Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine

Impact Factor 2021: 3.041 (@Clarivate Analytics)

5-Year Impact Factor: 2.776 (@Clarivate Analytics)

Impact Factor Rank: 10/24, Q2 (Tropical Medicine)

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The COVID-19 epidemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus has turned into a worldwide pandemic. Therefore, health officials all around the world have strived for developing efficient preventive and treatment methods to deal with this global crisis. Amongst them, monoclonal antibodies, anti-TNFs, and convalescent plasma appear to be effective against this disease. In addition, clinical trials are currently being conducted for viral targeting vaccines. This review summarizes major advances using biopharmaceuticals in the treatment and prevention strategies against COVID-19 that have occurred in the global medicinal system from its introduction until March 2022.

Objective: To determine the change in the quality of life (QoL) of patients who applied to a tertiary outpatient clinic according to their COVID-19 status. Methods: This cross-sectional study comprised 1 370 participants. Short form-12 (SF-12), which includes Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) domains, was used to evaluate the QoL. Different linear regression models created using PCS-12 and MCS-12 were dependent variables. Results: A total of 19.2% of participants had acute COVID-19, and 8.4% had long COVID-19. The most common sypmtoms were fatigue (72.6%), headache (42.5%), and joint pain (39.8%) in patients with long COVID-19. The model including all participants showed that long COVID-19 reduced the QoL in multivariate analysis for both MCS and PCS, while acute COVID-19 had no significant effect on the QoL comparing with those without COVID-19. Model that included participants with COVID-19 showed that long COVID-19 negatively affected the QoL in the multivariate model for PCS-12 and MCS-12. Variables that were significant in the multivariate model for those who had long COVID-19 were having a chronic disease and presence of ongoing symptoms. Females were disadvantaged for PCS-12 and MCS-12 in the multivariate models including all participants, and models including participants who have had COVID-19. Low educational group were disadvantaged for PCS-12 in the multivariate model including all participants. This group were also disadvantaged for PCS-12 and MCS-12 in the multivariate models including participants who had COVID-19. Conclusions: In studies, acute COVID-19 and long COVID-19 should be treated as separate categories. The effects of long COVID-19 should be considered when providing and planning health services. The effect of gender, and education, on QoL shows that health inequalities continue to be effective during the pandemic period.

Rationale: Disseminated histoplasmosis is the most severe form of histoplasmosis and often associated with fatal outcomes. Both pulmonary and disseminated forms mimics tuberculosis (TB) and may be misdiagnosed. Patient concerns: A 17-year-old male patient compliant with anti- tuberculosis therapy with complaints of fever, cough productive of thick yellowish sputum, fast breathing, abdominal pain, swelling and jaundice. HIV status was negative. Diagnosis: Disseminated histoplasmosis. Interventions: Antimicrobials including anti-TB therapy, ceftriaxone, gentamicin, azithromycin and ciprofloxacin. Outcomes: He was responding to anti-TB drugs until about 4 and a half months on treatment when he fell ill. Peripheral blood film done 2 days prior to his demise revealed florid yeast like organisms in monocytes with eccentric chromatin suggestive of Histoplasma capsulatum. Lessons: Histoplasmosis can both mimic and coexist with TB and so a high index of suspicion is needed for its diagnosis.

Objective: To examine the efficacy and safety of anlotinib as first- line therapy to treat locally advanced or metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma. Methods: This is a single-arm trial. Treatment-naïve patients (≥14 years) with locally advanced or metastatic soft tissue sarcoma were eligible. Each treatment cycle lasted for 3 weeks, and included liposomal doxorubicin (40-50 mg/m²) on day 1 and anlotinib (12 mg) on days 8-21. Starting from the 9th cycle, treatment consisted of only anlotinib. Treatment continued until disease progression or intolerable toxicities. The primary efficacy end point was progression-free survival (PFS). Results: Eight patients were enrolled between July 25, 2019 and January 8, 2020. The median number of treatment cycles was 5.5. Within 5.9 months median follow-up, PFS events occurred in 4 (4/8, 50%) patients. The median PFS was 11.3 months and the 6-month PFS rate was 56%. No patients attained complete response and 2 patients (fibrosarcoma, 1 patient and undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, 1 patient) achieved partial response. Three patients (fibrosarcoma, 2 patients and synovial sarcoma, 1 patient) had stable disease. The objective response rate was 25% (2/8) for the study population, and the disease control rate was 75% (6/8). No new safety concerns emerged. Conclusions: Anlotinib plus liposomal doxorubicin demonstrated antitumor activities in previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic soft tissue sarcomas. Due to the small sample size, further investigations with a larger population should be undertaken to confirm the study findings.

Online since 5^th January 2018