Installing oncofertility programs for common cancers in limited resource settings (Repro-Can-OPEN Study): An extrapolation during the global crisis of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

PURPOSE: The state of limited resource settings that Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created globally should be taken seriously into account especially in healthcare sector. In oncofertility, patients should receive their fertility preservation treatments urgently even in limited resource settings before initiation of anticancer therapy. Therefore, it is very crucial to learn more about oncofertility practice in limited resource settings such as in developing countries that suffer often from shortage of healthcare services provided to young patients with cancer. METHODS: As an extrapolation during the global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic, we surveyed oncofertility centers from 14 developing countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Brazil, Peru, Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and India). Survey questionnaire included questions on the availability and degree of utilization of fertility preservation options in case of childhood cancer, breast cancer, and blood cancer. RESULTS: All surveyed centers responded to all questions. Responses and their calculated oncofertility scores showed different domestic standards for oncofertility practice in case of childhood cancer, breast cancer, and blood cancer in the developing countries under limited resource settings. CONCLUSIONS: Medical practice in limited resource settings has become a critical topic especially after the global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the resources necessary to provide oncofertility treatments is important until the current COVID-19 pandemic resolves. Lessons learned will be valuable to future potential worldwide disruptions due to infectious diseases or other global crises.

Sexual dysfunction in uraemic patients undergoing haemodialysis: predisposing and related conditions.

Chronic kidney disease and sexual dysfunction are common entities in clinical practice in haemodialysis (HD) units. This article is a review of some articles that focus on sexual dysfunction in patients undergoing HD and its possible relationship in multiple ways.

Zinner's syndrome: an up-to-date review of the literature based on a clinical case.

The authors made an up-to-date review of the literature concerning the management of Zinner's syndrome and evaluated a young patient with Zinner's syndrome who had presented with urinary and ejaculatory complaints. Physical examination and transrectal ultra-sonography showed a 7.0 cm right seminal vesicle cyst. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirmed the diagnosis of Zinner's syndrome. Oligoasthenoteratozoospermia was present at the two seminal analyses. Symptomatic improvement was achieved with conservative measures. Actually, the patient is still on a follow-up programme. The diagnosis is usually established at the age of increased sexual activity. Patients may be asymptomatic or present pain, irritative urinary or ejaculatory symptoms and infertility. MRI has proved to be the best imaging examination. Treatment should be adapted to symptoms, surveillance being the best option in the absence of clinical manifestations. Surgical approach may be adequate when conservative measures prove ineffective. Zinner's syndrome should be suspected if a male young patient presents with unilateral renal agenesis and pelvic complaints and has a supraprostatic mass on digital rectal examination. The initial approach should be medical, but invasive procedures may be the only way to solve the patient's complaints. Nowadays, laparoscopic and robotic techniques must replace the open surgical approach.

[Cystic kidney disease]. / Doença quística renal.

The kidney is one of the organs most frequently affected by cystic disease, which can be defined as the morbidity attributable to the presence of renal cysts. Renal cysts appear in a series of very diverse hereditary anomalies, acquired or developmental, occurring as an isolated form or in association with other renal or systemic alterations. Cysts are microscopic or macroscopic abnormal cavities, with saccular or fusiform shape, coated with epithelium and filled with liquid. They origin in the nephron or the collecting tubules, with which a connection can be maintained or not. They can occur at any point in life, from the prenatal period to adulthood, and one or both kidneys may be affected in a focal or diffuse form. Renal cyst pathogenesis is not completely understood, although there is evidence that it may be caused by hyperproliferative dysplasic secretion and matrix remodelling alterations, modulated by endocrine, paracrine, juxtacrine and autocrine stimuli, which induce obstructive alterations that are determinant in its genesis and evolution.

Perceived somatotype as indicator of accuracy of body image, a method using somatotype attitudinal distance.

A method intended to assess accuracy of body image was applied to 52 Caucasian girls aged 14 and 15 years. Each girl, after being somatotyped by the Heath-Carter anthropometric method, was asked to select, among ten somatotype standard photographs, the one she perceived closest to her own objective somatotype. The purposes of the research were (i) to measure the distance between the objective and subjective judgements, self-perceived somatotypes by means of the somatotype attitudinal distance, and (ii) to assess the stability of the subjective somatotype by a test-retest correlation. The girls were also asked to select the pictures corresponding to the most preferred and aversive somatotypes. The test-retest coefficients were significant for the three somatotype choices. Hence, the method provides adequate stability and may be employed to reproduce the discrepancies between body image and real body build by a quantitative continuous measure.

Secular changes in stature in southern Portugal between 1930 and 1980 according to conscript data.

Stature of conscripts from four regions of southern Portugal was evaluated in a secular perspective. Data were drawn from the draft records for each decade between 1930 and 1980, a period that corresponds to a decisive expansion of industry and urbanization. In each region conscripts were divided into two groups according to their area of birth: urban or rural. A secular shift was apparent in every region, affecting conscripts of both urban and rural extraction. However, gains in stature were greater in the littoral than in the hinterland regions, where agriculture still employs a large percentage of the population. In each region the urban conscripts experienced greater secular gains than their rural counterparts. The secular shift was more pronounced among the short-stature segments of the populations; percentages of conscripts below a height of 160.0 cm dropped in a striking manner throughout the period under investigation. Despite the paucity of reliable information on the anthropometric and biodemographic characteristics of the Portuguese population, the secular gains were found to be associated with infant mortality and total death rate in the four regions. Compared to other Western European populations, the secular growth of the Portuguese proceeds at a slower pace, even when comparisons are made within the group of Latin countries that share a common linguistic and cultural heritage in addition to the shortest statures in Europe.