Articles: mortality.
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To assess 2-year excess mortality or institutionalization risk associated with hip fracture in community-dwelling people aged 60 and over. ⋯ For both men and women who incur a hip fracture, the risks of dying or being institutionalized within 2 years are higher than for their peers. The independent effect of hip fracture on this outcome was significantly greater for men than women. The marked influences of prefracture health status, physical limitations, and gender on outcome have important implications for preventative strategies.
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Pediatr Crit Care Me · Apr 2002
Randomized clinical trials in pediatric critical care: Rarely done but desperately needed.
To review the benefits and challenges of using the randomized, controlled trial (RCT) study design to evaluate preventive and therapeutic interventions in pediatric critical care medicine. ⋯ The RCT design is able to control for many sources of potential bias that other types of study designs cannot. The findings of RCTs often contradict the findings of less rigorous study designs. Before performing an RCT, there must exist a state of clinical equipoise, a sufficient number of eligible patients must be available, and the epidemiology of the disorder in question must be well studied. There are many challenges to performing high-quality RCTs. Studying multiple element support strategies in the critically ill patient population is more complex than studying a single drug therapy. High patient and practice variability and hazy diagnostic definitions can dilute the signal-to-noise ratio. Most interventions in critical care are expected to have a modest or small effect. This markedly increases the requisite sample size. There is a paucity of accepted clinically important measurements of the outcome of critical care, making mortality a common outcome to evaluate with a not-so-common incidence. Developmental issues, the inability to give informed consent, and the failure to perform the appropriate pharmacokinetic and safety studies are additional challenges facing pediatric investigators. Despite these limitations, a good RCT remains the best way to prove that an intervention is working or not. Indeed, RCTs are and will remain the "gold standard" method to estimate the efficacy of a therapeutic or prophylactic intervention.
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The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II, Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS) II, Mortality Probability Model MPM II0 and MPM II24 systems in a major tertiary care hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. ⋯ In our ICU population: 1) Overall mortality prediction, estimated by standardized mortality ratio, was accurate, especially for MPM II0 and APACHE II. 2) MPM II24 has the best calibration. 3) SAPS II has the lowest calibration and discrimination. The local performance of MPM II24 in addition to its ease-to-use makes it an attractive model for mortality prediction in Saudi Arabia.
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Implantable left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) have been used primarily as bridges to cardiac transplantation, although some patients have been maintained long term on these devices and a few have recovered enough to be weaned. This trial was designed to evaluate their suitability as long-term myocardial replacement therapy in patients who are ineligible for cardiac transplantation. ⋯ The use of an LVAD resulted in improved survival and quality of life in patients with extremely severe heart failure (75% 1-year mortality in the medical control group). However, only 23% of LVAD patients survived to 2 years and complications were frequent.
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Jornal de pediatria · Mar 2002
[The influence of poor nutrition on the necessity of mechanical ventilation among children admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit].
To determine the relation between children's nutritional status when they are admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, the necessity and length of mechanical ventilation and the mortality rate. ⋯ In our study, we could demonstrate that malnourishment in children under 4 years old admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit represented a decisive factor on evolution, increasing significantly the necessity and the length of mechanical ventilation as well as the length of stay at the pediatric intensive care unit.