Assessment of beliefs and attitudes about electroconvulsive therapy posted on Twitter: An observational study.

BACKGROUND: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective and safe medical procedure that mainly indicated for depression, but is also indicated for patients with other conditions. However, ECT is among the most stigmatized and controversial treatments in medicine. Our objective was to examine social media contents on Twitter related to ECT to identify and evaluate public views on the matter. METHODS: We collected Twitter posts in English and Spanish mentioning ECT between January 1, 2019 and October 31, 2020. Identified tweets were subject to a mixed method quantitative-qualitative content and sentiment analysis combining manual and semi-supervised natural language processing machine-learning analyses. Such analyses identified the distribution of tweets, their public interest (retweets and likes per tweet), and sentiment for the observed different categories of Twitter users and contents. RESULTS: "Healthcare providers" users produced more tweets (25%) than "people with lived experience" and their "relatives" (including family members and close friends or acquaintances) (10% combined), and were the main publishers of "medical" content (mostly related to ECT's main indications). However, more than half of the total tweets had "joke or trivializing" contents, and such had a higher like and retweet ratio. Among those tweets manifesting personal opinions on ECT, around 75% of them had a negative sentiment. CONCLUSIONS: Mixed method analysis of social media contents on Twitter offers a novel perspective to examine public opinion on ECT, and our results show attitudes more negative than those reflected in studies using surveys and other traditional methods.

[Medical applications of social networks. Specific aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic]. / Aplicaciones médicas de las redes sociales. Aspectos específicos de la pandemia de la COVID-19.

For years, social networks have been incorporated into the day-to-day of the majority of the population. In this context, a new area of knowledge in medicine has been developed: infodemiology. It is defined as the evaluation, with the objective of improving public health, of health-related information that users upload to the network. In addition, social networks offer many possibilities for conducting public health campaigns, accessing patients, or carrying out treatment interventions.

Transmitted drug resistance to rilpivirine in newly diagnosed antiretroviral naive adults.

We characterized transmitted drug resistance to rilpivirine and the predicted efficacy of first-line rilpivirine-containing regimens in antiretroviral-naive Spanish patients. International Antiviral Society-USA mutations were detected in 138 of 2781 patients (4.9%), E138A (3.4%) being the most prevalent. Using the Stanford Algorithm, 121 patients (4.4%) showed low-level or intermediate resistance. No differences in the predicted efficacy of first-line non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based regimens were observed. As rilpivirine becomes more widely used in clinical practice, the evolution of its transmitted drug resistance will need to be monitored. In addition, the exact role of E138A singletons on rilpivirine activity as part of first-line regimens merits further evaluation.

Cuadro confusional agudo tras uso de colirio ciclopléjico en una niña de 6 años de edad / Acute confusional state following the use of cycloplegic eye drops in a 6-year-old girl

Presentamos el caso de una niña sana, de 6 años de edad, con un síndrome confusional agudo secundario a la administración tópica ocular de gotas de ciclopentolato: actitud de nerviosismo, alucinaciones y lenguaje incoherente. Esta reacción adversa fue transitoria y sin secuelas posteriores. El caso reviste interés para recordar que los agentes parasimpaticolíticos de uso tópico ocular pueden tener efectos adversos sistémicos. El personal sanitario debe conocerlos y los padres han de ser alertados sobre ellos (AU)

A case is reported of an acute confusional state due to the use of cycloplegic eye drops in a previously healthy 6-year-old girl: Nervousness, hallucinations and unintelligible language. This adverse reaction was temporary and without after effects. We think that this case is of interest because parasympatholytic agents of topic ocular use can produce systemic side effects. The public health and health care personnel should be aware of this and parents should be warned about this possibility (AU)

Opsonophagocytosis versus complement bactericidal killing as effectors following Neisseria meningitidis group C vaccination.

BACKGROUND: Opsonophagocytosis and complement-mediated Neisseria meningitidis killing after vaccination were investigated. METHODS: Twelve seronegative healthy volunteers received one dose of polysaccharide A/C vaccine and were followed for 3 years. Ex vivo serum killing rates with polymorphonuclear cells (PMN) and/or complement were performed at 0, 1.5, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 months. RESULTS: High mean total and median bactericidal antibodies were detected over time in all subjects. Considerable reduction of the initial inoculum was obtained only in the presence of complement, with or without PMN (with significant differences compared to curves without complement) a long time after vaccination. CONCLUSION: PMN did not increase post-vaccination bacterial killing, suggesting that antibody complement-mediated killing, and not opsonophagocytosis, is the main immune effector of the vaccine protection against N. meningitidis.

In vitro bactericidal activity of peak serum concentrations of co-amoxiclav, amoxicillin and vancomycin against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

In order to explore the bactericidal activity of concentrations similar to the peak serum concentrations obtained after a single i.v. dose of 2,000/200 mg co-amoxiclav and 500 mg vancomycin, killing curves with co-amoxiclav (69/10 microg/ml), amoxicillin (69 microg/ml), clavulanic acid (10 microg/ml), and vancomycin (15 microg/ml) were performed against two isogenic (ss-lactamase positive and negative) methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains in cation-supplemented Mueller-Hinton broth with 2% NaCl incubated at 35 degrees C. Colony counts were performed at 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 hours in Mueller- Hinton plates supplemented with 4% NaCl and 25 microg/ml oxacillin to measure the resistant population. Similar initial inocula reductions were obtained for amoxicillin-clavulanic acid and vancomycin for both strains, and significant differences were found in comparison to the control. Clavulanic acid decreased the growth rate of the ss-lactamase negative strain when compared to control curves. The penicillin-binding protein 2a affinity of old ss-lactams in conjunction with clavulanic acid overcoming ss-lactamase resistance may explain these results.