Pathologic Profile of Hysterectomy Cases in Saudi Arabia: A Tertiary Center Experience.

Background: Hysterectomies are increasingly being replaced by more conservative management modalities and are now only used for limited clinical indications. The agreement between these indications and the final pathology is understudied. Objectives: This study aimed to correlate the preoperative clinical diagnoses with the pathological findings detected in hysterectomies in Saudi women of different age groups. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study analyzed the preoperative clinical indications and the subsequent clinical and pathological data of all hysterectomies conducted at a single tertiary care hospital in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia between January 2010 and December 2021. Results: There was no decline in the frequency of hysterectomies across the study period. Abnormal uterine bleeding was the most common clinical indication across all age groups, followed by symptomatic fibroid and uterine prolapse in women aged <50 and ≥50 years, respectively. A total of 9.2% of the cases were indicated for therapeutic reasons, either as an emergency procedure for peripartum hemorrhage or for suspected uterine premalignant and malignant lesions. Besides these, 41.2% of patients had more than one pathology, with the most common combination being leiomyoma and adenomyosis (43.4%). The difference in age between malignant and benign cases (52.3 vs. 48.8 years, respectively) was not statistically significant (P = 0.109). Conclusions: Most of our cohort had benign lesions. Perceptible misuse of the procedure in this cohort was unlikely, as a large proportion of the patients had more than one pathology corresponding to each clinical indication.

Knowledge and Perception of Physicians of Different Specialties in Saudi Arabia Toward Helicobacter pylori.

Background: Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a key pathogen causing several gastrointestinal diseases. Fortunately, H. pylori infection is treatable, which can lower its comorbidities. However, data assessing physicians' awareness of H. pylori is lacking in Saudi Arabia. Objective: To assess the knowledge and awareness of physicians of different specialties who practice in Saudi Arabia about H. pylori infection. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted between May and September 2022 on physicians across all regions in Saudi Arabia using a validated online questionnaire covering their knowledge and awareness of H. pylori infection. An independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Games-Howell as a post hoc test were used to analyze the data. A General Linear Model was also employed to determine significant predictors among the variables reliant on H. pylori awareness. Results: The results showed that the mean awareness score of 474 physicians was 76.99± 6.9, indicating that participants had sufficient knowledge about H. pylori infection. In general, the internal medicine specialists (28.3%) had better awareness of H. pylori infection than the other specialties. Moreover, the university hospital sector performed the best, scoring 80.68±13.3, and the southern region had the highest-ranked physicians with a score of 81.56 ±13.7 in terms of H. pylori awareness. Furthermore, the general linear model revealed a statistical significance (p<0.05) for the following demographic aspects concerning H. pylori awareness: the physicians' age group of 30-39 years, duration of experience of 11-15 years, the hospital sectors of Nation Guards (NGH) and Security Forces (SFH), and the southern and central regions of practice in Saudi Arabia. Conclusion: Physicians in Saudi Arabia have relatively sufficient awareness of H. pylori; however, they are highly influenced by age, years of experience, the hospital sector involved, and the region where the physicians practice.

Predicting the Epidemiological Outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Saudi Arabia.

The coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak continues to spread rapidly across the world and has been declared as pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO). Saudi Arabia was among the countries that was affected by the deadly and contagious virus. Using a real-time data from 2 March 2020 to 15 May 2020 collected from Saudi Ministry of Health, we aimed to give a local prediction of the epidemic in Saudi Arabia. We used two models: the Logistic Growth and the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered for real-time forecasting the confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Saudi Arabia. Our models predicted that the epidemics of COVID-19 will have total cases of 69,000 to 79,000 cases. The simulations also predicted that the outbreak will entering the final-phase by end of June 2020.

Awareness and knowledge of the obstetric and gynecological impact of bariatric surgery among women in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Obesity is still a major health issue worldwide and bariatric surgeries are now considered one of the most effective ways to manage morbid obesity. Women who are obese in their reproductive age appear to be representing the majority of the patients seeking bariatric surgeries, accounting for (80%). The aim of this study is to assess women's awareness level of obstetric and gynecological impact of bariatric surgery on their health. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was conducted using an online survey. METHODS: Online survey was used to collect data which was distributed through social media. Questions regarding the level of knowledge were included along with sociodemographic characteristics of the population. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to conduct the statistics analysis. RESULTS: The survey elicited a total of (457) valid responses that were analyzed. The majority of responses were from married women (66.3%). Most common age group where those from (15 to 24) years. However, nearly about three-quarters of participants were found to have poor knowledge (73.1%) and only small percentage had a good level of knowledge (3.3%) and the rest of the participants were in the moderate group. Further analysis showed that good knowledge was among those who have consulted a physician, underwent bariatric surgery, whom source of information was the internet, and whom had more than one source. CONCLUSION: The level of knowledge regarding the obstetric and gynecological impact among females was found to be poor in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia.