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Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to lessen pain and anxiety experienced by pediatric patients undergoing burn wound care procedures. Population-specific variables require novel technological application and thus, a systematic review among studies on its impact is warranted.

Drug distribution in scalp hair can provide historical information about drug use, such as the date and frequency of drug ingestion. We previously developed micro-segmental hair analysis, which visualizes drug distribution at 0.4-mm intervals in individual hairs. The present study examines whether the distribution profiles of drugs can be markers for the administration or external contamination of the drugs using scalp, axillary, and pubic hairs.

Adolescent obesity augments and impedes the treatment of chronic pain. This is associated with increased systemic inflammation and is more prominent in females. In addition, pain and obesity each independently affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. However, the interaction of pain and obesity on the HPA axis and the potential for sexual dimorphism in this phenomenon is not established. We hypothesized that dysregulation of the HPA axis occurs in female human adolescents with chronic pain, obesity, or the combination of the two and is associated with gonadal steroids. We measured serum cortisol, estradiol, and testosterone in 13-17-year-old adolescent females ( = 79) from venous blood drawn during the daytime (0830-1730 h) and analyzed the data and partitioned by morning vs. afternoon sampling time. Subjects were categorized as healthy weight/no pain (controls; BMI = 56 percentile [37-71]), healthy weight with chronic pain, obese without pain (BMI = 97 percentile [95-99]), or the combination of obesity and chronic pain. Serum cortisol was lower with chronic pain and/or obesity compared to healthy controls and was lower with chronic pain and obesity compared to chronic pain alone (healthy weight). The lower serum cortisol in the pain alone group was more prominent in the morning compared to the afternoon. There was no relationship between serum estradiol and testosterone and study group. The decrease in the anti-inflammatory and other pain-ameliorating effects of cortisol may contribute to chronic pain and its resistance to treatment with concurrent obesity in female adolescents.

This prospective study aimed to examine the association of psychosocial working conditions with adverse reactions after receiving COVID-19 vaccination in a sample of employees in Japan.

Pain control after thoracoscopy is one of the important issues in patient health care. Pre-emptive analgesia can reduce acute postoperative pain and also prevent chronic pain. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of gabapentin (GABA analog) as pre-emptive analgesia in reducing pain and reducing opiate consumption after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) surgery.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the standard values for gender- and age-stratified serum pepsinogen (sPG) in Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) non-infected children and to determine the optimal cut-off values of sPG for predicting H. pylori-infected gastritis in children.

To determine the safety, efficacy, and tolerability of combinations of pilocarpine (Pilo) and oxymetazoline (Oxy) ocular drops dosed once daily and identify the optimal concentration of each for the pharmacologic treatment of presbyopia.

The most common neurological symptoms in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection are headache, myalgia, encephalopathy, dizziness, dysgeusia and anosmia, making more than 90 percent of neurological manifestations of COVID-19. Other neurological manifestations such as stroke, movement disorder symptoms or epileptic seizures are rare but rather devastating, with possible lethal outcome. The primary aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of acute symptomatic seizures among COVID-19 patients, while secondary aim was to determine their possible etiology. Out of 5382 patients with COVID-19 admitted to Dubrava University Hospital from November 1, 2020 until June 1, 2021, 38 (seizure rate 0.7%) of them had acute symptomatic seizures. Of these 38 patients, 29 (76.3%) had new-onset epileptic seizures and nine (23.7%) patients with previous epilepsy history had breakthrough seizures during COVID-19. Although acute symptomatic seizures are an infrequent complication of COVID-19, seizure risk must be considered in these patients, particularly in the group of patients with a severe course of the disease. Accumulation of proinflammatory cytokines may contribute to the occurrence of seizures in patients with COVID-19, but seizures may also be secondary to primary brain pathology related to COVID-19, such as stroke or encephalitis.

The most common disabling symptom of osteoarthritis (OA) is pain. Clinical investigations using disease-specific animal models have increased our insights into the pathophysiology of osteoarthritic pain. As the prevalence of OA continues to rise and current available treatment options give less than optimal levels of pain relief, opportunities to develop treatments to address osteoarthritic pain are increasing. Targeted administration of local anesthetics along sensory/motor nerves can provide an alternative strategy for managing osteoarthritic pain. Moreover, the development of engineered therapeutic drug delivery systems may allow for sustained perineural delivery of local anesthetics as opposed to the traditional intraarticular joint injections. This review presents an overview of 1) the pathophysiology of persistent pain associated with OA of the hip, shoulder, and knee and 2) the emerging therapeutic role of local anesthetics in providing analgesia for joint-related pain symptoms.

Tearing of the acetabular labrum is a common cause of chronic hip pain. MR arthrography (MRA) of the hip is the imaging procedure of choice for the evaluation of acetabular labrum. Familiarity with the various imaging findings of MRA of the hip allows recognition of normal variants and differentiation from true pathologic conditions. This article comprehensively reviews the technical aspects and interpretation of MRA of the hip. The appearances of normal and abnormal labra in MRA are discussed. Potential pitfalls in labral tear interpretation, such as sulci around the hip, normal variants of the labrum and plicae, and osseocartilaginous and soft tissue lesions identified on MRA of the hip are also described.