A bibliometric analysis of telerehabilitation services for patients with stroke.

Background: Routine rehabilitation services were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Telehealth was identified as an alternative means to provide access to these services. This bibliometric study aimed to analyze the scientific literature to discover trends and topics in the potential applications of telerehabilitation for patients with stroke. Methods: The Web of Science electronic database was searched to retrieve relevant publications on telerehabilitation. Bibliometric data, including visual knowledge maps of authors, countries, institutions, and references, were analyzed in CiteSpace. Visualization maps were generated in VOSviewer to illustrate recurrent keywords and countries actively involved in this research area. Results: The analysis was performed based on 6,787 publications. The number of publications peaked between 2019 and 2021, coinciding with the years of the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 113 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania had at least one publication in this research field, implying global attention in this research area. Nine of the top 10 most productive countries are developed countries, indicating a potentially higher capability to implement a telerehabilitation program. Conclusion: The potential benefits and diversity of telerehabilitation are already highly visible from clinical studies, and further improvements in these technologies are expected to enhance functionality and accessibility for patients. More relevant research is encouraged to understand the barriers to increased adaptation of telerehabilitation services, which will finally translate into a significant therapeutic or preventive impact.

A bibliometric analysis of telerehabilitation services for patients with stroke

Background Routine rehabilitation services were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Telehealth was identified as an alternative means to provide access to these services. This bibliometric study aimed to analyze the scientific literature to discover trends and topics in the potential applications of telerehabilitation for patients with stroke. Methods The Web of Science electronic database was searched to retrieve relevant publications on telerehabilitation. Bibliometric data, including visual knowledge maps of authors, countries, institutions, and references, were analyzed in CiteSpace. Visualization maps were generated in VOSviewer to illustrate recurrent keywords and countries actively involved in this research area. Results The analysis was performed based on 6,787 publications. The number of publications peaked between 2019 and 2021, coinciding with the years of the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 113 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania had at least one publication in this research field, implying global attention in this research area. Nine of the top 10 most productive countries are developed countries, indicating a potentially higher capability to implement a telerehabilitation program. Conclusion The potential benefits and diversity of telerehabilitation are already highly visible from clinical studies, and further improvements in these technologies are expected to enhance functionality and accessibility for patients. More relevant research is encouraged to understand the barriers to increased adaptation of telerehabilitation services, which will finally translate into a significant therapeutic or preventive impact.

Gastrointestinal symptoms and liver injury of COVID-19

COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-COV-2, which characterized with typical respiratory symptoms. In addition to the respiratory system injury, SARS-COV-2 may also invade other organs that express the cell surface receptor ACE2. Digestive system is a susceptible target of SARS-COV-2. Most patients show clinical symptoms of impaired digestive system during the course of the disease. Gastrointestinal symptoms of COVID-19 include anorexia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and liver damage. Patients with abnormal symptoms of the digestive system have a greater chance of progressing to severe or critical illness, a worse prognosis, and a higher risk of death. This paper aims to discuss the digestive symptoms of COVID-19 infection, so as to improve the attention to the digestive system abnormalities and gastrointestinal symptoms of COVID-19 patients during clinical diagnosis, treatment and prevention and control.

From Biotechnology to Bioeconomy: A Review of Development Dynamics and Pathways

Based on the logistic growth model, the relationship between technology innovation and the evolution of economic forms was analyzed, and the main characteristics and basic laws of the five economic forms of hunter–gatherer, agriculture, industry, information, and bioeconomy were summarized. Based on a comprehensive and intensive scan of the latest bioeconomy development strategies of various countries, we summarized their two main driving forces from the technological supply side and economic and social demand side, as well as their four distinctive features, namely the comprehensiveness of science and technology innovation, the aggregation of industrial development, the globalization of development goals, and strong policy dependence. Finally, we proposed countermeasures to design the implementation path of the bioeconomy and improve the quality of the bioeconomy factor supply in terms of the development and application of biotechnology, the upgradation of bioindustry clusters, the positive policy environment, and the theorization of the bioeconomy.

Pandemics are catalysts of scientific novelty: Evidence from COVID-19.

Scientific novelty drives the efforts to invent new vaccines and solutions during the pandemic. First-time collaboration and international collaboration are two pivotal channels to expand teams' search activities for a broader scope of resources required to address the global challenge, which might facilitate the generation of novel ideas. Our analysis of 98,981 coronavirus papers suggests that scientific novelty measured by the BioBERT model that is pretrained on 29 million PubMed articles, and first-time collaboration increased after the outbreak of COVID-19, and international collaboration witnessed a sudden decrease. During COVID-19, papers with more first-time collaboration were found to be more novel and international collaboration did not hamper novelty as it had done in the normal periods. The findings suggest the necessity of reaching out for distant resources and the importance of maintaining a collaborative scientific community beyond nationalism during a pandemic.

Patients With Lung Cancer Have High Susceptibility of COVID-19: A Retrospective Study in Wuhan, China.

