ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Chronic postsurgical pain is a major surgical complication with an impact on quality of life. Persistent pain following cervical fusion with iliac crest graft can be due to patient positioning, cervical surgical technique or nerve injury during iliac crest harvesting. Treatment options for chronic postsurgical pain overlap with those recommended for neuropathic pain. However, other pain mechanisms may be present in these patients. CASE REPORT: Male patient, 51-year-old, with persistent pain five years after emergency cervical arthrodesis with an iliac crest graft. The patient was referred to the chronic pain department (CPD) for management of meralgia paresthetica. However, other significant pain etiologies were found and treated such as nociceptive neck pain, myofascial lumbar pain, and inguinal neuropathic postsurgical pain. The therapeutic approach included multimodal pharmacotherapy with anticonvulsants, antidepressants, weak opioids, topical capsaicin 8% patch, as well as nerve blocks. After almost two years of follow-up, CPD discharge was possible, with minimal pain and return to baseline activity. CONCLUSION: Although the patient had a long course of undertreated postsurgical pain, a multimodal approach targeting different pain etiologies allowed the achievement of satisfactory pain control and return to baseline physical activity.
RESUMO JUSTIFICATIVA E OBJETIVOS: A dor crônica pós-operatória é uma importante complicação cirúrgica com impacto na qualidade de vida. A dor persistente após artrodese cervical pode ser secundária ao posicionamento do paciente, abordagem cirúrgica cervical ou lesão nervosa durante colheita de enxerto ilíaco. As opções terapêuticas para dor crônica pós-operatória têm alguma sobreposição com o tratamento da dor neuropática. No entanto, outros mecanismos de dor podem estar presentes nestes pacientes. RELATO DO CASO: Paciente do sexo masculino, 51 anos, que se apresentou com dor persistente cinco anos após artrodese cervical emergencial, com enxerto de crista ilíaca. Foi encaminhado para a unidade de dor crônica (UDC) para abordagem de meralgia parestésica. No entanto, foram encontradas e tratadas outras etiologias de dor: dor cervical nociceptiva; dor lombar miofascial e dor neuropática pós-operatória inguinal. A abordagem terapêutica utilizada incluiu farmacoterapia com anticonvulsivantes, antidepressivos e opioides fracos, adesivo de capsaicina a 8% e bloqueios regionais. Após quase dois anos de seguimento, foi possível oferecer alta da UDC com queixas álgicas mínimas e retorno da atividade física basal. CONCLUSÃO: Apesar de o paciente ter passado por um longo período sob tratamento insuficiente de dor pós-operatória, uma abordagem multimodal tendo como alvo diferentes etiologias de dor permitiu obter um controle álgico satisfatório e o retorno à atividade física basal.
ABSTRACT
Given the highly variable clinical phenotype of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a deeper analysis of the host genetic contribution to severe COVID-19 is important to improve our understanding of underlying disease mechanisms. Here, we describe an extended GWAS meta-analysis of a well-characterized cohort of 3,260 COVID-19 patients with respiratory failure and 12,483 population controls from Italy, Spain, Norway and Germany/Austria, including stratified analyses based on age, sex and disease severity, as well as targeted analyses of chromosome Y haplotypes, the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region and the SARS-CoV-2 peptidome. By inversion imputation, we traced a reported association at 17q21.31 to a highly pleiotropic [~]0.9-Mb inversion polymorphism and characterized the potential effects of the inversion in detail. Our data, together with the 5th release of summary statistics from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative, also identified a new locus at 19q13.33, including NAPSA, a gene which is expressed primarily in alveolar cells responsible for gas exchange in the lung.
ABSTRACT
Colloidal model systems have been used for over three decades for investigating liquids, crystals, and glasses. Colloidal crystal superstructures have been observed in binary systems of repulsive spheres as well as oppositely charged sphere systems showing structures well known from atomic solids. In this work we study the structural transition of colloidal crystals under confinement. In addition to the known sequence of crystalline structures, crystal superstructures with dodecagonal and hexagonal symmetry are observed in one component systems. These structures have no atomic counterpart.
ABSTRACT
We have characterized a close-packed structure of confined charged colloidal spheres, which has been recently discovered. Using different microscopy experiments, the vertically arranged hexagonal planes of n - hcp perpendicular are found to continuously evolve from the horizontally oriented stacks of n hexagonal planes (nDelta) following the maximum packing criterion, but discontinuously transform to a stack of n+1 square planes [(n+1)[SHAPE OF A SQUARE]]. Large mechanically stable domains with threefold twin structures are regularly observed in the suspended state at packing fractions between 0.4 and 0.58.
