Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine最新文献

Introduction and objective: Little is known about interspecific contacts between ticks. Therefore, this study focused on the investigation of factors that may influence interspecific contacts between Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus ticks.

Material and methods: Ixodes ricinus males and D. reticulatus females involved in oral-anal contacts (group I) and questing specimens with no such behaviour (group II) collected in eastern Poland were examined using molecular techniques to detect Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. (Bb), Rickettsia spp. (Rs), Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Babesia microti, and Toxoplasma gondii.

Results: An extremely high infection rate of Bb and Rs was determined in I. ricinus males (in groups I: 100% and 46.15% and group II: 90% and 40%, respectively) and D. reticulatus females (in group I: 84.61% and 61.53% and in group II: 90% and 20%, respectively). The prevalence of other pathogens in these ticks was substantially lower. Co-infection with pathogens was detected in approximately 53% of ticks.

Conclusions: The study suggests that tick-borne pathogens may have influenced the sexual behaviour of their vectors. The oral-anal contacts between I. ricinus and D. reticulatus ticks are probably stimulated by Bb and/or Rs. The presence of five pathogens and numerous co-infections in the analysed ticks indicates a risk of various human infectious diseases in the study region. Further studies are required to clarify the implications of oral-anal interspecific tick interactions.

Introduction and objective: Head and neck injuries are a heterogeneous group in terms of both clinical course and prognosis. For years, there have been attempts to create an ideal tool to predict the outcomes and severity of injuries. The aim of this study was evaluation of the use of selected artificial intelligence methods for outcome predictions of head and neck injuries.

Material and methods: 6,824 consecutive cases of patients who sustained head and neck injuries, treated in hospitals in the Lublin Province between 2006-2018, whose data was provided by National Institute of Public Health / National Institute of Hygiene, were analyzed retrospectively. Patients were qualified using International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (10th Revision). The multilayer perceptron (MLP) structure was utilized in numerical studies. Neural network training was achieved with the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) method.

Results: In the designed network, the highest classification efficiency was obtained for the group of deaths (80.7%). The average value of correct classifications for all analyzed cases was 66%. The most important variable influencing the prognosis of an injured patient was diagnosis (weight 1.929). Gender and age were variables of less significance with weight 1.08 and 1.073, respectively.

Conclusions: Designing a neural network was hindered due to the large amount of cases and linking of a large number of deaths with specific diagnosis (S06). With a predictive value of 80.7% for mortality, ANN can be a promising tool in the future; however, additional variables should be introduced into the algorithm to increase the predictive value of the network. Further studies, including other types of injuries and additional variables, are needed to introduce this method into clinical use.

Introduction and objective: Animal bites are among the most critical in public health problems. Dogs are the leading cause of bite injuries. The study aimed to investigate the epidemiology and clinical features of dog bite cases admitted to an emergency department, as well as their temporal trends, seasonality, and tr relationship with meteorological data.

Material and methods: Study data comprised eight years (2012-2019) emergency room records of a tertiary center. Demographic characteristics of the cases, bite anatomical area, treatment applied, hospitalization, and death rates were determined. The incidence rates and distribution of meteorological data by years were examined using ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis tests. Seasonality and temporal trends were investigated for incidence rates using the additive decomposition technique. The temporal relationship of incidence rates with meteorological data was evaluated using the Autoregressive Distributed Delayed Boundary Test. Causality verification was perfoirmed using the Granger test.

Results: Dog bite cases consisted of 1,335 records of partients with a mean age of 26.6±0.2 years. Bite cases were most common in the 20-44 age group (44.7%), males (76.4%), and lower extremities (48.2%). The frequency of hospitalization was 4.1%. Annual incidence rates ranged from 52.7-49.9/100,000, with a non-significant increasing trend. The incidence of bites had two peaks, in June and August. A co-integration relationship was observed between incidence rates and air temperature and humidity levels (p<0.001).

Conclusions: Effective implementation of prevention programmes is needed for high-risk demographic groups. In addition, a national monitoring and reporting system could evaluate the effectiveness of any prevention programme and reduce the incedence of dog bites.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the impact of type 2 diabetes on quality of life (QoL), taking into account gender differences in relation to individual domains of Diabetes-Related Quality of Life Audit (ADDQoL) in adult men and women in Poland, the Czech Republic and Republic of Slovakia.

