Casopis lekaru ceskych最新文献

The article provides a narrative review of the rationale, arguments and evidence for the effectiveness of harm reduction strategies in reducing tobacco smoking and its consequences and offers a summary for health policy and clinical practice. Tobacco smoking is a critical health determinant in developed countries, including the Czech Republic, reducing adult life expectancy by 1-2 years and draining about 10% of health spending. Alternative products, i.e. products delivering nicotine other than in tobacco smoke, represent an opportunity to complement already implemented tobacco control measures. Their main benefit is the diversion of smokers away from conventional cigarettes towards less harmful forms of nicotine use. E-cigarettes, heated tobacco products or low-nitrosamine oral tobacco are approximately twenty times less harmful than conventional cigarettes and the risk of nicotine pouches is two to three orders of magnitude lower and reach the risk of nicotine replacement therapy or non-smokers. Nicotine contributes to the risks of alternative products, but its harmfulness is much lower compared to the other constituents of tobacco smoke. Nicotine dependence remains its major risk, and the increasing use of alternative products is of particular concern in adolescent non-smokers. However, the best available evidence suggests that alternative products do not represent a gateway to smoking and that they are replacing smoking even in the part of the adolescent population that is vulnerable to experiments with nicotine. Alternative products are also proving effective in smoking cessation and can be offered during counselling in clinical practice as an alternative to smoking for those who are not ready to quit completely. A balanced harm reduction strategy, including the supply and use of alternative products, represents an opportunity that can be a critical factor in curbing the tobacco epidemic.

Healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients faced a high risk of infection, staff shortages, contact with patient deaths and their own risk of infection during the pandemic. These factors greatly affected their mental health. This narrative review summarizes the results of studies published in Czech and English between 2020 and 2024 on the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of healthcare professionals in the Czechia. Of the 20 studies identified, 8 met the inclusion criteria. Studies describe symptoms of depression, stress, burnout, stigmatization, discrimination, and violence. The results show a severe impact of these factors on the mental well-being of healthcare professionals. Finally, we emphasize the need for preventive measures, including supervision, psychological assistance and support from management. An emphasis on the mental health of healthcare professionals is key to their protection and sustainability of care in crisis situations.

The unsuccessful fight against the obesity pandemic has shown that the situation cannot be solved by education and interventions aimed at individual behaviour change alone. An environment that facilitates healthy choices and discourages unhealthy ones needs to be created through policy measures. The NOURISHING and MOVING tools have been developed in the context of addressing obesity, allowing for the evaluation of government policies on nutrition and physical activity. 10 key areas of action have been defined for nutrition and 6 for physical activity. In a comparison of 30 European countries, the biggest nutrition policy gaps were in limiting food advertising (29 out of 30 countries with poor ratings), harnessing supply chain and actions across sectors to ensure coherence with health (29/30), providing nutrition education and skills (28/30), and setting incentives and rules to create a healthy retail and food service environment (27/30). In the area of physical activity policies, the greatest gaps were in structures and surroundings which promote physical activity (29/30), physical activity training, assessment and counselling in healthcare settings (29/30), and transport infrastructure and active societies (26/30). The Czech Republic ranks among the four worst countries in nutrition policy, having introduced measures in only six areas, with the highest rating of "average" and only 10 out of 41 measures introduced. In physical activity, the Czech Republic also ranks among the 7 countries that have introduced measures in only four areas, with the highest rating of "adequate" and only 6 out of 23 measures introduced. Prevention in the form of government policy measures is crucial and without it, the rise in obesity and the risk of major non-communicable diseases will not be halted.

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are a group of patients characterized by specific needs in cancer care. Although only 5 % of cancers are diagnosed in this age group, malignancies represent a significant burden in terms of years of healthy life lost and the consequences of cancer treatment. Important issues for young patients include diagnostic delay, promotion of primary prevention, biologically distinct tumor types, oncogenetic evaluation, unique psychosocial challenges, fertility issues, monitoring of adverse effects of treatment including the development of secondary malignancies, or the absence of age-specific clinical trials. The centralization of care and the formation of multidisciplinary teams dedicated to young patients will allow for a more comprehensive approach with a focus on these issues. One means of improving care for young cancer patients is the development of national guidelines and the organisation of international and national clinical trials.

