ABSTRACT
Objetivo : Comparar las características clínicoepidemiológicas de pacientes pediátricos con quemaduras antes y durante la pandemia por COVID-19, en el Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño San Borja. El estudio : Estudio analítico, retrospectivo. Se evaluó pacientes atendidos en el INSNSB, durante los períodos de marzo a diciembre 2019 y 2020. Se obtuvieron datos de las historias clínicas. Para la estadística se empleó el programa SPSS v25 (IC 95%). Hallazgos : Se analizaron 139 pacientes en cada periodo. El 60.4% y el 76.3% procedía de Lima, antes y durante la pandemia respectivamente. El grado de instrucción más frecuente del familiar responsable fue el de secundaria (42.3% y 58.2%). Además, las quemaduras menores mostraron un aumento antes y durante la pandemia (49.9% y 61%). Conclusiones: Se observó cambios significativos en la procedencia, grado de instrucción del familiar responsable y severidad de quemadura en ambos períodos
Objective: To compare the clinical-epidemiological characteristics of patients with burns before and during the COVID-19 pandemic treated at the "Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño San Borja" . The study: Analytical, retrospective study. Patients treated at the INSNSB, during the periods from March to December 2019 and 2020. Data were collected from medical records. For statistical, the SPSS v25 program (95% CI) was used. Findings: 139 patients were analyzed in each period. 60.4% and 76.3% of patients came from Lima, before and during the pandemic, respectively; The most frequent level of education of the responsible family member was high school (42.3% and 58.2%). Also, minor burns showed an increase before and during the pandemic (49.9% and 61%). Conclusions: Significant changes were observed in the origin, degree of the responsible family member and the severity of burn between both periods.
ABSTRACT
We evaluated the performance of a commercial rapid diagnostic test (RDT) in a field setting for the diagnosis of abdominal cystic echinococcosis (CE) using sera collected during an ultrasound population screening in a highly endemic region of the Peruvian Andes. Abdominal CE was investigated by ultrasonography. Sera collected from individuals with abdominal CE (cases) and age- and gender-matched volunteers with no abdominal CE (controls) were tested independently in two laboratories (Peru and Italy) using the VIRapid® HYDATIDOSIS RDT and RIDASCREEN® Echinococcus IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Performance indexes of single and serially combined tests were calculated and applied to hypothetical screening and clinical scenarios. Test concordance was also evaluated. Prevalence of abdominal CE was 6.00% (33 of 546) by ultrasound. Serum was obtained from 33 cases and 81 controls. The VIRapid test showed similar sensitivity (76% versus 74%) and lower specificity (79% versus 96%) than results obtained in a hospital setting. RDTs showed better performance when excluding subjects reporting surgery for CE and if weak bands were considered negative. Concordance between tests was moderate to very good. In hypothetical screening scenarios, ultrasound alone or confirmed by RDTs provided more reliable prevalence figures than serology alone, which overestimated it by 5 to 20 times. In a simulation of case diagnosis with pre-test probability of CE of 50%, positive and negative post-test probabilities of the VIRapid test were 78% and 22%, respectively. The application of the VIRapid test alone would not be reliable for the assessment of population prevalence of CE, but could help clinical decision making in resource-limited settings.
Subject(s)
Antibodies, Helminth/blood , Diagnostic Tests, Routine/methods , Echinococcosis/diagnosis , Echinococcosis/therapy , Echinococcus/genetics , Serologic Tests/methods , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Animals , Child , Child, Preschool , Echinococcosis/epidemiology , Epidemiological Monitoring , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Peru/epidemiology , Young AdultABSTRACT
Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a major neglected tropical zoonotic disease caused by the tissue-dwelling larval stage of the cestode parasite Echinococcus granulosus. For individuals suspected of CE, the diagnostic standard is imaging using ultrasonography, X rays, or computed tomography. These resource-demanding and expensive procedures are rarely available in endemic rural areas where CE is most prevalent. There is a critical need for a new approach to identify CE patients so that they can be managed early in the course of their infection. This study reports on the results of a diagnostic approach that identifies E. granulosus-derived cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in the urine of CE patients. Utilizing PCR to amplify a fragment of a major tandem repeat element found in E. granulosus nuclear DNA, urine samples from all seven imaging-confirmed CE patients who harbored active liver cysts were positive. In addition, the urine samples from 2/4 patients who presented with non-viable/calcified liver cysts were also PCR positive for the repeat fragment. To our knowledge, this is the first report of using parasite cfDNA from urine to diagnose CE. This approach provides an easy to implement and cost-effective method to survey for the prevalence of E. granulosus in humans populations.
