-
Of 100 keyboards in 29 clinical areas tested for bacterial contamination, 95% were positive for microorganisms, including one with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus.
-
Providing a universal consent form to patients, proxies, and staff increased the frequency with which consent was obtained without compromising understanding of the process.
-
Jaber and colleagues report a series of 112 intubations of patients in their multidisciplinary ICU in Montpellier, France, during a 14-month period. Every ventilated patient underwent a cuff-leak test prior to extubation, and the incidence of post-extubation stridor was determined.
-
-
Part I of this two-part series covered gastrointestinal causes of chest pain and aortic dissection. This second and final part of the series will focus on pulmonary, psychiatric, and musculoskeletal causes of chest pain.
-
In the Dechend study, German investigators examined the role of Chlamydia pneumoniae in the atherosclerotic inflammatory process, based on previous studies indicating that this organism can be cultured from coronary atheromata.
-
Pappone and colleagues present an observational study evaluating the efficacy of their laboratorys technique for pulmonary vein isolation.
-
Mitchell and colleagues examined the association between therapy with lipid-lowering drugs and recurrent arrhythmias in the Antiarrhythmics Versus Implantable Defibrillators trial.
-
Although mitral valve repair for mitral regurgitation is gaining in popularity, there are little comparative data with mitral valve replacement. Thus, Thourani and colleagues performed a case-controlled observational study of the Emory University Hospitals surgical database, matching 625 patients undergoing mitral valve repair with 625 undergoing mitral valve replacement from 1984 to 1997.
-
The Task Force on Valvular Regurgitation of the American Society of Echocardiography, in conjunction with the ACC, AHA, and ESC, has published recommendations for evaluating the severity of native valvular regurgitation by echocardiography. Unfortunately, the task force did not come up with a simple foolproof system.