The aim of the article to present the development of artificial intelligence (AI) methods and their applications in medicine and health care. Current technological development contributes to generation of large volumes of data that cannot be evaluated only manually. We describe the process of patient care and its individual parts that can be supported by technology and data analysis methods. There are many successful applications that help in the decision support process, in processing complex multidimensional heterogeneous and/or long-term data. On the other side, failures appear in AI methods applications. In recent years, deep learning became very popular and to a certain extend it delivered promising results. However, it has certain flaws that might lead to misclassification. The correct methodological steps in design and implementation of selected methods to data processing are briefly presented.

The incidence of monoclonal gammopathy (MG) increases with age. In individuals over 80 years of age, we can diagnose the presence of monoclonal immunoglobulin (MIg) in up to 10 % of cases. Not only malignant diseases such as multiple myeloma (MM), but also benign forms such as MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance) can lead to renal involvement. The light chains of immunoglobulins (LC) are the most damaging to the kidneys, as they are freely filtered into the urine due to their molecular weight. Detection of MIg relies mainly on a combination of immunofixation electrophoresis of serum (IELFO) and urine and determination of free light chains (FLC) of kappa and lambda and their ratio (κ/λ) in serum. The combination of these tests will detect the presence of MIg with 99 % sensitivity. Renal damage in MG may be caused by direct deposition of MIg in the glomeruli (e.g. AL amyloidosis, LC deposition disease) or tubules (in the distal tubule as a myeloma kidney or in the proximal tubule as Fanconi syndrome or proximal tubulopathy). Typical urinary findings in these diseases are moderate or severe proteinuria or nephrotic syndrome. Acute kidney injury (AKI) can be expected especially when serum FLC is >500 mg/l. Renal biopsy is crucial to establish an accurate diagnosis and thus initiate the correct treatment. Treatment of these types of renal damage involves the same treatment regimens used in the treatment of MM, including proteasome inhibitors or daratumumab.

Diabetic foot attack is an acute manifestation of diabetic foot syndrome that requires rapid diagnosis and early initiation of complex therapy based on multidisciplinary team cooperation to save the affected limb. The term "attack" evokes the need for a rapid reaction as for "heart attack". Patients with diabetes mellitus and acute manifestations of diabetic foot syndrome have high risk for amputation of the lower limb, which is associated with higher morbidity and mortality. Complex therapy includes systemic antibiotic therapy, surgical debridement of ulceration, revascularization in the case of proven lower limb ischemia and an individualized offloading. Without the subsequent outpatient podiatric follow-up, the risk of recurrence increases significantly.

From anthropometrics point of view, the Roma have retained a distinct individuality and thus differ from the majority population. They are also distinguished by cultural differences, which are reflected in the concept of health and health care consumption. The available data show socially and culturally determined health inequalities and disadvantages of the Roma compared to the majority population, which do not change in the long term. Among others, the low level of cultural competence and sensitivity of health professionals to the needs of minorities and specifically to the Roma ethnicity also plays a role. The article describes health-relevant cultural differences in the context of Roma culture and way of life of the Czech Roma and outlines some of the barriers faced by Roma in healthcare.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the long-term development of main health system inputs and outputs and to evaluate the development of the efficiency of the Czech health system. We evaluate the health system efficiency by two indices of efficiency, which contain 4 inputs and 2, respectively 3 outputs of the health system. The weights of inputs and outputs were obtained by a questionnaire survey among experts. The developed efficiency indices show that the efficiency of the Czech health system has a downward trend.

SARS-CoV-2 is a virus which infects the respiratory tract and may cause severe, occasionally life-threatening disease COVID-19. In more than 5% of symptomatic patients the infection is associated with post-acute symptoms. The initial contact of the virus with the immune system of the nasopharynx and oropharynx induces a mucosal immune response manifested by the production of secretory IgA (sIgA) antibodies which may contribute to the restriction of the infection to the upper respiratory tract and an asymptomatic or clinically mild disease. The current systemically administered vaccines protected against the severe COVID-19 infection and its post-acute sequelae. However, they do not induce antibodies in mucosal secretions in SARS-CoV-2-naive individuals. In contrast, in those who previously experienced mucosal infection, systemically administered vaccines may stimulate sIgA production. The clinical benefit of systemic vaccination convincingly documented in tens of millions of individuals overshadows the rare, sometimes controversial reports of complications encountered after vaccination. The inability of current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to induce mucosal immune responses and to prevent the spreading of the virus by external secretions demonstrates the mutual independence of mucosal and systemic compartments of the immune system, and thus emphasizes need for the development of vaccines inducing protective immune responses in both compartments.