Rejected

The prevalence of urolithiasis is 7-10% and has increased over the past years. Simple nephrectomy is, therefore, indicated when renal exclusion is associated with recurrent urinary tract infections and/or chronic pain.

It is not uncommon for orthopedic patients to experience pain following a total knee replacement (TKR). Use of oral pain medications, nerve blocks, and periarticular injections are implemented to provide multimodal analgesia and to reduce postoperative chronic pain. Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) can also be used to control pain in patients who are refractory to conservative measures. Few studies have explored this possibility for patients with chronic pain status post TKR. We present three cases that demonstrate the effectiveness of SCS in this challenging patient population.

Ceftriaxone is a commonly used antibiotic in a wide range of local and systemic infections. Encephalopathy is a rare complication of ceftriaxone, often seen in older adults and those with renal insufficiency.

Cerebral vascular comorbidities may occur in patients with schistosomiasis, as described in case reports. We have summarized general clinical and neurological features in patients with stroke associated with schistosomiasis, through a review of case reports in the literature. A total of eight case reports were retrieved. The mean age of patients was 36.42 ± 16.7 (19 to 56 years), four females, three males, and one anonymous sex. Eosinophilia was the most frequent feature at presentation, followed by cardiac abnormalities, confusion, fever, ataxia, hemiplegia, headache, urticaria, dysphasia, and memory impairment. Patients usually present with watershed infarction or intracranial vasculitis. In one case, extracranial carotid arteries presented with inflammation and stenosis. The patient's serology was positive on admission in five cases. Full neurological recovery was reported in three cases, and partial improvement in another three. In two cases, information on neurological outcomes was incomplete. Stroke in schistosomiasis can be caused by haemodynamic impairment, direct lesion to the arterial wall, vasa vasorum obliterative endarteritis, contiguity with a focus of inflamed tissue, or inflammatory intimal damage. Schistosomiasis needs to be included in the differential diagnosis of stroke in people living or coming back from endemic areas.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive, fibrotic, and fatal interstitial lung disease (ILD) of unknown etiology that primarily affects the elderly. Patients with IPF suffer from a heavy symptom burden and usually have a poor quality of life. Dyspnea and dry cough are predominant symptoms of IPF. Although pain is not considered one of the main symptoms of IPF, it can occur for a variety of reasons, such as hypoxia, coughing, muscle and nerve damage, deconditioning, and steroid use. The prevalence of pain in IPF patients varies greatly, ranging from around 30 to 80%, with the prevalence being estimated mostly among patients in the end-of-life period. It manifests itself in the form of muscle pain, joint discomfort, or back and chest pain. Approaches to the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain in patients with IPF include pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures that are also important to optimize the treatment of other symptoms (dyspnea and cough) and the optimal treatment of comorbidities. Given the scarcity of data on this symptom in the literature, this article summarizes what is currently known about the etiology and treatment of musculoskeletal pain in IPF.

The efficacy of topical minoxidil (MX) alone on female pattern hair loss (FPHL) is limited. Combination therapy based on topical MX is currently expected to provide better outcomes.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are traditionally used to relieve pain syndromes. The class of NSAIDs includes oxicams (meloxicam, tenoxicam, lornoxicam) – drugs with pronounced analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. Oxicams have common properties of the class, but at the same time, due to structural differences from all other NSAIDs, they differ in a number of clinical and pharmacological characteristics, knowledge of which will help to individualize the choice of the drug.

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia that often occurs in adults. Many studies have indicated that exercise is beneficial to the medical management of diabetes. Bibliometric analysis can help investigators to identify the current research concerns to guide future research directions. Nevertheless, the overview bibliometric analysis of this global research topic related to exercise and diabetes is lacking. The present bibliometric study aimed to investigate development trends and research hotspots of exercise and diabetes research and provide researchers with new perspectives in further studies.

Migraine is a prevalent headache disorder with significant impacts on patients' quality of life and economic burden. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is commonly prescribed for migraine in China. This review aimed to provide a rigorous evaluation of evidence on the efficacy of oral CHM for migraine and explore the correlation between its effect size and treatment duration.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is causing profound health, economic, and social problems worldwide. The global shortage of medical and personal protective equipment (PPE) in specialized centers during the outbreak demonstrated the need for efficient methods to disinfect and recycle them in times of emergency. We have previously described that high ozone concentrations destroyed viral RNA in an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 strain within a few minutes. However, the efficient ozone dosages for active SARS-CoV-2 are still unknown. The present study aimed to evaluate the systematic effects of ozone exposure on face masks from hospitalized patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Face masks from COVID-19 patients were collected and treated with a clinical ozone generator at high ozone concentrations in small volumes for short periods. The study focused on SARS-CoV-2 gene detection (assessed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)) and on the virus inactivation by in vitro studies. We assessed the effects of different high ozone concentrations and exposure times on decontamination efficiency. We showed that high ozone concentrations (10,000, 2,000, and 4,000 ppm) and short exposure times (10, 10, and 2 minutes, respectively), inactivated both the original strain and the B.1.1.7 strain of SARS-CoV-2 from 24 contaminated face masks from COVID-19 patients. The validation results showed that the best condition for SARS-CoV-2 inactivation was a treatment of 4,000 ppm of ozone for 2 minutes. Further studies are in progress to advance the potential applications of these findings.