Major arterial and venous thromboembolic complications in patients with COVID-19

Background

Cardiovascular complications; myocardial infarction (MI), ischemic stroke, and pulmonary embolism (PE), represent an important source of adverse outcomes in COVID-19 disease.

Objectives

To evaluate the incidence of thromboembolic events, specifically PE, MI and stroke; risk factors, management patterns and outcomes in patients who tested positive for COVID-19 through RT-PCR in a regional hospital.

Methods

We included 1125 adults patients admitted for COVID-19 infection between April 1 and October 30, 2020. The total cohort was analyzed by site of care: Intensive care (n=124) and nonintensive care (n=1001).

Results

Cardiovascular risk factors prevalence in patients with COVID-19 were: hypertension (25.5%), hyperlipidemia (23.2%) and diabetes (12%). Prophylactic anticoagulation and therapeutic anticoagulation was prescribed in intensive care group (91.1% and 33.1%, respectively) versus (84.8% and 12.5%, respectively) in nonintensive care setting. Frequencies of major arterial or venous thromboembolism, pulmonary embolism and myocardial infarction were highest in the intensive care group (29%, 20% and 8%, respectively) than nonintensive care cohort (1.4%, 0.7% and 0,5%, respectively). Hospital mortality was 29% in intensive care group and 1.3% in nonintensive care group.

Conclusions

Patients admitted for COVID-19 had a high risk of major arterial or venous thromboembolism events, especially in the intensive care setting, despite the use of thromboprophylaxis with heparin.

Funding Acknowledgement

Type of funding sources: None.

Biodiversity Recovery and Transformation Impacts for Wetland Biodiversity

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods for land use take both occupation and transformation impacts into account. However, for wetlands and impacts from water consumption, it is so far not possible to account for transformation impacts. It is our goal to close this research gap, by determining wetland recovery times and developing characterization factors for transformation. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of 59 studies analyzing biodiversity recovery in wetlands subject to passive and active restoration. Generalized linear models were fitted to the biodiversity data and age, along with other wetland characteristics (such as elevation, latitude, or climate class), and were used as predictor variables. The results indicate that elevation, latitude, type of wetland, and restoration method have the strongest effect on recovery speed. Recovery times vary from less than one year to a maximum of 10⁷ years with passive restoration and 10⁵ years with active restoration. Corresponding transformation characterization factors vary between 10^-14 and 10^-2 species-eq·year²/m³. Finally, recognizing the relevance of this work to real-world policy issues beyond LCA, we discuss the implications of our estimated restoration times on the feasibility of "biodiversity offsetting". Offsetting utilizes restoration to replace biodiversity value lost due to development impacts. Our work can help stakeholders make informed decisions on whether offsetting represents a legitimate policy option in a particular context.

Vibration-insensitive interferometer for on-line measurements

We have realized a digital Twyman-Green interferometer to measure the quality of optical surfaces in unstable environments. The system yields accurate measurements even in the presence of severe mechanical vibrations. The interferograms are decoded by application of a spatial-carrier phase-shifting fringe-analysis technique. The interferometer was mounted over a production machine and used for on-line measurements of aspheric mirror surfaces during the figuring and polishing process.