Turkish community pharmacists’ behavioral determinants in provision of pharmaceutical care to elderly patients

International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy - Background It is crucial to develop and implement community pharmacist-led pharmaceutical care services in primary care that could prevent and detect...     

Early and late neurological complications of liver transplantation in pediatric patients

NCs occur commonly after solid organ transplantation and affect 15%‐30% of liver transplant recipients. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the type and incidence of neurologic events in pediatric patients following LT. Between May 2006 and June 2015, 242 patients (118 females, 124 males) requiring LT for different etiologies at the ?nönü University Liver Transplantation Institute were included. The incidence, types, and risk factors of NCs that occurred following LT were evaluated retrospectively. Neurologic events occurred in 57 (23.5%) of the patients. Early NCs were encephalopathy (12.4%), seizures (11.5%), and PRES (7%). Of 57 patients, five (8.7%) experienced NCs at least 1 month after LT; these late NCs included tremor, headaches, encephalopathy, ataxia, and neuropathy. The psychiatric symptoms after LT were noted in 42 patients (17.4%). The mortality rate after LT in those with or without neurological events was not significantly different (P=.73). There was a high incidence of serious neurologic events after LT. The major neurologic manifestation in our patients was encephalopathy followed by seizures.     

Management of iatrogenic crystalline lens injury occurred during intravitreal injection

To evaluate the approach to management of iatrogenic crystalline lens injury occurred during intravitreal injection (IVI). The patients who were managed operatively or followed-up without intervention after the iatrogenic lens injury due to IVI were included in the study. Capsular breaks remained either quiescent or resulted in cataract formation in the patients with inadvertent crystalline lens capsule damage. Phacoemulsification surgery was performed in patients with cataract formation with lower fluidic settings. A total of 9 cases included in the study. Seven cases underwent phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation. Two cases remained as quiescent lens injury during the follow-up. In 2 cases, dislocation of lens fragments occurred during phacoemulsification where pars plana vitrectomy was performed at the same session. After iatrogenic crystalline lens injury, capsular damage could remain quiescent or progress to cataract formation. Although phacoemulsification surgery can be performed with appropriate parameters, lens fragment dislocation can be observed in cases with traumatic lens damage secondary to IVI.     

Not just pain and morning stiffness duration in the daily experience of patients with polymyalgia rheumatica. Does the rheumatologist listen to all patient-reported outcomes?

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) provide a means for patients to communicate with their care teams about their disease. Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) is considered to be one of the most common inflammatory rheumatic diseases in older adults. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) of pain is the only PRO assessed by the PMR activity score (PMR-AS), which is still the only validated score for monitoring disease activity in patients affected with PMR. Other PROs such as fatigue, sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms, and patient’s perspective related to adverse effects of prednisolone are still unmet needs. This short communication suggests the gerontorheumatological outpatient clinic as an answer.     

An automated image analysis system can be beneficial in preclassification of leucocytes in children with hematological disease

This study was aimed to evaluate the analytical performance of an automated image analysis system (a pilot model of Diff Master^? Octavia) for the preclassification of leucocytes in children with hematological disease. Manual microscopy performed by pediatric hematologists was used as the reference method. Five mature cell class and blasts were evaluated. Diff Master Octavia correctly preclassified 87.4% of all leucocytes with a high reproducibility. The overall accuracy was found to be 93.0%. Clinical sensitivity was 97.7% and specificity was 76.0%. The average time per slide for Diff Master^? Octavia was 2.3 min lower than that of manual method. Our results indicated that the Diff Master^? Octavia can detect and preclassify leucocytes accurately; therefore, it can be used as an efficient and fast method in pediatric hematology routine. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 25:71–75, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.