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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The pathophysiology of neurologic manifestations of postacute sequelae of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is not clearly understood. Our aim was to investigate brain metabolic activity on [18F] FDG-PET/CT scans in patients with a history of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection before imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study included 45 patients who underwent [18F] FDG-PET/CT imaging for any reason and had, at least once, tested positive for COVID-19 at any time before imaging. Fifteen patients had available [18F] FDG-PET scans obtained under identical conditions before the infection. A group of 52 patients with melanoma or multiple myeloma who underwent [18F] FDG-PET/CT were used as controls. Whole-brain 2-sample t test analysis was performed using SPM software to identify clusters of hypo- and hypermetabolism and compare brain metabolic activity between patients with COVID-19 and controls. Paired sample t test comparison was also performed for 15 patients, and correlations between metabolic values of clusters and clinical data were measured. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, patients with a history of COVID-19 infection exhibited focal areas of hypometabolism in the bilateral frontal, parietal, occipital, and posterior temporal lobes and cerebellum (P = .05 uncorrected at the voxel level, family-wise error-corrected at the cluster level) that peaked during the first 2 months, improved to near-complete recovery around 6 months, and disappeared at 12 months. Hypermetabolism involving the brainstem, cerebellum, limbic structures, frontal cortex, and periventricular white matter was observed only at 2-6 months after infection. Older age, neurologic symptoms, and worse disease severity scores positively correlated with the metabolic changes. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates a profile of time-dependent brain PET hypo- and hypermetabolism in patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 , Humans , United States , Fluorodeoxyglucose F18/metabolism , Retrospective Studies , Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography , COVID-19/complications , SARS-CoV-2 , Brain/diagnostic imaging , Brain/metabolism , Positron-Emission TomographyABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic affected many areas around the world, and with the lack of a vaccine, social distancing and keeping a high level of hygiene was the only actions people can rely on. Because of this change in the way of life, education was affected where it became not normal for students to socialize and have direct contact with teachers. Taking the case of higher education in Jordan, and its conversion into an online based learning approach, this paper examines an assessment of the quality of education that was taking place during the lock down. Then, it presents a literature study of guidelines published about quality of e-learning, and after evaluating the literature and the specific needs of Jordanian institutes, the paper presents a set of guidelines as a scorecard for higher education-al institutes to follow and maintain a high level of education quality in their online teaching approach. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.
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Background and objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is one of the most important healthcare and social challenges. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on depression and quality of life among women with chronic pain during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
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After one and a half years of forced E-Learning in Jordan due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Higher Education approved a new regulation titled 'Blending E-Learning in Higher Education Institutes (HEI)', which comes hand in hand with an action plan, aiming to transform certain percentages of academic programs (AP) offered in HEI into online and blended learning. This study investigates the attitude of 174 staff members at University of Petra towards the newly stated regulation, and their readiness level to implement the action plan. It also investigates the satisfaction rate of the academic staff with the experience of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan from March 2020-till Au-gust 2021. The study was conducted with a questionnaire distributed electronically. The results show that improvements need to be done on three areas: teachers' training on techniques to create and manage e-content, online assessment methods, and increasing the interactions of students in online courses. It also shows that staff members are satisfied with the new regulations to have percentages of courses fully online while others are blended courses;however, there is dissatisfaction with the pass\fail regulation set by the ministry during the pandemic period. © 2022 IEEE.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) development and its application in human life are continuing at an astounding rate. Among the variety of examples of AI being used for a variety of tasks, its contribution to epidemic control has recently captured a great deal of interest at the time of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, a crisis that occurred due to the Coronavirus spread. As the entire world has been concerning over urgent efforts addressing the damaging effects since the outbreak, Artificial Intelligence emerged as a great possible solution. This study is aimed at examining how artificial intelligence gets us ready to combat and control COVID-19 and other future pandemics, as this is unlikely to be the last of the epidemics. Moreover, several key technological solutions are outlined that could help combat future pandemics and make us prepared. As a result, technology development can be promoted to overcome any possible unexpected subsequent crisis. © 2021 IEEE.
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Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been pandemic and has caused a great burden on almost all countries across the world. Different perspectives of this novel disease are poorly understood. This study sought to investigate the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 to efficiently assist the health system of Iran to conquer the outbreak. Materials and Methods: This retrospective observational study was performed on 394 patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19. The patients should have a history of hospitalization at Loghman-Hakim hospital, Tehran, Iran, for 10 weeks, beginning from the first official report of the disease in Iran. In the subsequent step, the baseline demographic and clinical and paraclinical information of the patients was documented. Finally, the patients were assessed if they had exhibited any morbidity or mortality. Results: The epidemiological examination of the COVID-19 population suggested a bell diagram pattern for the hospitalization rate, in which the 4th week of the study was the peak. The highest rate of secondary adverse events due to the virus was observed at the 6th and 7th weeks of the study course. On another note, clinical evaluations resulted in identifying specific abnormalities, such as bilateral opacity in chest computed tomography scans or low oxygen saturation in laboratory data. Conclusion: This study provides evidence concerning the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 in the first phase of the virus outbreak in Iran. Further studies comparing the disease features in the subsequent phases with findings of this study can pave the way for additional information in this regard.
