Internal and emergency medicine
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Renal function is associated with cardiovascular outcomes and mortality. Among equations used to eGFR, CKD-EPI equations show more accurate association with cardiovascular risk and mortality than MDRD. Recently, new CKD-EPI equations were proposed which do not include race and would be considered sufficiently accurate to estimate eGFR in clinical practice. ⋯ The equations which included cystatin C showed higher C-index compared to those which did not include cystatin C (0.75-0.76 vs. 0.71, respectively). The equations for the estimation of eGFR which include cystatin C are better associated with cardiovascular death compared to the race-free equations which include only creatinine. This finding adds on the related literature which supports the elimination of race in GFR-estimating equations, and promotion of the use of cystatin C.
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Observational Study
Impact of stress hyperglycemia on long-term prognosis in acute pancreatitis without diabetes.
Stress hyperglycemia has been confirmed as a strong predictor of poor short-term prognosis in acute pancreatitis. However, whether stress hyperglycemia affects the long-term prognosis of patients with acute pancreatitis is unclear. We aimed to investigate the effect of stress hyperglycemia on the long-term prognosis of non-diabetic patients with acute pancreatitis. ⋯ However, stress hyperglycemia is not associated with the recurrence of pancreatitis and progression to chronic pancreatitis. Stress hyperglycemia was independently associated with diabetes secondary to acute pancreatitis. Accordingly, a follow-up diabetes-screening program for AP with stress hyperglycemia is an important part of identifying the disease as soon as possible, delaying islet damage, and improving the prognosis of post-acute pancreatitis diabetes mellitus.
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Observational Study
Emergency department use of an electronic differential diagnosis generator in the evaluation of critically ill patients.
Accurate diagnosis is an essential component of managing critically ill emergency department (ED) patients. Electronic diagnosis generators (EDGs) are software tools which assist clinicians in their diagnosis generation; however, they have not been evaluated for use for critical ED patients. We aimed to evaluate the use of an EDG for this population to determine its impact on diagnosis generation and diagnostic testing. ⋯ EDGs have some potential to improve diagnosis in critical EM patients by expanding the differential diagnosis and, to a lesser extent, altering diagnostic testing.