Paediatric partial‐thickness scald burns – is Biobrane the best treatment available?

The article critically analyses the role of Biobrane, one of the widely used modern biosynthetic dressings, in paediatric partial-thickness scald burns. Most of the studies, available in the literature, confirmed that Biobrane has significantly reduced the hospital stay, wound healing time and requirements of pain medications. However, very few studies with long-term follow up are available. Further randomised controlled trials are required to challenge the supremacy of Biobrane in paediatric partial-thickness burns.     

Which is the best radiological imaging method for predicting actual prostate weight?

In this study, we compared the weight of the prostate specimen removed after robotic radical prostatectomy with the prostate weight measured pre-operatively by four different imaging modalities. Pre-operative prostate weight before robotic radical prostatectomy was measured by Transabdominal Ultrasonography (TAUS), Transrectal Ultrasonography (TRUS), Abdominal Tomography (CT) and MultiparametricProstate Magnetic Resonance imaging (mpMRI). Of the 170 patients enrolled in the study, the mean age was 65.2 ± 7.08 (46–84) years and mean prostate-specific antigen (PSA) 9.6 ± 7.7 (1.8–50). The mean post-operative actual prostate weight was 63.1 ± 30 gr. The mean pre-operative prostate volumes measured by TAUS, TRUS, CT and MPMRI were 64.5 ± 28.5, 49.1 ± 30.6, 54.5 ± 30.5 and 68.7 ± 31.7 ml, respectively (p < .001). Post-operative actual prostate weight correlated with prostate weight measured by TAUS, TRUS, CT and mpMRI (r coefficient 0.776, 0.802, 0.768 and 0.825 respectively). The best of these was mpMRI. Although prostate weight measured by different imaging methods has a high correlation to predict actual prostate weight, actual prostate weight is best predicted by measurements with mpMRI. However, errors and deviations that may occur with these imaging methods should be taken into consideration.     

Cardiac scoring systems – what is their value?

Estimating the peri-operative risk of major adverse cardiac events is one of the functions of cardiac risk scoring systems. Fortunately, peri-operative cardiac complications are relatively infrequent in most patients. Clinical algorithms use sequential screening tests to detect patients most at risk of cardiac complications. However, because the sensitivity and specificity of the tests used are low, the predictive performance of the commonly-used cardiac screening tests may not be completely satisfactory. The purpose of this review is to describe measures of performance of cardiac screening tests and illustrate their potential benefits and weaknesses.