We aimed to investigate the association between fluoxetine use and the survival of hospitalised coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pneumonia patients. This retrospective case-control study used data extracted from the medical records of adult patients hospitalised with moderate or severe COVID-19 pneumonia at the Uzsoki Teaching Hospital of the Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary between 17 March and 22 April 2021. As a part of standard medical treatment, patients received anti-COVID-19 therapies as favipiravir, remdesivir, baricitinib or a combination of these drugs; and 110 of them received 20 mg fluoxetine capsules once daily as an adjuvant medication. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between fluoxetine use and mortality. For excluding a fluoxetine-selection bias potentially influencing our results, we compared baseline prognostic markers in the two groups treated versus not treated with fluoxetine. Out of the 269 participants, 205 (76.2%) survived and 64 (23.8%) died between days 2 and 28 after hospitalisation. Greater age (OR [95% CI] 1.08 [1.05–1.11], p<0.001), radiographic severity based on chest X-ray (OR [95% CI] 2.03 [1.27–3.25], p=0.003) and higher score of shortened National Early Warning Score (sNEWS) (OR [95% CI] 1.20 [1.01-1.43], p=0.04) were associated with higher mortality. Fluoxetine use was associated with an important (70%) decrease of mortality (OR [95% CI] 0.33 [0.16–0.68], p=0.002) compared to the non-fluoxetine group. Age, gender, LDH, CRP, and D-dimer levels, sNEWS, Chest X-ray score did not show statistical difference between the fluoxetine and non-fluoxetine groups supporting the reliability of our finding. Provisional to confirmation in randomised controlled studies, fluoxetine may be a potent treatment increasing the survival for COVID-19 pneumonia.

[The well-known gap bet­ween stroke mortality of Eastern and Western Euro­pean countries may reflect the effect of socioeconomic diffe­rences. Such a gap may be present between neighborhoods of different wealth within one city. We set forth to compare age distribution, incidence, case fatality, mortality, and risk factor profile of stroke patients of the poorest (District 8) and wealthiest (District 12) districts of Budapest. We synthesize the results of our former comparative epidemiological investigations focusing on the association of socioeconomic background and features of stroke in two districts of the capital city of Hungary. The “Budapest District 8–12 project” pointed out the younger age of stroke patients of the poorer district, and established that the prevalence of smoking, alcohol-consumption, and untreated hypertension is also higher in District 8. The “Six Years in Two Districts” project involving 4779 patients with a 10-year follow-up revealed higher incidence, case fatality and mortality of stroke in the less wealthy district. The younger patients of the poorer region show higher risk-factor prevalence, die younger and their fatality grows faster during long-term follow-up. The higher prevalence of risk factors and the higher fatality of the younger age groups in the socioeconomically deprived district reflect the higher vulnerability of the population in District 8. The missing link between poverty and stroke outcome seems to be lifestyle risk-factors and lack of adherence to primary preventive efforts. Public health campaigns on stroke prevention should focus on the young generation of socioeconomi­cally deprived neighborhoods. ]

[Three decades ago, LAM was launched with the goal of providing scientific information about medicine and its frontiers. From the very beginning, LAM has also concerned a special subject area while connecting medicine with the world of art. In the palette of medical articles, it remained a special feature to this day. The analysis of the history of LAM to date was performed using internationally accepted publication guidelines and scientific databases as a pledge of objectivity. We examined the practice of LAM if it meets the main criteria, the professional expectations of our days, when publishing contents of the traditional printed edition and its electronic version. We explored the visibility of articles in the largest bibliographic and scientific metric databases, and reviewed the LAM's place among the Hun­ga­rian professional journals. Our results show that in recent years LAM has gained international reputation des­pite publishing in Hungarian spoken by a few people. This is due to articles with foreign co-authors as well as references to LAM in articles written exclusively by foreign researchers. The journal is of course full readable in the Hungarian bibliographic databases, and its popularity is among the leading ones. The great virtue of the journal is the wide spectrum of the authors' affiliation, with which they cover almost completely the Hungarian health care institutional sys­tem. The special feature of its columns is enhanced by the publication of writings on art, which may increase Hungarian and foreign interest like that of medical articles.]

Introduction - The therapeutic time window of acute stroke is short. Decision on the use of intravenous thrombolysis is based on well-defined criteria. Any delay in the transport to a designated stroke centre decreases the odds of therapeutic success. In Hungary, the admission rate of stroke patients peaks on Monday, the number gradually decreasing by the end of the week. This phenomenon has long been suggested to be due to the lack of emergency care approach. According to the literature, however, returning to work following a holiday is a risk factor for acute stroke. A similar phenomenon is well-known in veterinary medicine, a condition in horses referred to as ‘Monday morning disease’. In our study, we analysed the distribution of admissions due to acute stroke by the day of the week in 4 independent data sources. Patients and methods - The number of patients admitted to the Szent János Hospital, Budapest, Hungary with stroke and that of emergency ambulance transports in the whole city of Budapest due to acute stroke were analysed in the period between January 1 and March 31, 2009. The distribution of thrombolytic interventions reflecting hospitalizations for hyperacute stroke was analysed based on data of the Szent János Hospital in 2009-2012, and on national data from 2006-2012. Descriptive statistics was used to present the data. The variation between daily admission was compared by chi-square test. Results - The proportion of daily admission of stroke patients admitted to the Szent János Hospital was the highest at the beginning of the week (18% on Monday, and 21% on Tuesday) and the lowest on the weekend (9% and 9% on Saturday and Sunday, respectively). The distribution of ambulance transports in Budapest due to acute stroke tended to be similar (15% and 15% on Monday and Tuesday, whereas 13% and 12% on Saturday and Sunday, respectively) on different days of the week. No such Monday peak could be observed in a single centre regarding thrombolytic interventions: 18% and 19% of the total of 80 thrombolytic interventions in the Szent János Hospital were performed on Monday and Sunday, respectively. At the national level the higher Monday rate is obvious: during a 7-year period 16.0%, 12.7%, and 13.5% of all thrombolytic interventions in Hungary were performed on Monday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Conclusion - Monday preference of stroke is not exclusively caused by the lack of emergency care approach, and the phenomenon is not consistent at the individual hospital level in cases undergoing thrombolysis.