Foreign body aspiration in Israeli children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Since the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there has been a decline in pediatric emergency department visits. Our aim was to assess the pattern of pediatric foreign body aspiration (FBA) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, in comparison to the prior years. METHODS: In this retrospective multicenter study, we compared the number of children who presented with FBA during the COVID-19 year (March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021) to the annual average of the years 2016-2019. We also compared the lockdown periods to the postlockdown periods, and the percentage of missed FBA, proven FBA, and flexible bronchoscopy as the removal procedure. RESULTS: A total of 345 children with FBA from six centers were included, 276 in the pre-COVID-19 years (average 69 per year) and 69 in the COVID-19 year. There was no difference in the prevalence of FBA between the COVID-19 year and any of the prior 4 years. Examining the lockdown effect, the monthly incidence of FBA dropped from a pre-COVID-19 average of 5.75 cases to 5.1 cases during lockdown periods and increased to 6.3 cases in postlockdown periods. No difference in the percentage of missed FB or proven FB was observed. There was a significant rise in the usage of flexible bronchoscopy as the removal procedure (average of 15.4% vs. 30.4%, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: There were fewer cases of pediatric FBA during lockdown periods, compared to post-lockdown periods, presumably related to better parental supervision, with no difference in the prevalence of FBA during the COVID-19 year.

Hemoglobin Levels and Red Blood Cells Distribution Width Highlights Glioblastoma Patients Subgroup With Improved Median Overall Survival.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is known for its dismal prognosis, though its dependence on patients' readily available RBCs parameters is not fully established. In this work, 170 GBM patients, diagnosed and treated in Soroka University Medical Center (SUMC) over the last 12 years were retrospectively inspected for their survival dependency on pre-operative RBCs parameters. Besides KPS and tumor resection supplemented by oncological treatment, age under 70 (HR = 0.4, 95% CI 0.24-0.65, p = 0.00073), low hemoglobin level (HR = 1.79, 95% CI 1.06-2.99, p = 0.031), and Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW) < 14% (HR = 0.57, 95% CI 0.37-0.88, p = 0.018) were found to be prognostic of patients' overall survival in multivariate analysis, accounting for a false discovery rate of < 5% due to multiple hypothesis testing. According to these results, a stratification tree was made, from which a favorable route highlighted a subgroup of nearly 30% of the cohorts' patients whose median overall survival was 21.1 months (95% CI 16.2-27.2)-higher than the established chemo-radiation standard first-line treatment regimen overall median survival average of about 15 months. The beneficial or detrimental effect of RBCs parameters on GBM prognosis and its possible causes is discussed.