Journal of clinical medicine
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Background: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the leading causes of death in the world. How to simply predict mortality for AMI patients is important because the appropriate treatment should be done for the patients with higher risk. Recently, a novel parameter of upstroke time per cardiac cycle (UTCC) in lower extremities was reported to be a good predictor of peripheral artery disease and mortality in elderly. ⋯ Conclusions: Our study is the first one to evaluate the usefulness of UTCC in AMI patients for prediction of long-term mortality. Our study showed UTCC was an independent predictor of long-term CV and overall mortality and had an additive predictive value for overall mortality beyond conventional parameters. Therefore, screening AMI patients by UTCC might help physicians to identify the high-risk group with increased mortality.
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The epicenter of the original outbreak in China has high male smoking rates of around 50%, and early reported death rates have an emphasis on older males, therefore the likelihood of smokers being overrepresented in fatalities is high. In Iran, China, Italy, and South Korea, female smoking rates are much lower than males. Fewer females have contracted the virus. ⋯ This could also be true for new electronic smoking devices such as electronic cigarettes and "heat-not-burn" IQOS devices. ACE2 could be a novel adhesion molecule for SARS-CoV-2 causing Covid-19 and a potential therapeutic target for the prevention of fatal microbial infections, and therefore it should be fast tracked and prioritized for research and investigation. Data on smoking status should be collected on all identified cases of Covid-19.
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While both baseline regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rSO2) and intraoperative rSO2 decreases have prognostic importance in cardiac surgery, evidence is limited in patients who received interventions to correct rSO2 decreases. The primary aim was to examine the association between rSO2 values (both baseline rSO2 and intraoperative decrease in rSO2) with the composite of morbidity endpoints. We retrospectively analyzed 356 cardiac surgical patients having continuously recorded data of intraoperative rSO2 values. ⋯ Their association with outcome was analyzed with multivariable logistic regression. AUT50 (odds ratio, 1.05; 95% confidence interval; 1.01-1.08; p = 0.015) was shown to be an independent risk factor (along with age, chronic kidney disease, and cardiopulmonary bypass time) of adverse outcomes. In cardiac surgical patients who received interventions to correct decreases in rSO2, increased severity of intraoperative decrease in rSO2 as reflected by AUT below an absolute value of 50% was associated with a composite of adverse outcomes, implicating the importance of cerebral oximetry to monitor the brain as an index organ.
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Severe postoperative pain affects most patients after thoracotomy and is a risk factor for post-thoracotomy pain syndrome (PTPS). This randomized controlled trial compared preemptively administered ketamine versus continuous paravertebral block (PVB) versus control in patients undergoing posterolateral thoracotomy. The primary outcome was acute pain intensity on the visual analog scale (VAS) on the first postoperative day. ⋯ Acute pain intensity at hour 8 and PTPS intensity at month 3 correlated positively with PTPS at month 6. Bodyweight was negatively associated with chronic pain at month 6. Thus, PVB but not preemptively administered ketamine decreases both acute and chronic pain intensity following posterolateral thoracotomies.
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We examined whether combining biomarkers measurements and brain images early after the return of spontaneous circulation improves prognostic performance compared with the use of either biomarkers or brain images for patients with cardiac arrest following target temperature management (TTM). This retrospective observational study involved comatose out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors. We analyzed neuron-specific enolase levels in serum (NSE) or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), grey-to-white matter ratio by brain computed tomography, presence of high signal intensity (HSI) in diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and voxel-based apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). ⋯ HSI in DWI showed the best prognostic performance (AUC 0.833, 95% CI 0.711-0.919). Combining CSF NSE levels and HSI in DWI had better prognostic performance (AUC 0.925, 95% CI 0.813-0.981) than each individual method, followed by the combination of serum NSE levels and HSI on DWI and that of CSF NSE levels and the percentage of voxels of ADC (AUC 0.901, 95% CI 0.792-0.965; AUC 0.849, 95% CI 0.717-0.935, respectively). Combining CSF/serum NSE levels and HSI in DWI before TTM improved the prognostic performance compared to either each individual method or other combinations.