Usefulness of quantitative and qualitative angiographic lesion morphology, and clinical characteristics in predicting major adverse cardiac events during and after native coronary balloon angioplasty

Major, adverse cardiac events (death, myocardial infarction, bypass surgery and reintervention) occur in 4 to 7% of all patients undergoing coronary balloon angioplasty. Prospectively collected clinical data, and angiographic quantitative and qualitative lesion morphologic assessment and procedural factors were examined to determine whether the occurrence of these events could be predicted. Of 1,442 patients undergoing balloon angioplasty for native primary coronary disease in 2 European multicenter trials, 69 had major, adverse cardiac procedural or in-hospital complications after ≥1 balloon inflation and were randomly matched with patients who completed an uncomplicated in-hospital course after successful angioplasty. No quantitative angiographic variable was associated with major adverse cardiac events in univariate and multivariate analyses. Univariate analysis showed that major adverse cardiac events were associated with the following preprocedural variables: (1) unstable angina (odds ratio [OR] 3.11; p 45 ° (OR 2.34; p 45 ° (OR 2.87; p 45 ° (OR 2.54; p < 0.006) were independent predictors of major adverse cardiac events

A Systematic Review and Critical Appraisal of the Quality of Studies Looking into the Economic Evaluation of Control Strategies for Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis and Schistosomiasis

Objectives. This research study aims to conduct a systematic review and critical appraisal of the quality of the existing peer-reviewed journal literature looking into the economic evaluation of control strategies used in parasitic diseases (i.e., STH and schistosomiasis). Methods. Database searches were conducted in Embase, Science Direct, Medline, CINAHL, Econ Lit, and Academic Search Elite, by using search keywords or phrases. Using the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, a review of published online articles between January 1990 and December 2012 was conducted. Aside from the set of good practice guidelines in conducting economic evaluations, assessment of the quality of economic evaluations was also carried out following the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist. Results. Given the inclusion and exclusion criteria set by this review, we systematically reviewed thirteen shortlisted samples of economic analysis studies. The current systematic review shows a wide variety of methodological approaches across studies, including differences in the type of economic evaluation, perspective, time horizon, approach, and adjustments for timing and certainty used. Conclusions. In general, the economic evaluation studies that have been examined in this review have complied with the set of criteria of good practice in conducting an economic evaluation and that it can be considered helpful in making decisions and in understanding the economics of controlling these parasitic diseasesThis paper was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia

Pranolium

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72226/1/j.1527-3466.1983.tb00447.x.pd

Measurement of right ventricular end-systolic and end-diastolic volumes by the thermodilution technique.

At the present time there is no entirely satisfactory index of ventricular function. End-diastolic pres-sure is often used as it can be relatively easily mea-sured and, with other factors, is related to the length of myocardial fibres at the end of diastole. Ven-tricular end-diastolic volume (EDV) is, however, a much closer approximation of fibre length, because, as Starling and Visscher (1927) have shown, it determines the force of subsequent ventricular contraction and the stroke volume (SV). End-systolic volume (ESV) and the ratio ESV/EDV are also indicators of ventricular functional capacity. Early attempts to measure heart volumes were made using measurements from x-rays (Rohrer, 1916