STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective observational study. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to assess the distribution of age and site of infection in patients with musculoskeletal tuberculosis (TB) and determine the number of TB/human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfections as well as the incidence of multidrugresistant (MDR) TB. OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE: Of all TB cases, 1%–3% show skeletal system involvement and 30% are HIV coinfected. Although the reported distribution of skeletal TB is majorly in the spine, followed by the hip, knee, and foot/ankle, the epidemiology of extrapulmonary TB and especially musculoskeletal TB remains largely unknown, particularly in areas with a high prevalence of the disease. METHODS: This is a retrospective study of a consecutive series of patients admitted to a tertiary care facility in an area with the highest prevalence of TB worldwide. TB was confirmed on tissue biopsy with polymerase chain reaction testing (Xpert for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and rifampicin resistance), culturing, or histological analysis. Data were analyzed regarding demographic information, location of the disease, HIV coinfections, and drug resistance. RESULTS: In all, 125 patients (44 children; 35%) with a mean age of 27 years (range, 1–78 years) were included. Age peaks were observed at 5, 25, and 65 years. Spinal disease was evident in 98 patients (78%). There were 66 HIV-negative (53%) and 29 (23%) HIVpositive patients, and in 30 (24%), the HIV status was unknown. Five patients (4%) showed MDR TB. CONCLUSIONS: The age distribution was trimodal, spinal disease was predominant, MDR TB rate in our cohort was high, and a large portion of TB patients in our hospital were HIV coinfected. Hence, spinal services with sufficient access to operating facilities are required for tertiary care facilities in areas with a high TB prevalence.
Age Distribution ; Biopsy ; Child ; Cohort Studies ; Coinfection ; Drug Resistance ; Epidemiology* ; Hip ; HIV ; Humans ; Incidence ; Knee ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis ; Observational Study ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prevalence* ; Retrospective Studies ; Rifampin ; Spinal Diseases ; Spine ; Tertiary Healthcare ; Tuberculosis*

OBJECTIVETo develop the Chinese version of the nasal obstruction symptom evaluation (NOSE) questionnaire.

METHODSAfter introduction, forward and backward translation, synthesis, expert committee review, pretest, adaptation and validation followed the international guidelines, the Chinese version of NOSE scale was tested among 223 nasal septal deviation patients and 80 health volunteers to further assess its psychometric and clinical properties. SPSS 19.0 software was used to analyze the data.

RESULTSThe Chinese version demonstrated satisfactory evaluation results. The acceptance rate of the questionnaire was 97.6% and 94.1% in the patient group and control group respectively, and the completion time was (1.5 ± 0.5)min and (1.0 ± 0.5)min. Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α) was calculated to be 0.869. Test-retest reliability coefficient was adequate at rs = 0.996. Content validity was approved by our expert committee. Criteria validity (Spearman correlation coefficient) between NOSE Chinese version and SF-36, as well as VAS was -0.837 and 0.725 separately. Construct validity of Chinese version was similar to that of the original edition. The standardized response mean and the effect size at three months postoperatively was respectively 1.34 and 1.21, indicating high responsiveness. Calculated by Mann-Whitney U test, the instrument showed excellent sensitivity to discriminate the subjects with or without nasal obstruction (P < 0.01). The NOSE scores were also correlated with nasal resistance by rhinomanometry.

CONCLUSIONSThe NOSE Chinese version was successfully cross-cultural adapted and validated. It therefore can be recommended as a robust tool for future measuring subjective severity of nasal obstruction in China.

China ; Humans ; Language ; Nasal Obstruction ; diagnosis ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Symptom Assessment

Background: and Purpose Recent studies suggested an increased incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We evaluated the volume of CVT hospitalization and in-hospital mortality during the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the preceding year. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional retrospective study of 171 stroke centers from 49 countries. We recorded COVID-19 admission volumes, CVT hospitalization, and CVT in-hospital mortality from January 1, 2019, to May 31, 2021. CVT diagnoses were identified by International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10) codes or stroke databases. We additionally sought to compare the same metrics in the first 5 months of 2021 compared to the corresponding months in 2019 and 2020 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04934020). Results: There were 2,313 CVT admissions across the 1-year pre-pandemic (2019) and pandemic year (2020); no differences in CVT volume or CVT mortality were observed. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT volumes compared to 2019 (27.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 24.2 to 32.0; P<0.0001) and 2020 (41.4%; 95% CI, 37.0 to 46.0; P<0.0001). A COVID-19 diagnosis was present in 7.6% (132/1,738) of CVT hospitalizations. CVT was present in 0.04% (103/292,080) of COVID-19 hospitalizations. During the first pandemic year, CVT mortality was higher in patients who were COVID positive compared to COVID negative patients (8/53 [15.0%] vs. 41/910 [4.5%], P=0.004). There was an increase in CVT mortality during the first 5 months of pandemic years 2020 and 2021 compared to the first 5 months of the pre-pandemic year 2019 (2019 vs. 2020: 2.26% vs. 4.74%, P=0.05; 2019 vs. 2021: 2.26% vs. 4.99%, P=0.03). In the first 5 months of 2021, there were 26 cases of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), resulting in six deaths. Conclusions During the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic, CVT hospitalization volume and CVT in-hospital mortality did not change compared to the prior year. COVID-19 diagnosis was associated with higher CVT in-hospital mortality. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT hospitalization volume and increase in CVT-related mortality, partially attributable to VITT.