Roma Puronaitė

Vilnius University Hospital Santaros Klinikos · Information systems

Introduction: Multimorbidity - the coexistence of ≥2 chronic conditions in same individual is usually associated with older age. There is an increase in its prevalence at a much younger age, however with very limited research specifying that. Objective: To identify age breaking points for the occurrence of multimorbidity. Methods: The study in...

Introduction Self-care is an important patient-reported outcome (PRO) for heart failure (HF) patients, which might be affected by disease management and/or telemonitoring (TM). The number of studies reporting the influence of TM on self-care is limited. Aims This study aimed: to assess whether TM, in addition to information-and-communication-techn...

Introduction Cardiac shock-wave therapy (CSWT) is a non-invasive regenerative treatment method based on low-frequency ultrasound waves, which stimulate angiogenesis. Current data about the effects of revascularization procedures on angiogenesis biomarkers is limited. Recently, an association of catestatin and endocan with coronary collateral develo...

Patient-centered care is considered to be one of the essential pillars of a modern healthcare system. Thus, quality assessment based on patients’ perceptions, views and experiences in their journey through the healthcare system is recognized as one of the key principles for quality improvement initiatives. Measuring patient satisfaction can be conf...

We aimed to explore the feasibility and potential relevance of integrated electronic collection of patient-reported outcome and experience measures (PROM and PREM) in children with special healthcare needs (CSHCN) by using the example of children with kidney and hematological diseases. We performed a cross-sectional, single-center study of children...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was a cause of concern in the healthcare system and increased the need for disease severity indicators. However, they still vary in use to evaluate in-hospital outcomes and severity. National Early Warning Score (NEWS) is routinely used to evaluate patient health status at the hospital. Further r...

Patient-centered care is recognized as a key element in recent healthcare management strategies. However, the integrated collection of patient feedback capturing the entire journey of patients with complex medical conditions remains understudied. Herein, we aimed to describe the development of an instrument prototype for the collection of PROMs and...

Background and Aims Patient feedback, including collection of patient-reported experience (PREMs) and outcome measures (PROMs), is an essential component of patient-centered care implementation. We performed a pilot study of an integrated electronic approach to collect PROMs and PREMs in patients with kidney diseases across all age groups. In addit...

The success of health policy and the healthcare sector is increasingly measured in terms of the dynamics and changes in public trust in the healthcare system, the quality of services provided by healthcare facilities matching people’s expectations, and the fulfilment of patient needs. In order to ensure the required efficiency of public services an...

Background and aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in middle-aged Lithuanian women in different body mass index and waist circumference groups. Methods and results: Data selected from the Lithuanian High Cardiovascular Risk (LitHiR) primary prevention program between 2009 and 2016. This commu...

Background and aims: This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in middle-aged Lithuanian men categorized according to body mass index and waist circumference results. Methods and results: The data were from the Lithuanian High Cardiovascular Risk primary prevention program between 2009 and 2016. This community-based...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was perhaps the most severe global health crisis in living memory. Alongside respiratory symptoms, elevated liver enzymes, abnormal liver function, and even acute liver failure were reported in patients suffering from severe acute respiratory disease coronavirus 2 pneumonia. However, the precise...

Background: MASK-air® is an app whose aim is to reduce the global burden of allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma. A transfer of innovative practices was performed to disseminate and implement MASK-air® in European regions. The aim of the study was to examine the implementation of the MASK-air® app in Lithuanian adults in order to investigate (i) the...

Background: Prediabetes is a reversible condition, but lifestyle-changing measures, such as increasing physical activity, should be taken. This article explores the use of Fitbit activity trackers to assess physical activity and its impact on prediabetic patient health. Methods: Intervention study. In total, 30 volunteers (9 males and 21 females...

Patient-reported measures are useful in the public interest to improve the quality of care and to assess patients’ needs and priorities by helping to identify existing barriers. A bibliometric analysis was carried out to investigate the use and relevance of patient-reported measures in other countries, which showed the growth of the topic in the sc...

Background Numerous studies associate metabolic syndrome (MetS) with poor life quality, depression, and anxiety. Aerobic exercise training has proven its value in promoting health among subjects with MetS. We aimed to evaluate the changes in health-related quality of life (HRQOL), motivation for physical activity, and the levels of anxiety and depr...

Background and Objectives: Metabolic syndrome is defined as three or more of five components; therefore, there are 16 possible different clusters of metabolic risk factors that are under one diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. In this study, we evaluated the different clusters of metabolic syndrome (MetS) across serum uric acid (SUA) quartiles and ana...

Various comorbidities and multimorbidity frequently occur in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), leading to the overload of health care systems and increased mortality. We aimed to assess the impact of COPD on the probability and clustering of comorbidities. The cross-sectional analysis of the nationwide Lithuanian database was performed...

Background: The traditional rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis is very complicated because it uses many clinical and image data. Therefore, there is a need to develop a new method for diagnosing RA using a consolidated set of blood analysis and thermography data. Objective: The following issues related to RA are discussed: 1) Which clinical dat...

