Blood transfusions save the lives of millions of heart surgery patients and others each year. But a new study suggests that patients who receive transfusions during heart bypass surgery have a higher risk of developing potentially dangerous infections, and dying, after their operation.
Over the past 3 decades, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI, or balloon angioplasty) has significantly changed the treatment of coronary artery disease (narrowing of the arteries supplying the heart muscle). Unlike the more invasive coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, angioplasty is a nonsurgical procedure in which a tiny catheter with a balloon is inserted into the coronary artery.
A study of settlement decisions in workers’ compensation claims for low back pain has found almost no relationship between the rating of the disability’s severity when the claim was settlement and reported pain and disability 21 months later.
Right now there’s no rapid way to diagnose sepsis, a fast-moving blood infection that is a leading cause of death in hospital intensive care units. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that doctors one day could quickly distinguish sepsis from widespread non-infectious inflammation based on genetic profiles of patients’ blood.
Clinical characteristics of tinnitus such as duration, consistency and other factors influence the way individuals perceive loudness and annoyance associated with the condition, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Patients who have low to moderate blood alcohol levels may be less likely to die after arriving at the hospital with a traumatic brain injury than those with no alcohol in their bloodstream, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, those with the highest alcohol levels appear to have an increased risk of dying in the hospital.
HIV-infected patients undergoing surgical procedures may be more likely to develop pneumonia after surgery and to die within 12 months than those without HIV, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, HIV patients with a preoperative viral load (number of copies of the virus in the blood) greater than 30,000 per milliliter appear to have increased risk of surgical complications.
Surveys conducted in southern Sudan, after conflict there ended in 2004, found much higher levels of blindness than anticipated. The results, published in PLoS Medicine, have major implications for the provision of health services in the region.
An emulsion of olive oil, egg yolk and glycerine might be just the recipe to keep heart patients away from the operating room and cardiac bypass surgery.
DR. MICHAEL REARDON, heart surgeon at the METHODIST DEBAKEY HEART CENTER: “Last week, the FDA hosted a panel to discuss the safety and effectiveness of drug-eluting stents, popular devices that are used to treat clogged arteries.