Features of patients that died for COVID-19 in a hospital in the south of Mexico: A observational cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Due to the wide spread of SARS-CoV2 around the world, the risk of death in individuals with metabolic comorbidities has dangerously increased. Mexico has a high number of infected individuals and deaths by COVID-19 as well as an important burden of metabolic diseases; nevertheless, reports about features of Mexican individuals with COVID-19 are scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate demographic features, clinical characteristics and the pharmacological treatment of individuals who died by COVID-19 in the south of Mexico. METHODS: We performed an observational study including the information of 185 deceased individuals with confirmed diagnoses of COVID-19. Data were retrieved from medical records. Categorical data were expressed as proportions (%) and numerical data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation. Comorbidities and overlapping symptoms were plotted as Venn diagrams. Drug clusters were plotted as dendrograms. RESULTS: The mean age was 59.53 years. There was a male predominance (60.1%). The mean hospital stay was 4.75 ± 4.43 days. The most frequent symptoms were dyspnea (88.77%), fever (71.42%) and dry cough (64.28%). Present comorbidities included diabetes (60.63%), hypertension (59.57%) and obesity (43.61%). The main drugs used for treating COVID-19 were azithromycin (60.6%), hydroxychloroquine (53.0%) and oseltamivir (27.3%). CONCLUSIONS: Mexican individuals who died of COVID-19 had shorter hospital stays, higher frequency of shortness of breath, and higher prevalence of diabetes than individuals from other countries. Also, there was a high frequency of off-label use of drugs for their treatment.

[Thromboprophylaxis in post-surgical patients: review of 1,500 cases]. / Tromboprofilaxis en pacientes postquirúrgicos: revisión de 1,500 casos.

Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) are entities with a relative high frequency in post-surgical patients and can occur immediately after the surgical procedure or even two or three weeks after the surgical event. In the United States and Europe, DVT is present in over 5 million events each year, while PE is present in over 500,000 cases. The purpose of this study is to review the cases that undergo surgery during a period of three months (1,500 cases), from June 15th to September 15th, 2003, at the Angeles of Pedregal Hospital in Mexico City, in order to evaluate the type of risk that each one represents (International Consensus, 1997 ACCP, and the 2000 Mexican Consensus over venous thromboembolism (VTE) questionnaire), and the prophylaxis applied in each case, to be compared with international standards. The Angeles of Pedregal Hospital maintains a general prophylactic standard with its patients equivalent in number to the international standard; however, there is deficiency in the measures taken in orthopedic, high-risk, and very high-risk patients, where prophylaxis was low. It has also been called to our attention that the prophylactic measures taken were insufficient, both in the type of measure that was chosen and the combination of those that were applied, which in relation to the international recommendations were extremely low.