Dear Editor, The widespread use of face masks is an essential tool for slowing the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and its adoption is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).() During the pandemic, several computed tomography scans of patients wearing face masks showed prominent nasal deformation, such as nasal septal deviations and nasal airway narrowing, which were absent in examinations of the same patients performed before the pandemic (). Therefore, care should be taken when evaluating the […]

  Dear Editor, In the article recently published under the title “Brazilian Guidelines for Nutrition in Cystic Fibrosis”, due to our unfortunate omission, one of the collaborators of the “Working Group on Brazilian Guidelines for Nutrition in Cystic Fibrosis” was not included in the text and, therefore, her name was not included in the acknowledgments, like the other members of this group who participated in the elaboration of the technical content of this guideline. Thus, we would like to acknowledge […]

Dear Editor, In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Surgical Safety Checklist as part of the Global Patient Safety Challenge to reduce surgical morbidity and mortality worldwide. The list comprises three stages: before induction of anesthesia (sign in), before skin incision (timeout), and before patient leaves operating room (sign out), which consider the regular flow of surgical procedures.() […]

Dear Editor, The article “Endobronchial ultrasound: minimally invasive technology to aid in the diagnosis of thoracic diseases”,() contributes to technical-diagnostic evolution of pulmonary lesions. Endobronchial ultrasound with a radial transducer enabled to perform cytopathological examination and transbronchial biopsy of small lung lesions. Bronchoscopic radial ultrasound and fluoroscopic images are usually combined procedures. The ability to target small peripheral lesions is technically complex due to the challenging localization of small airways in relation to lung lesions. For this reason, we began […]

So, where do we stand? At our center we objectively draw attention to the presence of B-cell precursors in flow cytometry reports whenever the total number of CD34+ HSC, excluding the presence of B-cell precursors, is less than 2.0 x 106 cells per kilogram of recipient’s weight. Therefore, to alert the transplant physician about the possibility that – due to the presence of B-cell precursors – the bag destined for the HSCT may contain a suboptimal number of CD34+ HSC, […]

Dear Editor, The article “Meta-analyses on COVID-19: scoping review and quality analysis”,() published in this journal, shows its relevance when planning meta-analysis and carrying out pertinent discussion about the role of this type of methodology in the current pandemic. […]

Dear Editor, The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had a major impact on medical education, which had to be redesigned to use new platforms and teaching resources to complement the traditional in-person modality.() Ophthalmology was one of the specialties with more residents infected by coronavirus in New York City. This was due to the proximity between the physician and patient during the ophthalmologic examination.() Therefore, teaching of ophthalmology had to be adjusted for undergraduate medical students. […]

Dear Editor, On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) characterized the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), as a pandemic.(1) The novel coronavirus disease has originated as a cluster of unexplained cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, and it has scaled to new heights of mortality by affecting people both physically and mentally.[…]

Dear Editor, Cholera is a well-known disease, caused by the toxin of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, and has resulted in severe problems to the health systems of African countries, over the years, even after more than 50 years after its resurgence, in 1970. Among the nearly 1.4 to 4.0 million cases, and 21,000 to 143,000 deaths per year worldwide, most of the burden occurs in African countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.() […]

Dear Editor, I began my school life in a white institution thanks to the good socio-economic status achieved by my parents after years of hard working. At the school, I was always the only black girl in the classroom. For this reason, at the age of 6-years, I became aware of the perverse racism presented in our society. […]