Background: Monitoring physical activity with consumers wearables is one of the possibilities to control a patient's self-care and adherence to recommendations. However, clinically approved methods, software, and data analysis technologies to collect data and make it suitable for practical use for patient care are still lacking. Objective: This...

The wide spectrum of COVID-19 symptoms complicates the selection of target groups for screening. We aimed to compare data of children screened for COVID-19 at the pediatric emergency department in Vilnius between different phases throughout 1 year (Phase I: March–May, 2020; Phase II: June–September, 2020; and Phase III: October, 2020–February, 2021...

Background The development of metabolic syndrome (MS) augments risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD), but pathophysiological mechanisms of this relation are still under discussion. Overlapping CVD risk factors make it difficult to assess the importance of individual elements. This study aimed to analyze subclinical atherosclerosis b...

Background and Objectives: Lateral compression injuries of the pelvic ring are most common among young and elderly patients. Of all pelvic ring fracture injuries, the B2.1 type—involving lateral compression of the pelvic ring—is the most common. Despite this, we still have no high-level evidence to consult when choosing between the surgical and non...

Background: Patients with multimorbidity account for ever-increasing healthcare resource usage and are often summarised as big spenders. Comprehensive analysis of health care resource usage in different age groups in patients with at least two non-communicable diseases is still scarce, limiting the quality of health care management decisions, whic...

Background and Objectives: The treatment algorithm of lateral compression B2 type pelvic fractures are still under debate. Some authors advocate conservative treatment, while others recommend surgical approach. The clear indications for isolated anterior or posterior ring fixation or combined anterior-posterior pelvic ring fixation of B2 type fract...

Objective To evaluate mid-term outcomes of transventricular mitral valve (MV) repair and its association with initial anatomy of the MV. Methods This non-randomized observational study included 88 patients (mean age 60 years; 69% men) who underwent transventricular MV repair for severe degenerative mitral regurgitation (MR) between 2011 and 2017....

Background: Development of metabolic syndrome (MetS) augments risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD), but pathophysiological mechanisms of this relation are still under discussion. Overlapping CVD risk factors make it difficult to assess the importance of individual elements. This study aimed to analyze subclinical atherosclerosis ba...

Objectives : Circulating levels of inflammatory markers such as high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) have been reported to be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), as well as with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Therefore, our objectives were to investigate the associations between hs-CRP levels and individual MetS comp...

Objectives: There is increasing evidence that metabolic syndrome (MetS) may be associated with increased uric acid levels. Previous studies indicate that hyperuricaemia is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disorders. We sought to determine the association of serum uric acid (SUA) with MetS components and other cardiovascular risk factor...

Background and aims The aim of the study was to estimate trends and differences in CVD risk factor prevalence among middle-aged men and women based on the data from the LitHiR primary prevention program between 2009 and 2018. Methods A community-based cross-sectional study included men aged 40–54 years and women aged 50–64 years without overt CVD....

Background and objectives: T-cadherin (T-cad) is one of the adiponectin receptors abundantly expressed in the heart and blood vessels. Experimental studies show that T-cad sequesters adiponectin in cardiovascular tissues and is critical for adiponectin-mediated cardio-protection. However, there are no data connecting cardiac T-cad levels with human...

Background: Recent triple-blind sham procedure-controlled study revealed neutral effects of the cardiac shock wave therapy (CSWT) on exercise tolerance and symptoms in patients with stable angina. Current data about the effects of CSWT on global and regional myocardial contractility and perfusion is limited. Hereby we report the results of an imag...

Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of premature death worldwide. More than half of deaths were caused by cardiovascular diseases in 2017 in Lithuania. Primary prevention programmes encourage both medical staff and general population to pay attention to potential health issues as well as attempt to eradicate risk factors causing cardiovascul...

Background and Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate trends in smoking among middle-aged men and women based on the data from the Lithuanian High Cardiovascular Risk (LitHiR) primary prevention program between 2009 and 2016. Materials and Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study comprised 92373 Lithuanian adults (41.6% men and 58...

Background: According to the data from the population-based Rotterdam study, intracranial carotid artery calcification detected by computed tomography is very common and contributed to 75% of all strokes. The aim of the present study was to estimate the prevalence of intracranial stenosis (IS) using noninvasive transcranial color-coded duplex sonog...

Background The relationship between longitudinal clinical congestion pattern and heart failure outcome is uncertain. This study was designed to assess the prevalence of congestion over time and to investigate its impact on outcome in chronic heart failure. Methods A total of 588 chronic heart failure patients ≥ 60 years with New York Heart Associa...

Purpose: The objective of this study was to assess predictive value of various arterial markers for cardiovascular (CV) events in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Materials and methods: A longitudinal study with the follow-up period of 3.9 ± 1.7 years investigated 2728 middle-aged (53.9 ± 6.2 years old, 63% women) MetS subjects without over...

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate predictive value of main arterial markers for cardiovascular (CV) events in subjects with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Methods: A prospective study enrolled 2728 middle-aged (53.9 ± 6.2 years old, 63% women) MetS patients of the Lithuanian High Cardiovascular Risk primary prevention program without ove...