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AIM: We investigated the serial changes of chest computed tomography (CT) in patients with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) presenting with viral-induced lung damage on follow-up CT. METHODS: We evaluated 66 patients with confirmed COVID-19, who had undergone at least two chest CTs from February 24 to April 21, 2020. Nine patients also had a third CT. All patients demonstrated viral-induced lung damage (organizing pneumonia-like pattern) on second CT. The involvement pattern of each lobe and the extent of infiltration (based on CT score) were assessed on serial CTs to determine changes throughout the disease course. Patients’ demographic and clinical data and final outcome were also recorded. RESULTS: Mean age (standard deviation [SD]) of patients was 56.04 (15.2) years old;51.5% were male. About 93.9% of patients had survived. Mean (SD) interval between the first and second CT and second and third CT was 7.6 (5.9) and 16.8 (8.3) days, respectively. The extent of total lung involvement was significantly higher in the second CT compared with the first CT (p < 0.001) and also increased non-significantly in the third CT (p = 0.29). The right lower lobe persistently had the highest CT score through the disease course. CONCLUSION: Evaluation of serial CT imaging can reveal information regarding the stage of COVID-19, thus providing help for appropriate treatment planning. © 2020 Masoomeh Raoufi, Shahram Kahkouee, Jamileh Bahri, Neda Khalili, Farzaneh Robatjazi, Nastaran Khalili.
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Introduction: The rapid worldwide spread, in addition to the morbidity and mortality associated with the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have raised concern throughout the world. Identifying the characteristics of patients who died of COVID-19 is essential to implement preventive measures. Objective: We aimed at investigating these characteristics among the Iranian population in Tabriz. Methods: In this case series, we analyzed clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters, and imaging findings of 111 patients with a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis who died during hospitalization. The studied patients had been admitted to the hospital between February 2020 and May 2020. Results: The median age of patients was 73 years (IQR, 62-82 years) and approximately 70% of them were male. The median oxygen saturation on admission was 88% (IQR, 80-92%) and dyspnea, cough, and fever were the most common presenting symptoms. Among comorbidities, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases were more frequently observed among patients who had a fatal outcome. While ground-glass opacity was the most commonly reported finding on chest computed tomography, 5% of the patients had no abnormal finding on imaging. Chloroquine was the most frequently used medication for treatment. Conclusion: Our results showed that the majority of COVID-19 deaths occurred in male elderly with decreased levels of oxygen saturation and elevated levels of lactate dehydrogenase and erythrocyte sedimentation rate on admission.
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Computed tomography (CT) imaging has quickly found its place as a beneficial tool in the detection of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To date, only a few studies have reported the distribution of lung lesions by segment. This study aimed to evaluate the lobar and segmental distribution of COVID-19 pneumonia based on patients’ chest CT scan. Methods: This was a retrospective study performed on 63 Iranian adult patients with a final diagnosis of COVID-19. All patients had undergone chest CT scan on admission. Demographic data and imaging profile, including segmental distribution, were evaluated. Moreover, a scoring scale was designed to assess the severity of ground-glass opacification (GGO). The relationship of GGO score with age, sex, and symptoms at presentation was investigated. Results: Among included patients, mean age of patients was 54.2 ±14.9 (range: 26 - 81) years old and 60.3% were male. Overall, the right lower lobe (87.3%) and the left lower lobe (85.7%) were more frequently involved. Specifically, predominant involvement was seen in the posterior segment of the left lower lobe (82.5%). The most common findings were peripheral GGO and consolidation, which were observed in 92.1% and 42.9% of patients, respectively. According to the self-designed GGO scoring scale, about half of the patients presented with mild GGO on admission. GGO score was found to be equally distributed among different sex and age categories;however, the presence of dyspnea on admission was significantly associated with a higher GGO score (p= 0.022). Cavitation, reticulation, calcification, bronchiectasis, tree-in-bud appearance and nodules were not identified in any of the cases. Conclusion: COVID-19 mainly affects the lower lobes of the lungs. GGO and consolidation in the lung periphery is the imaging hallmark in patients with COVID-19 infection. Absence of bronchiectasis, solitary nodules, cavitation, calcifications, treein-bud appearance, and reversed halo-sign indicates that these features are not common findings, at least in the earlier stages.
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We aimed to determine the characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019) among the Iranian population. In this study, we collected and analysed the demographics, laboratory findings and outcomes of patients with COVID-19 who were admitted to Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran, Iran between 20 February 2020 and 2 April 2020. Among 1061 patients, 692 (65.2%) were male and the median age was 55 years (interquartile range (IQR), 44-66 years). Totally, 129 (12.2%) patients died during hospitalization in the ward or intensive care unit. From the remaining 932 individuals, 46 (5.0%) were admitted to the intensive care unit and 886 (95.0%) were hospitalized in the ward. Those patients who died were significantly older than those hospitalized in the ward (p < 0.001). The median absolute number of lymphocytes was 1.2 × 103/µL (IQR 0.9 × 103 to 1.6 × 103/µL) and 708 (66.7%) patients had lymphopenia (absolute lymphocyte count <1500/µL). Among the laboratory tests, D-dimer, serum ferritin and albumin had the strongest correlations with mortality (r = 0.455, r = 0.412, r = -0.406, respectively; p < 0.001 for each one). In conclusion, laboratory findings could provide useful information with regard to the management of individuals with COVID-19.