The medical physics education and training program of Nguyen Tat Thanh University - the first official medical physics training program in Vietnam

Original Research

Abstract

The paper aimed to present the introduction of the first official medical physics training program - a new health care profession in Vietnam. The detail studies and analyses of the current status of training in Medical Physics as well as the present and future demands of it were also reported. The main roles, responsibilities and the challenges of medical physicists in medicine were discussed and clarified as well.

Graphical abstract

A case report of hepatic perivascular epithelioid cell tumours (pecomas) and literature review

Case Study

Abstract

Perivascular epithelioid cell tumours (PEComas) belongs to the family of mesenchymal neoplasms that can occur in many organs, but rarely found in liver. Preoperative diagnosis could be challenging due to unspecific and variable radiologic patterns, which can be clinically misdiagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma and other benign tumors. This report aims to announce a case of hepatic PEComa with extramedullary hematopoiesis. A 44- year- old woman accidentally presented a nodular mass in the left hepatic segment on ultrasonography with normal liver function result. Abdominal enhanced CT Scan showed hypervascular lesion. Morphology exibits classical characteristics of PEComa with mature fat tissue predominance, thick-wall vessel; somewhat amount of extramedullary hematopoiesis was also recognized. Tumor cells are diffusely immunoreactive with HMB45. PEComa is a rare disease in liver, pathologists need to recognize three components of this tumor to avoid misdiagnosing with malignant conditions.

Graphical abstract

The difference in the timings of healthcare professionals’ shifts and sleep disturbances

Review

Abstract

Healthcare professionals (HCPs) bear a huge responsibility of taking care of patients 24 hours a day and for the whole week. Although HCPs help patients get over their sufferings, these workers endanger their lives and cause themselves health problems including sleep disturbances. Since most of these disturbances are related to the timing or the schedules of these workers, the aim of this mini-review is to shed the light on how these shift schedules are different and how they can affect the sleepness and/or wakefulness of the workers in the health sector.

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Aspiring experience journey towards research: importance and essential skills

Case Study

Abstract

Research is the creative and systematic conversion of ideas into knowledge and the application of this knowledge in different life fields. The more you get involved in research, the more experiences and skills you can gain. The continuous decreasing number of medical students interested in research can affect the public health in future. Our aim is to encourage medical students to involve more in the research career and to highlight the importance and skills needed for being a successful researcher. Discipline, passion to gain the knowledge, the accuracy of data checking, team work and strict rules are the most important characteristics of a research team. A researcher should be passionate, hard-working, and patient. Teamwork is the golden key to doing research; you should be responsible for your team and develop their research skills along the study period. A researcher should be a self-learner to increase his skills to get an advanced level. From the most important skill that a researcher should gain it by time is the leadership. Being motivated along the study period is an obstacle that leaders always meet, so you should have solutions for it. Fairness is an important manner a leader should acquire. Contribution in a research lab from your youth to build your CV, personality and gain great publications by time.

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Staphylococcus aureus nasal colonization among Vietnamese adults: prevalence, risk factors and antibiotic susceptibility profile

Original Research

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) has long been recognized as an important human pathogen causing many severe diseases. It is also a part of human normal flora with its ecological niche in the human anterior nares. This study focused on screening S. aureus nasal carriage in community and its relationship to human physiological and pathological factors which have not been studied in Vietnam previously. Two hundred and five volunteers in Ho Chi Minh City from 18 to 35 and over 59 years old both male and female participated in the study. Result showed that the prevalence of S. aureus nasal carriage in southern Vietnamese community was relatively low, only 11.2% (23/205), much lower than that in other international reports on human S. aureus. In addition, nasal carriage of the older age group (> 59 years old, 13.7%) was higher than that of younger age (18-35 years old, 10.4%). Other potential risk factors such as gender, career, height, weight, history of antibiotic usage, daily nasal wash, use of nasal medication sprays, acne problems, smoking and nasal problems showed no significant impact on S. aureus carriage. The obtained S. aureus nasal isolates were all sensitive to vancomycin. Lincomycin and tetracycline had low resistance rate with 4.3 % and 17.4 %, respectively. However, the isolates showed particularly high rate of multidrug resistance (54.2%) In summary, our data provided researchers an overview on S. aureus nasal carriage and antibiotic susceptibility profile of the community- isolated S. aureus in Vietnam. This would serve as valuable information on assessing risk of community-acquired S. aureus infections.

Graphical abstract

Prevalence of Sick Building Syndrome - Related Factors among Hospital Workers at University Medical Center Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Original Research

Abstract

Poor indoor air quality is one of the most important factor causing occupational health problems such as sick building syndrome (SBS). Most previous research on risk factors of SBS is evaluated in the office or school environments rather than in the hospital. The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of SBS and its related effect on hospital workers in poorly-ventilated and confined working environments through a set of the questionnaires completed from March to June of 2017. The relationship between SBS-Related symptoms, individual characteristics, work environment and conditions were analyzed using Poisson regression. The prevalence of sick building syndrome was 70.1%. The most common symptoms reported by hospital workers include fatigue, headache, and feeling heavy-headed. There was a significant relationship between the prevalence of syndrome and sex, overload of work, atopy as well as varying room temperature.

Graphical abstract

Predictive Model for Live Birth at 12 Months After Starting In-Vitro Fertilization Treatment

Original Research

Abstract

IVF carries a considerable physical, emotional and financial burden. Therefore, it would be useful to be able to predict the likelihood of success for each couple. The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to develop a prediction model to estimate the probability of a live birth at 12 months after one completed IVF cycle (all fresh and frozen embryo transfers from the same oocyte retrieval). We analyzed data collected from 2600 women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) at a single center in Vietnam between April 2014 and December 2015. All patients received gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist stimulation, followed by fresh and/or frozen embryo transfer (FET) on Day 3. Using Cox regression analysis, five predictive factors were identified: female age, total dose of recombinant follicle stimulating hormone used, type of trigger, fresh or FET during the first transfer, and number of subsequent FET after the first transfer. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for the final model was 0.63 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.60‒0.65) and 0.60 (95% CI 0.57‒0.63) for the validation cohort. There was no significant difference between the predicted and observed probabilities of live birth (Hosmer-Lemeshow test, p > 0.05). The model developed had similar discrimination to existing models and could be implemented in clinical practice.

Graphical abstract

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