This study shows that many individuals do not favour the donation of a blood sample for future research. Of those who do approve of such future research, many favour a consent model that includes an option restricting the future research to the illness being studied. Also, many Egyptians were hesitant to have their blood samples donated for genetic research or exported out of the Arab region to the USA and European countries. Further qualitative research should be performed to determine the underlying reasons for many of our results.

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Background:Abdominal trauma is a major public health problem for all nations and all socioeconomic strata.Aim:This study was designed to determine the incidence and patterns of abdominal injuries in trauma patients.Materials and Methods:We classified and identified the incidence and subtype of abdominal injuries and associated trauma, and identified variables related to morbidity and mortality.Results:Abdominal trauma was present in 248 of 300 cases; 172 patients with blunt abdominal trauma and 76 with penetrating. The most frequent type of abdominal trauma was blunt trauma; its most common cause was motor vehicle accident. Among patients with penetrating abdominal trauma, the most common cause was stabbing. Most abdominal trauma patients presented with other injuries, especially patients with blunt abdominal trauma. Mortality was higher among penetrating abdominal trauma patients.Conclusions:Type of abdominal trauma, associated injuries, and Revised Trauma Score are independent risk factors for mortality in abdominal trauma patients.

Background The current COVID-19 pandemic has greatly changed the way surgery is delivered. In particular, current guidelines and policies have highlighted the need to use high level Personal Protective Equipment to reduce the risk of viral infection during open and laparoscopic surgical procedures. In particular, it was felt that the laparoscopic approach was at higher risk of viral transmission due to the chimney effect of the smoke escape from the trocars during and after the procedure. However, with this being a new and largely unknown viral agent, guidelines have been based on speculation and extrapolation from previous studies conducted in completely different situations, and led to anxiety amongst surgeons and theatre staff. We decided to conduct a systematic review of the Literature to try to clarify whether inhalation of surgical smoke can increase the risk of COVID-19 infection. Methods A thorough search of the relevant Literature was performed following the PRISMA guidelines and the most relevant papers on this topic were selected for qualitative analysis. Duplicates, review, personal opinions and guidelines have been excluded. Quantitative analysis has not been performed due to the lack of homogeneous high-quality studies. Results Literature search identified 740 papers but only 34 of them were suitable for qualitative analysis. The quality of those studies is generally quite low. We were not able to find any evidence directly linking surgical smoke with viral transmission, other than in patients with active HPV infection. Discussion Inhalation of surgical smoke can be generally hazardous, and therefore the use of PPE during surgical operations must be recommended in any case. However, the present systematic review of the existent Literature did not identify any significant evidence of the risk of viral transmission with the surgical smoke, therefore the current guidelines restricting the use of laparoscopy and/or diathermy during the current Covid-19 pandemic may be considered excessive and non-evidence based.