Patients with lung cancer are presumed to be at high risk from COVID-19 infection due to underlying malignancy. A total of 31 COVID-19 patients with pre-diagnosed lung cancer and 186 age and sex matched COVID-19 patients without cancer in 6 hospitals in Wuhan, China were identified in our study. There was a significantly higher level of IL-6 in lung cancer group showed by multifactorial analysis. The restricted mean survival time in 10, 20, and 53 days in COVID-19 patients with lung cancer were ealier than non-cancer COVID-19 patients in the same observation time (all P values < 0.05). Our results indicated that pre-diagnosed lung cancer was associated with higher morbidity and mortality in COVID-19 patients.

Meta-analysis of coagulation parameters associated with disease severity and poor prognosis of COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: To determine whether abnormal coagulation parameters are associated with disease severity and poor prognosis in patients with 2019 Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19). METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted using the databases PubMed, Embase, and Web of sciences until April 25, 2020. We included a total of 15 studies with 2277 patients. Platelet count (PLT), prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), D-dimer (D-D), and fibrinogen (FIB) were collected and analyzed. The statistical results were expressed as the effect measured by mean difference (MD) with the related 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: The PLT level of severe cases was lower than that of mild cases, while the levels of PT, D-D, and FIB were higher than those of mild cases (P < 0.05). The level of APTT had no statistical difference between two groups (P > 0.05). PT of ICU patients was significantly longer (P < 0.05) than that of non-ICU patients. In non-survivors, PT and D-D were higher, yet PLT was lower than that of survivors (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in APTT between survivors and non-survivors (P > 0.05). The funnel plot and Egger's regression test demonstrated that there was no publication bias. CONCLUSIONS: Our data support the notion that coagulopathy could be considered as a risk factor for disease severity and mortality of COVID-19, which may help clinicians to identify the incidence of poor outcomes in COVID-19 patients.

COVID-19 infection, a potential threat to surgical patients and staff? A retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to describe the epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in surgical patients and medical staff. METHODS: A single-center case series of 1586 consecutive surgical patients was selected at our hospital from January 13 to March 12, 2020. The epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 were analyzed and followed up to May 20, 2020. The transmission of COVID-19 between the surgical patients and medical staff was also recorded. RESULTS: Seventeen (1.07%) surgical patients were diagnosed with COVID-19, with a high incidence in the thoracic department (9.37%), and the median age was 58 years (IQR, 53-73). The median time from hospital admission to COVID-19 diagnosis was 9.0 days (7.0-12.0) and was 6.0 days (4.0-7.0) from the day of surgery to COVID-19 diagnosis. Eleven (64.70%) patients suffered from pulmonary infection before surgery. When COVID-19 was diagnosed, common symptoms were fever (82.35%) and cough (94.12%), and most (82.35%) neutrophil/lymphocyte ratios were high (>3.5). Chest computed tomography (CT) (82.35%) showed bilateral dense shadows. Surgical patients with COVID-19 stayed in the hospital for approximately 35.0 days (25.5-43.0), with a mortality rate of 11.76%. Sixteen medical staff were infected with COVID-19 in the early stage. CONCLUSIONS: In this series of 1586 surgical patients, the COVID-19 infection rate was 1.07%, with an especially high incidence among patients with thoracic diseases. Middle-aged and elderly patients with preoperative pulmonary infection were more susceptible to COVID-19 infection after surgery. Medical staff were infected with COVID-19 and should take protective measures to protect themselves.

Lessons learned from early compassionate use of convalescent plasma on critically ill patients with Covid-19.

BACKGROUND: The management of critically ill patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by a new human virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is challenging. Recently, there have been several reports with inconsistent results after treatment with convalescent plasma (CP) on critically ill patients with COVID-19, which was produced with a neutralizing antibody titer and tested in a P3 or P4 laboratory. However, due to the limitation of the conditions on mass production of plasma, most producers hardly had the capability to isolate the neutralizing antibody. Here, we report the clinical courses of three critically ill patients with COVID-19 receiving CP treatments by total immunoglobulin G (IgG) titer collection. METHODS: Three patients with COVID-19 in this study were laboratory confirmed to be positive for SARS-CoV-2, with radiographic and clinical features of pneumonia. CP was collected by total IgG titer of 160 (range, 200-225 mL), and patients were transfused between 20 and 30 days after disease onset at the critical illness stage as a trial in addition to standard care. The clinical courses of these patients, including laboratory results and pulmonary functional and image studies after receiving convalescent plasma infusions, were reviewed. RESULTS: No therapeutic effect of CP was observed in any of the patients; instead, all three patients deteriorated and required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation treatment. A potential cytokine storm 4 hours after infusion of CP in Patient 2 was observed. No more patients were put on the trial of CP transfusion. CONCLUSIONS: We recommend extreme caution in using CP in critically ill patients more than 2 weeks after the onset of COVID-19 pneumonia.