Stroke epidemiology in southern Brazil: Investigating the relationship between stroke severity, hospitalization costs, and health-related quality of life.

We aimed with the present study to fill the gap on the performance and safety of stroke management and the costs related to hospitalizations, the relevant comorbidities associated with stroke patients, and the stroke patient outcomes health-related quality of life (HRQOL) progress. Our study investigated the clinical, neurological, and social impact of stroke in 220 patients in a tertiary hospital located in the countryside of the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Description of clinical and neurological characteristics of stroke patients between 2015 to 2020 was analyzed using electronic medical records. The most affected age group was 61-80 years, being female the most affected sex. Almost 89.5% of the patients had some risk factor, with a higher prevalence of ischemic stroke. This type of stroke was the expensive, in terms of hospitalization, with an average cost of $74.10. Considering the stroke-specific quality of life scale (SSQOL) score, 88.3% of patients who demonstrated some comorbidity and 47.6% of women had lower quality of life levels post-stroke. Our data could be useful to substantiate a data-base with epidemiology statistics characterization of stroke hospitalizations, indicating the severity of stroke for the patient.

Terpenoids, Cannabimimetic Ligands, beyond the Cannabis Plant.

Medicinal use of Cannabis sativa L. has an extensive history and it was essential in the discovery of phytocannabinoids, including the Cannabis major psychoactive compound-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC)-as well as the G-protein-coupled cannabinoid receptors (CBR), named cannabinoid receptor type-1 (CB1R) and cannabinoid receptor type-2 (CB2R), both part of the now known endocannabinoid system (ECS). Cannabinoids is a vast term that defines several compounds that have been characterized in three categories: (i) endogenous, (ii) synthetic, and (iii) phytocannabinoids, and are able to modulate the CBR and ECS. Particularly, phytocannabinoids are natural terpenoids or phenolic compounds derived from Cannabis sativa. However, these terpenoids and phenolic compounds can also be derived from other plants (non-cannabinoids) and still induce cannabinoid-like properties. Cannabimimetic ligands, beyond the Cannabis plant, can act as CBR agonists or antagonists, or ECS enzyme inhibitors, besides being able of playing a role in immune-mediated inflammatory and infectious diseases, neuroinflammatory, neurological, and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as in cancer, and autoimmunity by itself. In this review, we summarize and critically highlight past, present, and future progress on the understanding of the role of cannabinoid-like molecules, mainly terpenes, as prospective therapeutics for different pathological conditions.