Euroasian Health Journal

Arterial hypertension is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular diseases worldwide, including in the Kyrgyz Republic. One of the most serious complications of this disease is a hypertensive crisis. The urgency of revising current standards is dictated by the continuing practice of overdiagnosis of “uncomplicated” crises, which leads to unnecessary hospitalisations and potentially dangerous aggressive therapy. The purpose was to summarise and present contemporary approaches based on the principles of evidence-based medicine to the definition, classification, diagnosis, and treatment of hypertensive crises to analysis, and adaptation of key clinical guidelines from the European Society of Cardiology, the European Society of Hypertension, the International Society of Hypertension, the British and Irish Hypertension Society, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, and the Russian Society of Cardiology, published between 2018 and 2025, with particular attention to their applicability in resource-limited settings. The review presented a contemporary clinical definition of hypertensive crises based solely on the presence of acute damage to target organs. The rejection of the term “uncomplicated hypertensive crisis” as an indication for emergency intravenous pressure reduction was substantiated. The algorithm of the initial assessment (identification of “red flags of target organ damage”) was described in detail, and a minimum set of laboratory and instrumental studies was regulated. A differentiated treatment strategy was proposed depending on the type of target organ damage, indicating target blood pressure levels and priority parenteral medications. Special attention was paid to the risks of uncontrolled decrease in blood pressure in inpatient and outpatient settings, and tactics for reducing pressure with an asymptomatic increase. The introduction of uniform standards will reduce inappropriate hospitalisations, improve the safety of treatment, and coordinate tactics at all levels of medical care.

National medical journals play a key role in shaping the scientific agenda, advancing research, and translating scientific evidence into clinical and organisational practice, particularly in the field of maternal and child health. The aim of this study was to synthesise the findings of a bibliometric analysis of the publication activity of the journal “Maternal and Child Health” and to develop recommendations aimed at promoting research in the field of maternal and Child Health. A retrospective bibliometric analysis was conducted of 510 articles published in the journal “Maternal and Child Health” and indexed in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) between 2009 and 2025. An adapted PRISMA flow diagram was used for study selection. A total of 61 journal issues were examined, and citation indicators together with author and institutional profiles were analysed. The findings showed that the journal’s citation impact is primarily driven by publications from its formative years (2009- 2011), predominantly in paediatrics and epidemiology. Of the 510 publications, 140 were authored by a single researcher, while large multicentre research teams were represented only sporadically. The analysis confirmed a high degree of institutional concentration and the predominance of single-author and small collaborative teams, limiting the development of multicentre research. Furthermore, the five most productive authors were affiliated with the journal’s publishing institution, the National Centre for Maternal and Child Health. Recommendations are proposed for the digital transformation of the editorial process, the internationalisation of journal content, and the promotion of interinstitutional collaboration. The findings may be useful for editors and publishers of national medical journals, specialists in bibliometrics, and healthcare administrators seeking to enhance the quality and international visibility of regional scientific journals

Emergency abdominal surgery is one of the most rapidly evolving fields of medicine, marked by the active adoption of minimally invasive technologies. Yet the strength of evidence supporting their use across different conditions remains uneven – necessitating systematisation and critical reappraisal of accumulated data, with attention to publications from 2000 to 2025. The aim was to systematise and critically evaluate the evidence from 2000 to 2025 concerning the use of minimally invasive technologies in the most common urgent abdominal conditions, and to identify promising directions for further research. A systematic literature search was conducted in the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Scopus and Web of Science databases for the period 2000-2025. Inclusion criteria covered systematic reviews, meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials. Forty-four sources were included in the analysis. For acute cholecystitis, meta-analyses demonstrated the advantages of early cholecystectomy, reducing hospital stay from 17.8 to 9.6 days with comparable mortality rates. Robot-assisted cholecystectomy reduces the conversion risk by 34% compared with conventional laparoscopy. Ultrasonic dissection shortens operating time by 9 minutes and reduces blood loss by 28 mL. For perforated ulcers, endoscopic techniques reduce respiratory complications by a factor of 2.4, though the methodological quality of the studies remains insufficient. In acute pancreatitis, an endoscopic step-up approach using lumen-apposing metal stents shows the best clinical outcomes. For adhesive small bowel obstruction, five-year follow-up studies found no long-term advantage for laparoscopy. For acute appendicitis, laparoscopic access reduces wound complications by a factor of 2.4, with comparable rates of intra-abdominal abscesses. These findings can help optimise surgical strategy in urgent abdominal conditions, informed by current evidence.

Acromegaly is a chronic neuroendocrine disease caused by prolonged hypersecretion of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-1 and leading to systemic soft tissue hypertrophy, while the condition of the salivary glands has not been sufficiently explored. The purpose of the study was to compare the size of the submandibular salivary glands according to ultrasound data in patients with active acromegaly and in healthy individuals of comparable age and gender, and to identify clinical and biochemical factors associated with the volume of the glands. A prospective comparative study included 27 patients with active acromegaly and 26 healthy volunteers. All underwent an ultrasound examination of the submandibular glands, measuring the length, width, and thickness of each gland and calculating the volume. The age, duration of symptoms, index of insulin- like growth factor-1, and presence of hyperprolactinaemia and echostructure of parenchyma were additionally assessed in patients. In patients with acromegaly, the median volume of the right gland was higher than in healthy subjects (10.0 versus 6.3 cm3), as was the volume of the left (8.8 versus 7.0 cm3; p < 0.01 for both), with a significant increase in length and width and no differences in thickness. Gland volume was negatively associated with age and duration of symptoms, was higher in men, and tended to decrease in hyperprolactinaemia; male gender, and duration of symptoms turned out to be independent predictors of volume. Acromegaly was accompanied by marked hypertrophy of the submandibular salivary glands, mainly due to an increase in length and width, which allows considering ultrasound evaluation of these glands as an additional non-invasive marker of the tissue response in acromegaly