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Journal and News Scan
April 12, 2015
Submitted by: J. Rafael Sadaba
In this manuscript the authors describe their findings in a meta-analysis of 12 randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials involving 2,980 patients undergoing isolated CABG. They found that statin therapy, particularly atorvastatin, initiated before CABG, was associated with a 58% reduction in the risk of postoperative AF. Unfortunately, the optimal dose of statin therapy to achieve this effect was not addressed in the study. Other interesting findings were that the length of hospital stay was lower, and there was a lower number of strokes with preoperative statin therapy. The risk of postoperative MI and renal failure were not significantly decreased with statins.
April 10, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
The authors analysed 621 reliefs, sculptures and paintings from Ancient Egypt looking for anatomical defects of the chest. They found a relief dated back to 2400 BC, depicting a man with an abnormal shape of the chest similar to a pectus excavatum. The authors opened the debate on the occurrence of this deformity in ancient times.
April 10, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
Westaby and coworkers analyzed the demographic changes of cardiothoracic surgeons in the UK between 1999 and 2014. There was an increase in appointments from overseas and from other European countries which complemented a decrease of UK graduates entering the specialty. Only 5% are females. The authors attribute this to several public discussions in the last years that shed a negative light on cardiothoracic surgery and call to action to restore attractiveness of the specialty.
April 10, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
False-negative results of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration in non-small-cell lung cancer staging were identified in 14% of 165 patients. Prevalence of false-negative results was low, when three satisfactory samples from mediastinal stations could be obtained and rose, when fewer adequate samples were available. Further, false-negative results were more frequent for left-sided tumors.
April 10, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
Transplantations of hearts from donors >50 years (n=26) were compared to 136 transplantations of hearts from younger donors. Hearts from older donors were preferably transplanted to older recipients, who had also longer waiting times. Short- and long-term survival of both groups was similar, however, there was a tendency to a higher frequency of cardiac allograft vasculopathy in the group that received older hearts.
April 10, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
Transplantations of hearts from donors >50 years (n=26) were compared to 136 transplantations of hearts from younger donors. Hearts from older donors were preferably transplanted to older recipients, who had also longer waiting times. Short- and long-term survival of both groups was similar, however, there was a tendency to a higher frequency of cardiac allograft vasculopathy in the group that received older hearts.
April 9, 2015
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
This concensus statement reviews the unique physiology, insertion techniques, and clinical indications for use of percutaneous mechanical circulatory support devices. As the options for management of different etiologies of heart failure in adult and pediatric populations expand, understanding the advantages of specific devices is vital.
April 8, 2015
Submitted by: Jill Ley
This thought provoking article by Drew et al., utilized state-of-the art monitoring technology to document the problem of "alarm fatigue" by recording an astounding number of alarm events; 2,558,760 unique alarms were triggered for 461 patients over a 31-day period. They documented an audible alarm burden of 187/bed/day that is of great concern to patients and clinicians alike who must respond promptly to maintain safety, while confirming that 88.8% of these alarms were false. The authors offer detailed documentation of this pervasive problem, cited repeatedly as one of the top 10 technological hazards of 2015, as well as offering realistic solutions that can be used to increase the reliability of current and future alarm systems.
April 8, 2015
Submitted by: Joseph Basha
The authors describe a simplified method of providing regional citrate anticoagulation for Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (CRRT) to patients. This simplified method could be beneficial for surgical patients needing renal replacement therapy where systemic anticoagulation is contraindicated and improve adoption of CRRT as a first choice therapeutic modality to treat acute renal failure in the post op surgical patient. The authors report only 5 patients and an intensly supervised, non randomized pilot study.
April 7, 2015
Submitted by: Arie Blitz
The authors prospectively performed coronary angiograms in their patients undergoing isolated CABG who demonstrated a rising cardiac troponin I profile in the first 12 hours following heart surgery - despite being asymptomatic. Among a total of 1693 patients from 2005-2011, 29 (1.7%) of patients had a rising CTnI. Of these, 16 patients (55%) demonstrated significant abnormalities on the angiograms, including occlusions, stenoses, dissections, hematomas, and kinking.