Material and methods: The participants were 608 patients from the three countries, of whom 278 were women and 330 men with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The tool used was the Audit of Diabetes-Dependent Quality of Life (ADDQoL).

Results: The overall average QoL was slightly higher in men than in women. In ADDQoL scores, mean weighted impact scores were negative for all domains. The domain which was the most affected by type 2 diabetes in both men and women from all three countries was the 'freedom to eat', while the 'living conditions' domain was the least affected. Diabetes had a slightly negative average weighted impact on most men and women - AWI<-3.0. Except for the different AWI scores in men with type 2 diabetes depending on their education, neither men nor women revealed any significant changes in terms of the impact of education, residence, marital status, smoking, hypertension, or taking anti-hypertensive drugs.

Conclusions: Type 2 diabetes mellitus negatively affects all the domains of life, in both men and women in all three countries; however, this impact is insignificant. The participants assessed their quality of life as good and very good.

Introduction and objective: Low physical activity in patients with claudication is associated with lower walking abilities as assessed by the treadmill test. The impact of physical activity on the ability to walk in a natural environment is unknown. The study aimed to assess the level of daily physical activity among patients with claudication, as well as the relationship between the level of daily physical activity and claudication distance measured during the outdoor walking and treadmill tests.

Material and methods: The study included 37 patients (24 males), aged 70.03±5.9, with intermittent claudication. Daily step count was assessed using the Garmin Vivofit activity monitor, worn on the non-dominant wrist for 7 consecutive days. Pain-free walking distance (PFWDTT) and maximal walking distance (MWDTT) were measured via the treadmill test. During 60-minute outdoor walking, the maximal walking distance (MWDGPS), total walking distance (TWDGPS), walking speed (WSGPS), number of stops (NSGPS) and stop durations (SDGPS) were assessed.

Results: Mean daily step count - 7,102±3,433. A significant correlation was observed between daily step count and MWDTT, TWDGPS (R=0.33, R=0.37, respectively (p<0.05). Furthermore, 51% of patients reached less than 7,500 steps/day and presented significantly shorter MWDTT, MWDGPS and TWDGPS, compared to the participants covering ≥7,500 steps (p<0.05).

Conclusions: The daily step count reflects claudication distance measured on a treadmill and only partially in a community outdoor setting. The minimal daily step count that should be recommended for patients with claudication, allowing achievement of significantly better results with regard to walking abilities, both on the treadmill and in outdoor settings, is at least 7,500 steps per day.

Introduction and objective: Thoracocentesis is an invasive procedure routinely performed in the diagnosis of causes for the presence of pathological fluid in the pleural cavity. In many patients, a computed tomography scanning (CT) is also performed to diagnose the cause of the presence of fluid in the pleural cavity. The diagnostic value of CT is particularly high in situations in which performing thoracocenthesis could be associated with an increased risk of complications. The aim other study was to assess the relationship between the objective radiological features and the results of laboratory tests of fluid collected by thoracocenthesis in patients with pneumo-nias (n=18) and lung cancer (n=35).

Material and methods: The examined group consisted of the patients with pneumonia (n=18) and lung cancer (n=35) which resulted in the presence of fluid in the pleural cavity. In the patients thoracocentesis, CT lung scanning was also performed, according to the medical indications. Three scans with the greatest amount of fluid were identified, and the mean density of the fluid expressed in Hounsfield units was calculated within the area. These calculations were compared with the results of laboratory fluid tests.

Results: The maximum number of Hounsfield units (HU) was significantly lower in the group of lung cancer patients, compared to those diagnosed with pneumonia (74.3% sensi-tivity and 55.6% specificity). The pH of pleural fluid was significantly lower in patients with lung cancer, compared to those with pneumonia (74.3% sensitivity and 66.7% specificity).

Conclusions: According to the results, radiological differentiation of pneumonia and lung cancer resulting in pleural effusion, to some extent is possible; however, the needle is still needed.