Aim: To evaluate the relation between arterial stiffness and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) in metabolic syndrome (MetS) patients during more than 3 years observation period (average was 3,8 years). Methods: This longitudinal study enrolled 573 subjects (aged 53,4 ± 6 years, 63% female, 76% hypertensive) from the Lithuanian High Card...

Background: Currently there is no diabetes-specific quality of life (QOL) instrument available in Lithuanian language. We aimed to develop a Lithuanian version of a widely-used individualised instrument - the Audit of Diabetes Dependent Quality of Life questionnaire (ADDQOL-19) and assess the validity and reliability in patients with type 1 and ty...

Background: Dyslipidemia is highly prevalent and is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease in Lithuania. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of severe dyslipidemia in Lithuanian middle aged primary prevention population and to investigate cardiovascular risk profile. Methods: The group of 83,376 people wer...

Background: Metabolic syndrome, physical inactivity and central obesity contribute to early vascular aging, which leads to increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The study aimed to assess the effect of heart rate (HR) targeted aerobic exercise training on the indices of early vascular aging, in particular, arterial stiffness, and on anthropomet...

Background Hypertriglyceridemia (hTG) is 1 of the dyslipidemia manifestations in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, for several decades, the role of hTG in cardiovascular risk was not well established. Objective The aim of this study was to assess the parameters of the vascular structure and function in patients with MetS and differ...

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is linked to the development of type 2 diabetes and increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Physical inactivity is one of the main pathophysiological factors of MetS subjects. The aim of this study was to evaluate if 4-week supervised aerobic training had any impact on anthropometric, metabolic, hemodynamic and art...

Background: The aim of the present study was to identify specious radiologic and/or physiologic prognostic marker(s), which lead to optimize of the patient follow-up frequency. Methods: Eighty consecutive patients with newly diagnosed pulmonary sarcoidosis. Patients underwent chest radiography, high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) examinat...

Objective: The natural history, management, and outcome of Takotsubo (stress) cardiomyopathy (TTC) is not clear. The aim of this study was to investigate clinical features, define prognostic predictors, and assess the clinical course and outcomes of patients with TTC. Methods: We analyzed 64 patients (52 women) meeting the proposed Mayo Clinic d...

Objectives: The aims of our study were to evaluate cognitive decline in people with temporal lobe epilepsy over a period of 13years and to determine what clinical and treatment characteristics may have been associated with these. Materials and methods: Thirty-three individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy underwent the same neuropsychological ass...

Background: Essential data on the quality of diabetes care needed for the development of National Diabetes Programme in Lithuania are lacking. The aim of the study was to assess the quality of diabetes care compared to the local guidelines in Vilnius, Lithuania. Materials and methods: Retrospective data collection covering the period from 2012 t...

Background: We aimed to evaluate the relationship between arterial stiffness and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) in metabolic syndrome (MetS) patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 1208 subjects without overt atherosclerotic disease. According to the cardiac ultrasound, patients were divided into two groups: wi...

Aim of the study: To evaluate interface between radiologic changes, pulmonary function impairment and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) cells in sarcoidosis patients. Materials and methods: 80 patients with newly diagnosed sarcoidosis (41 F, 39 M, age 39±9 yrs) were included. Patients underwent CT scanning, pulmonary function tests (PFT) and BAL....

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the association between arterial stiffness assessed as cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) and cardiovascular (CV) risk factors and CV events in the middle-aged metabolic syndrome (MS) patients. Materials and methods: A follow-up study was carried out in 2106 middle-aged (53.83 ± 6.17 years old, 62% women) MS subj...

Chronic multiple conditions have become a major threat to world healthcare systems within the last years. To estimate the prevalence and structure of multimorbidity in Lithuania, to analyse the utilization of healthcare resources striving to manage patients with multimorbidity. A descriptive cross-sectional analysis based on the National Health Ins...

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of exercise stress testing to detect coronary heart disease (CHD) in the group of patients with metabolic syndrome. Design and methods: 2803 patients without prior diagnosis of CHD and identified metabolic syndrome were investigated. Subjects underwent electrocardiogram (ECG) stre...

Background This study sought to evaluate the relation between long-term segmental and global functional outcome after revascularisation in patients with chronic ischaemic left ventricular dysfunction (LVD) and baseline markers of viability: late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) transmurality and contractile reserve (CR). Methods Forty-two patients wit...

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and changes of cardiovascular risk factors in the middle-aged Lithuanian subjects after conducting the primary prevention program. Design and methods: Four cross-sectional investigations of cardiovascular risk factors were conducted in 2009 (n = 9625), 2010 (n = 7716), 2011 (n = 5018...

Raktiniai žodžiai: cukrinis diabetas, metabolinė kontrolė, ambulatorinė priežiūra, klinikinis auditas. Tikslas. Įvertinti cukriniu diabetu sergančių pacientų, gydomų Vilniaus universiteto ligoninės Santariškių klinikų Šeimos medicinos centre, priežiūrą, palyginti su Lietuvoje galiojančiomis rekomendacijomis. Tyrimo medžiaga ir metodai. Diabetu serg...

Hypertension