Low psoas muscle area is shown to be an indicator for worse postoperative outcome in patients undergoing vascular surgical. Additionally, it has been associated with longer durations of hospital stay in patients with cancer who undergo surgery and subsequently greater health care costs in Europe and the United States. We sought to evaluate this effect on hospital expenditure for patients undergoing vascular repair in a health care system with universal access.
Methods
Skeletal muscle mass was assessed on preoperative abdominal computed tomography scans of patients undergoing open aortic aneurysm repair in a retrospective fashion. The skeletal muscle index (SMI) was used to define low muscle mass. Health care costs were obtained for all patients and the relationship between a low SMI and higher costs was explored using linear regression and cross-sectional analysis.
Results
We included 156 patients (81.5% male) with a median age of 72 years undergoing elective surgery for infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm in this analysis. The median SMI for patients with low skeletal muscle mass was 53.21 cm2/kg and for patients without, 70.07 cm2/kg. Hospital duration of stay was 2 days longer in patients with low skeletal muscle mass as compared with patients with normal (14 days vs 11 days; P = .001), as was duration of intensive care stay (3 days vs 1 day; P = .01). The median overall hospital costs were €10,460 higher for patients with a low SMI as compared with patients with a normal physical constitution (€53,739 [interquartile range, €45,007-€62,471] vs €43,279 [interquartile range, €39,509-€47,049]; P = .001). After confounder adjustment, a low SMI was associated with a 14.68% cost increase in overall hospital costs, for a cost increase of €6521.
Conclusions
Low skeletal muscle mass is independently associated with higher hospital as well as intensive care costs in patients undergoing elective aortic aneurysm repair. Strategies to reduce this risk factor are warranted for these patients. 相似文献
Introduction: Allergic rhinitis is a common condition with increasing prevalence and is associated with several comorbid disorders such as bronchial asthma and atopic dermatitis. If allergen avoidance is not possible, allergen-specific immunotherapy is the only causal treatment option.
Areas covered: This review focuses on current treatments and the future outlook for allergic rhinitis. Pharmacotherapy includes mast cell stabilizers, antihistamines, glucocorticosteroids (GCSs), leukotriene receptor antagonists, and nasal decongestants. Nasal GCSs are currently regarded as the most effective treatment and are considered first-line therapy together with non-sedating antihistamines. The new formulation MP29-02 combines the nasal GCS fluticasone propionate with azelastine in one single spray and has achieved greater improvements than those under monotherapy with modern GCSs or antihistamines. Furthermore, this review discusses allergen immunotherapy alone and in combination with modern monoclonal antibodies.
Expert opinion: Despite the variety of medications for allergic rhinitis, ranging from general symptomatic agents like GCSs or decongestants, to more specific ones like histamine receptor or leukotriene blockers, to causal therapy like immunotherapy, many patients still experience treatment failures or unsatisfactory results. The ultimate goal may be to endotype every downstream pathway separately in order to offer patients individualized, targeted therapy with specific antibodies against the respective pathway. 相似文献
The nature of community pharmacy is changing, shifting from the preparation and distribution of medicines to the provision of cognitive pharmaceutical services (CPS); however, often the provision of traditional services leaves little time for innovative services. This study investigated the time community pharmacists spend on the tasks and activities of daily practice and to what extent they are able to implement CPS-related services in daily practice.
Methods
Self-reporting work sampling was used to register the activities of community pharmacists. A smartphone application, designed specifically for this purpose, alerted participants to register their current activity five times per working day for 6 weeks. Participants also completed an online survey about baseline characteristics.
Results
Ninety-one Dutch community pharmacists provided work-sampling data (7848 registered activities). Overall, 51.5% of their time was spent on professional activities, 35.4% on semi-professional activities, and 13.1% on non-professional activities. The proportion of time devoted to CPS decreased during the workweek, whereas the time spent on traditional task increased.
Discussion and conclusion
This study shows it is feasible to collect work-sampling data using smartphone technology. Community pharmacists spent almost half of their time on semi-professional and non-professional activities, activities that could be delegated to other staff members. In practice, the transition to CPS is hampered by competing traditional tasks, which prevents community pharmacists from profiling themselves as pharmaceutical experts in daily practice. 相似文献
Lung ultrasound can accelerate the diagnosis of life-threatening diseases in adults with respiratory symptoms.
Objective
Systematically review the accuracy of lung ultrasonography (LUS) for emergency diagnosis of pneumonia, acute heart failure, and exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)/asthma in adults.
Methods
PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and LILACS (Literatura Latino Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde; until 2016) were searched for prospective diagnostic accuracy studies. Rutter-Gatsonis hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic method was used to measure the overall accuracy of LUS and Reitsma bivariate model to measure the accuracy of the different sonographic signs. This review was previously registered in PROSPERO (Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York, York, UK; CRD42016048085).
Results
Twenty-five studies were included: 14 assessing pneumonia, 14 assessing acute heart failure, and four assessing exacerbations of COPD/asthma. The area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve of LUS was 0.948 for pneumonia, 0.914 for acute heart failure, and 0.906 for exacerbations of COPD/asthma. In patients suspected to have pneumonia, consolidation had sensitivity of 0.82 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.74–0.88) and specificity of 0.94 (95% CI 0.85–0.98) for this disease. In acutely dyspneic patients, modified diffuse interstitial syndrome had sensitivity of 0.90 (95% CI 0.87–0.93) and specificity of 0.93 (95% CI 0.91–0.95) for acute heart failure, whereas B-profile had sensitivity of 0.93 (95% CI 0.72–0.98) and specificity of 0.92 (95% CI 0.79–0.97) for this disease in patients with respiratory failure. In patients with acute dyspnea or respiratory failure, the A-profile without PLAPS (posterior-lateral alveolar pleural syndrome) had sensitivity of 0.78 (95% CI 0.67–0.86) and specificity of 0.94 (95% CI 0.89–0.97) for exacerbations of COPD/asthma.
Conclusion
Lung ultrasound is an accurate tool for the emergency diagnosis of pneumonia, acute heart failure, and exacerbations of COPD/asthma. 相似文献
Abstract The discipline of nursing is still struggling with the differences that need to be clearly defined between the notions of care and nursing care. To be able to clarify this distinction, agreement must first be reached on the meaning of care itself. The present article proposes a conception of care in light of the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995). This philosopher's thought throws considerable light on the ontology of care, thanks especially to his focus on the deeper implications of human encounter. A profound sense of responsibility towards the other enables Levinas to bring out such dimensions of the concept of care as the relation involved, the feeling of affection, and the interventions. We examine here what these entail regarding nursing care. 相似文献