Adrenomedullin in Sepsis: Finally, a Friend or an Enemy?

Stethoscope: a friend or an enemy?

CONTEXT The stethoscope is a universal tool in the hospital that is in direct contact with many patients and can therefore be a vector in the dissemination of bacterial infections. OBJECTIVE To research the presence of bacteria, fungi and yeast on the stethoscope diaphragm and the resistance of bacteria to antimicrobial drugs. DESIGN Descriptive, prospective, non-controlled. SETTING A ter...

volatile anesthetics in ischemic liver injury: enemy or friend?

Volatile Anesthetics in Ischemic Liver Injury: Enemy or Friend?

Implication for health policy/practice/research/medical education: Liver surgery and perioperative care of patients with hepatic dysfunction is still moving toward better safety. Anesthesiologists play their role with judicious selection of anesthetic medications. Ischemic liver injury occurs in a variety of clinical settings such as trauma, shock, and liver surgery (1, 2). Isch-emia and subseq...

View Point Helicobacter pylori: enemy, commensal or, sometimes, friend?

Helicobacter pylori is a Gram-negative ε-proteobacterium that colonizes about 50% of humans. Some pertinent characteristics are that it can survive the acid of the stomach, produces urease to neutralize it and is motile due to apical flagella. Not surprisingly given its wide distribution, it has long colonized mankind and its genome encodes many features that allows this. Consequently, it frequ...

ICT: Health's Best Friend and Worst Enemy?

I propose a paradigm shift for health care, as there is an urgent need for i) continuous (semi-)automatic medical checkups, ii) cost reduction, and iii) cure for the 21st century black plague (i.e., stress-related diseases) are very much needed. To realize this ICT’s Paradox has to be solved. On the one hand, ICT can cause i) musculoskeletal problems, ii) vision problems, iii) headache, iv) obe...