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Background: Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and coronary artery disease (CAD) or heart failure (HF) are more likely to have poor outcomes. This study aimed to determine the characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 patients with CAD/HF across various institutions in the Philippines., Methods: We utilized the data from the Philippine CORONA Study and compared the outcomes of admitted COVID-19 patients with CAD/HF versus those without. The Student's t test, Mann-Whitney U test, binary logistic regression and multivariate regression analysis were utilized. Odds ratios (OR) and Kaplan-Meier curves were generated., Results: We included a total of 512 patients with COVID-19 had CAD/HF and 10,369 were without. CAD/HF was significantly associated with COVID severity, all-cause mortality, death from cardiac causes, respiratory failure, and prolonged hospitalization. After adjusting for confounders, the presence of CAD/HF was still associated with death from a cardiac cause (OR 2.22, 95% CI 1.49-3.3, p < 0.01)., Conclusions: The presence of CAD or HF was significantly associated with severity of COVID disease, all-cause mortality, death from cardiac causes, respiratory failure, and prolonged hospitalization., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Transcranial magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a noninvasive method for controlling tremor and has recently been used in patients with X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (XDP). This study aims to determine the improvement in dystonia and parkinsonism in patients with XDP after MRgFUS pallidothalamic tractotomy. This prospective study will be conducted at the Philippine General Hospital, University of the Philippines Manila. The primary outcome measure is the change in the pre- and post-treatment XDP-Movement Disorder Society of the Philippines Scale scores. In addition, demographic and clinical data will be collected, including the Burke-Fahn-Marsden Dystonia Rating Scale, Part III of the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's disease Rating Scale score, XDP clinical and functional stage, the five-level EuroQol five-dimensional questionnaire, Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores, MRgFUS treatment parameters, and adverse events. Patients will be assessed within 24 hours of treatment, then at 2 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months post-treatment. This protocol was approved by the University of the Philippines Manila Research Ethics Board (UPMREB 2022-0271-01). Data collection began in January 2023. This protocol has been registered with ClinicalTrials.gov: Trial Registration number: NCT05592028., (© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.)

Objective: To describe the association between hypertension and clinical outcomes in a cohort of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)., Design: Retrospective cohort study., Setting: Thirty-seven (37) hospitals in the Philippines., Patients: 10,881 patients admitted for COVID-19 from February to December 2020., Measurements and Main Results: Among the 10,881 patients included in the Philippine CORONA Study, 3647 (33.5%) had hypertension. On regression analysis adjusted for confounders (age group, sex, smoking history, diabetes, chronic cardiac disease, chronic kidney disease, chronic respiratory disease, chronic neurologic disease, chronic liver disease, HIV/AIDS, and malignancy), patients with hypertension had significantly greater odds of in-hospital mortality (OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.17-1.52), respiratory failure (OR 1.99, 95% CI 1.75-2.28), ICU admission (OR 2.16, 95% CI 1.90-2.45) and severe/critical disease (OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.41-1.75), compared to patients without hypertension. The time-to-event analysis with confounder adjustment also showed that hypertension was significantly associated with shorter time-to-event outcomes of in-hospital mortality (HR 1.13, 95% CI 1.01-1.26), respiratory failure (HR 1.86, 95% CI 1.65-2.10), and ICU admission (HR 1.99, 95% CI 1.76-2.23)., Conclusions: Our analysis of nationwide data confirmed previous findings that hypertension is an independent risk factor for worse clinical outcomes among patients hospitalized for COVID-19, with increased odds of in-hospital mortality, respiratory failure, ICU admission, and severe/critical COVID-19. More specific studies should be done to elucidate the impact of hypertension characteristics, such as chronicity, severity, drug therapy, and level of control on these clinical outcomes., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Background: The internet has made significant contributions towards health education. Analyzing the pattern of online behavior regarding meningitis and vaccinations may be worthwhile. It is hypothesized that the online search patterns in meningitis are correlated with its number of cases and the search patterns of its related vaccines., Methods: This was an infodemiological study that determined the relationship among online search interest in meningitis, its worldwide number of cases and its associated vaccines. Using Google Trends™ Search Volume Indices (SVIs), we evaluated the search queries "meningitis," "pneumococcal vaccine," "BCG vaccine," "meningococcal vaccine" and "influenza vaccine" in January 2021, covering January 2008 to December 2020. Spearman rank correlation was used to determine correlations between these queries., Results: The worldwide search interest in meningitis from 2008 to 2020 showed an average SVI of 46 ± 8.8. The most searched topics were symptoms, vaccines, and infectious agents with SVIs of 100, 52, and 39, respectively. The top three countries with the highest search interest were Ghana, Kazakhstan, and Kenya. There were weak, but statistically significant correlations between meningitis and the BCG (ρ = 0.369, p < 0.001) and meningococcal (ρ = 0.183, p < 0.05) vaccines. There were no statistically significant associations between the number of cases, influenza vaccine, and pneumococcal vaccine., Conclusion: The relationships among the Google SVIs for meningitis and its related vaccines and number of cases data were inconsistent and remained unclear. Future infodemiological studies may expand their scopes to social media, semantics, and big data for more robust conclusions.

Background: The status of research and scientific outputs with regards to bacterial central nervous system (CNS) infection in southeast Asia (SEA) is unknown. This study aimed to analyze and compare bacterial CNS infection research output of SEA countries in terms of bibliometric indices., Methods: The major electronic databases (MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, CENTRAL, Clinicaltrials.gov and WPRIM) were searched for studies on bacterial CNS infection in SEA until August 31, 2020. Frequencies, percentages and Spearman's rho correlations were used., Results: There was a total of 648 unique studies on bacterial CNS infection in SEA and it was 657 when double-counted (collaborative studies between SEA countries). Thailand (n=148, 22.5%) and Vietnam (n=142, 21.6%) had the highest number of publications. The most common type of research publication was the case report / case series (n=160, 24.7%). Tuberculous meningitis/tuberculoma (n=176, 26.7%) was the most common topic. This study showed that the %GDP for research and development (R&D) was associated with a higher number of research output. However, the GDP per capita was not associated with any of the bibliometric indices. The total number of neurologists was associated with all of the bibliometric analysis., Conclusion: Bacterial CNS infection research output in SEA countries was low in terms of quantity. The %GDP for R&D was associated with the number of research publications. The total number of neurologists was associated with all of the bibliometric indices.