American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2012
Comparative StudyA comparison between two strategies for monitoring hepatic function during antituberculous therapy.
The optimum strategy for monitoring liver function during antituberculous therapy is unclear. ⋯ In our urban, ethnically diverse population, a risk-factor approach is neither sensitive nor specific for prediction of drug-induced liver injury. A uniform policy of liver function testing at 2 weeks is useful for prompt identification of a subgroup who develop early drug-induced liver injury and may offer better specificity in ruling out late drug-induced liver injury.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2012
ReviewThe use of nonphysician providers in adult intensive care units.
In the United States there are not currently enough critical care-trained practitioners to provide care to all critically ill patients. With calls for "high-intensity" staffing and 24-hour coverage of our intensive care units, the board-certified intensivists we do have are being stretched ever more thin. Nonphysician providers (physician assistants and nurse practitioners) are being used with increasing frequency in critical care settings to provide care to critically ill patients. In this review, we explore the impact of introducing nonphysician providers into the adult intensive care unit.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2012
Comparative StudyLung ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography for diagnosis and monitoring of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a proliferative arteriopathy associated with glucose transporter-1 (Glut1) up-regulation and a glycolytic shift in lung metabolism. Glycolytic metabolism can be detected with the positron emission tomography (PET) tracer (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). ⋯ HIF-1α-mediated Glut1 up-regulation in proliferating vascular cells in PAH accounts for increased lung FDG-PET uptake. FDG-PET is sensitive to mild PAH and can monitor therapeutic changes in the vasculature.