P = 0.04) and hypertension (45.5% vs. 14%, P = 0.02) were more common in those who were readmitted. CONCLUSIONS: This is one of the first studies to report on 30-day readmission rate of COVID-19 in the literature. More comprehensive studies are needed to reveal the causes and predictors of COVID-19 readmissions.