No abstract

Background One hundred fifty million contagions, more than 3 million deaths and little more than 1 year of COVID-19 have changed our lives and our health management systems forever. Ageing is known to be one of the significant determinants for COVID-19 severity. Two main reasons underlie this: immunosenescence and age correlation with main COVID-19 comorbidities such as hypertension or dyslipidaemia. This study has two aims. The first is to obtain cut-off points for laboratory parameters that can help us in clinical decision-making. The second one is to analyse the effect of pandemic lockdown on epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory parameters concerning the severity of the COVID-19. For these purposes, 257 of SARSCoV2 inpatients during pandemic confinement were included in this study. Moreover, 584 case records from a previously analysed series, were compared with the present study data. Results Concerning the characteristics of lockdown series, mild cases accounted for 14.4, 54.1% were moderate and 31.5%, severe. There were 32.5% of home contagions, 26.3% community transmissions, 22.5% nursing home contagions, and 8.8% corresponding to frontline worker contagions regarding epidemiological features. Age > 60 and male sex are hereby confirmed as severity determinants. Equally, higher severity was significantly associated with higher IL6, CRP, ferritin, LDH, and leukocyte counts, and a lower percentage of lymphocyte, CD4 and CD8 count. Comparing this cohort with a previous 584-cases series, mild cases were less than those analysed in the first moment of the pandemic and dyslipidaemia became more frequent than before. IL-6, CRP and LDH values above 69 pg/mL, 97 mg/L and 328 U/L respectively, as well as a CD4 T-cell count below 535 cells/μL, were the best cut-offs predicting severity since these parameters offered reliable areas under the curve. Conclusion Age and sex together with selected laboratory parameters on admission can help us predict COVID-19 severity and, therefore, make clinical and resource management decisions. Demographic features associated with lockdown might affect the homogeneity of the data and the robustness of the results.

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of infection with the nematode whipworm Trichuris muris on the course of chemically induced acute ulcerative colitis in CBA/J mice, a strain proven to be highly resistant to infection with T. muris. Each mouse was infected with 50 embryonated eggs of T. muris by oral gavage. Acute colitis was triggered by administering 4% dextran sulphate sodium (DSS) in the drinking water for nine consecutive days at different times after infection. Concurrent infection and DSS administration exacerbate the severity of the colitis while favouring the permanence of parasites in the intestine. The induction of ulcerative colitis from days 54 to 62 post-infection (p.i.), when all worms had been expelled, ameliorated the course of the inflammatory disease. When ulcerative colitis was triggered earlier on, from days 27 to 35 p.i., the beneficial effects on inflammatory events were clearly shown with signs of mucosal epithelization and regeneration as early as day 1 after DSS administration. Previous infections by T. muris therefore accelerate recovery from subsequently induced inflammatory bowel disease and such an effect assists the nematode to persist in the intestinal niche.

In a previous work, it was demonstrated that (+) albendazole sulphoxide (SOABZ) has higher anthelmintic activity than (-) SOABZ (Bolás-Fernández et al. J Parasitol 90:407-409, 2004). In this work, the pharmacokinetics characteristics of SOABZ and its enantiomeric forms were studied in an ex vivo model system for Trichinella spiralis isolated muscle larvae. To this end, samples of either racemic or purified SOABZ enantiomers were added to the incubation medium. Quantification of either albendazole, racemic SOABZ or its enantiomers was performed by validated HPLC methods and the effect of different SOABZ concentrations in relation to time of contact with the larvae was also analysed. Obviously, higher concentration of SOABZ in the medium leads to higher concentrations of SOABZ inside the larvae which increased in an exponential mode, thus indicating a simple diffusion process. At least 18 h of contact with the drug was required to achieve anthelmintic effects. Besides, after this time, the concentration of (+) SOABZ inside the larvae was significantly higher than that of the (-) SOABZ. From these results, it can be concluded that the higher activity found in the previous work is clearly related to the pharmacokinetic prevalence of (+) enantiomer inside the larvae.

Background: One hundred million of contagions, more than 2 million deaths and less than one year of COVID-19 have changed our lives and our health management systems forever. Ageing is known to be one of the significant determinants for COVID-19 severity. Two main reasons underlie this: immunosenescence and age correlation with main COVID-19 comorbidities such as hypertension or dyslipidaemia. This study has two aims. The first is to obtain cut-off points for laboratory parameters that can help us in clinical decision-making. The second one is to analyse the effect of pandemic lockdown on epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory parameters concerning the severity of the COVID-19. For these purposes, 257 of SARSCoV2 inpatients during pandemic confinement were included in this study. Moreover, 584 case records from a previously analysed series, were compared with the present study data. Results: Concerning the characteristics of lockdown series, mild cases accounted for 14.4%, 54.1% were moderate and 31.5%, severe. There were 32.5% of home contagions, 26.3% community transmissions, 22.5% nursing home contagions, and 8.8% corresponding to frontline worker contagions regarding epidemiological features. Age >60 and male sex are hereby confirmed as severity determinants. Equally, higher severity was significantly associated with higher IL6, CRP, ferritin, LDH, and leukocyte counts, and a lower percentage of lymphocyte, CD4 and CD8 count. Comparing this cohort with a previous 584-cases series, mild cases were less than those analysed in the first moment of the pandemic and dyslipidaemia became more frequent than before. Age, lymphocyte count and LDH had similar distributions at both moments. IL-6, CRP and LDH values above 69 pg/mL, 97 mg/L and 328 U/L respectively, as well as a CD4 T-cell count below 535 cells/μL, were the best cut-offs predicting severity since these parameters offered reliable areas under the curve. Conclusion: Age, sex and dyslipidaemia together with selected laboratory parameters on admission can help us predict COVID-19 severity and, therefore, make clinical and resource management decisions. Demographic features associated with lockdown could affect the homogeneity of the data and the robustness of the results.