Wan-Hui Liao, Gee-Gwo Yang, Maciej Henneberg

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors in COVID-19: from acidosis to ventilation and immunity

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20444

The authors explain mechanisms by which inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system may increase susceptibility to and the development of cytokine storm during SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Daniel Bauer, Felicitas-Maria Lahner, Sören Huwendiek, Felix M. Schmitz, Sissel Guttormsen

An overview of and approach to selecting appropriate patient representations in teaching and summative assessment in medical education

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20382

Medical education has a long tradition of using various patient representations in teaching and assessment. With this literature review the authors aim to provide an overview of the most important patient representations used to teach and assess clinical skills, to provide arguments for choosing certain patient representations and to show their advantages and limitations.

Rahel Schwotzer, Andreas J. Flammer, Sabine Gerull, Thomas Pabst, Paolo Arosio, Manuela Averaimo, Ulrike Bacher, Peter Bode, Andrea Cavalli, Adalgisa Condoluci, Stefan Dirnhofer, Nadia Djerbi, Stephan W. Dobner, Thomas Fehr, Maura Garofalo, Ariana Gaspert, Raphael Heimgartner, Annemarie Hübers, Hans H. Jung, Chiara Kessler, Raphael Knöpfel, Natallia Laptseva, Robert Manka, Luca Mazzucchelli, Martin Meyer, Violeta Mihaylova, Pierre Monney, Alessio Mylonas, René Nkoulou, Aju P. Pazhenkottil, Otmar Pfister, Axel Rüfer, Adrian Schmidt, Harald Seeger, Simon F. Stämpfli, Guido Stirnimann, Thomas Suter, Marie Théaudin, Giorgio Treglia, Alexandar Tzankov, Friederike Vetter, Markus Zweier, Bernhard Gerber

Expert recommendation from the Swiss Amyloidosis Network (SAN) for systemic AL-amyloidosis

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20364

These are the Swiss Amyloidosis Network recommendations which focus on diagnostic work-up and treatment of AL-amyloidosis. One aim of this meeting was to establish a consensus guideline regarding the diagnostic work-up and the treatment recommendations for systemic amyloidosis tailored to the Swiss health care system.

Oriane Aebischer, Sonja Weilenmann, David Gachoud, Marie Méan, Tobias R. Spiller

Physical and psychological health of medical students involved in the coronavirus disease 2019 response in Switzerland

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20418

Students involved in the COVID-19 response reported a similar proportion of COVID-19 symptoms or confirmed diagnoses, but lower levels of anxiety, depression and burnout compared with their non-involved peers.

Christina Haag, Marc Höglinger, André Moser, Oliver Hämmig, Milo Alan Puhan, Viktor von Wyl

Social mixing and risk exposures for SARS-CoV-2 infections in elderly persons

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20416

Although many elderly persons continued to follow the recommended preventive measures during the transitional phase between the two pandemic waves, social mixing with younger persons constitutes a way for transmission of infections across age groups. Pandemic containment among all age groups thus remains essential to protect vulnerable populations, including the elderly.

Francisco da Rocha de Sousa, Nicola Colucci, Arnaud Dupuis, Christian Toso, Nicolas C. Buchs, Ziad Abbassi

Surgical management of vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and its challenges: a case report

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20379

As far as is known, this is the first case describing a symptomatic ischemic colonic stenosis refractory to medical treatment in a vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome patient.

Andrina Neff, Lionel Chok, Ulrich von Both, Ulrich Matt, Andrea Tarnutzer, Federica Andreoni, Mark van der Linden, Jan A. Plock, Philipp K. Buehler, Silvio D. Brugger, Reto A. Schuepbach, Reinhard Zbinden, Annelies S. Zinkernagel

Characterisation of clinical manifestations and treatment strategies for invasive beta-haemolytic streptococcal infections in a Swiss tertiary hospital

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20378

Invasive beta-haemolytic streptococcal infections, the most severe presentation of which is necrotising fasciitis, remain a serious clinical issue and require rapid diagnosis and treatment. This is the first representative analysis monitoring clinical and microbiological characteristics of patients with a severe invasive beta-haemolytic streptococcal infection and treated in Zurich, Switzerland.

Andreas Krisl, Susanne Stampf, Dimitri Hauri, Isabelle Binet, Thomas Mueller, Daniel Sidler, Karine Hadaya, Déla Golshayan, Manuel Pascual, Michael Koller, Michael Dickenmann, the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study (STCS)

Immunosuppression management in renal transplant recipients with normal-immunological risk: 10-year results from the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20354

Primary maintenance immunosuppression with tacrolimus has displaced ciclosporin-based therapies. The tacrolimus-based immunosuppression therapy showed consistently better results across almost all assessed clinically relevant outcomes.

Supplementum 248: Abstracts of the cancelled 52nd Annual Meeting of the Swiss Society of Nephrology

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20469

Thomas Leyhe, Mathias Jucker, Tobias Nef, Marc Sollberger, Florian Riese, José Haba-Rubio, Henk Verloo, Regula Lüthi, Stefanie Becker, Julius Popp

Conference report: dementia research and care and its impact in Switzerland

Swiss Med Wkly. 2020;150:w20376

A Swiss panel of experts met for the Dementia Summit in Brunnen, Switzerland, to discuss the latest scientific findings on basic and clinical research, as well as practical and political approaches to the challenges of dementia disorders in Switzerland. Here, they present the conference summary.