ABSTRACT
Background and objective Acute pulmonary embolism (APE) is a serious cardiovascular emergency, mainly secondary to deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which causes death. The goal of the current study was to determine the levels of different serum markers in combination among patients with and without acute pulmonary embolism in order to use them as a diagnostic tool. Methodology A sample of 96 patients was kept with a 90% power of study and a 5% level of significance in the current study. It was carried from January to June 2020 in the Department of Medicine, Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur, after the hospital's Ethical Committee approval. Written informed consent was taken. Serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), D-dimer, fibrinogen, and Troponin-I between both groups were done once enrolled. SPSS software, version 25 (IBM Corp. Armonk, NY) was used to analyze the collected data. Results Patients with acute pulmonary embolism had a mean age of 50.4 ± 10.4 years. All serum markers were significantly raised in patients suffering from acute pulmonary embolism with a p-value of <0.05. Conclusion We concluded that all these serum markers can be used together as a tool in making the correct diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism in our setup.
ABSTRACT
Thyroid dysfunctions are common endocrine problems. They are often misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and frequently overlooked. These disorders affect almost every aspect of health. Most of them remain undetected because the clinical assessment alone lacks both sensitivity and specificity. As it is not sufficient enough we require the biochemical tests to confirm the diagnosis. As a consequence there is still great interest in new biomarkers that complement existing diagnostic tools. Osteopontin, a glycoprotein that can be detected in plasma, was found to be upregulated in several patients with hyperthyroidism and downregulated in hypothyroid patients so it may represent a new biomarker. 100 patients with thyroid dysfunctions (50 hyperthyroid, 50 hypothyroid) and 100 normal subjects were included in the study. Osteopontin and other clinical parameters for diagnosis of thyroid disorders were measured. Osteopontin is positively correlated with T3 and T4 (r = 0.62 and r = 0.75 respectively) while it is negatively correlated with thyroid stimulating hormone (r = -0.52) showing a significant correlation (p-value <0.001). Our findings suggest that osteopontin might be useful as a novel prognostic biomarker in patients with impaired thyroid function.
