Annals of internal medicine
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Patient age may influence decisions to withhold life-sustaining treatments, independent of patients' preferences for or ability to benefit from such treatments. Controversy exists about the appropriateness of using age as a criterion for making treatment decisions. ⋯ Even after adjustment for differences in patients' prognoses and preferences, older age was associated with higher rates of decisions to withhold ventilator support, surgery, and dialysis.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Effect of inhaled nitric oxide on gas exchange in patients with congestive heart failure. A randomized, controlled trial.
Conventional vasodilators increase ventilation-perfusion mismatch and do not improve gas exchange even though they reduce pulmonary hypertension. However, the effects of nitric oxide inhalation on ventilatory and gas exchange values in patients with congestive heart failure are not known. ⋯ Because nitric oxide inhalation improved gas exchange, it may be used as a supportive therapy when other conventional vasodilators worsen gas exchange.