Early Worsening Heart Failure in Patients Admitted for Acute Heart Failure: Time Course,Hemodynamic Predictors,and Outcome

BackgroundThe most common outcome currently assessed in acute heart failure trials (AHF) is dyspnea improvement. Worsening hear failure (WHF) is a new outcome measure that incorporates failure to improve or recurrent symptoms of AHF requiring rescue intravenous therapy, mechanical circulatory or ventilatory support, or readmission because of AHF, occurring within 30 days of AHF admission.Methods and ResultsRetrospective data analysis of 120 patients with AHF requiring hemodynamic monitoring who enrolled in the placebo arm of 2 prospective randomized studies. The incidence of WHF was 42% at 30 days from enrollment. Most WHF events occurred in-hospital during the first 7 days after admission (early WHF). Thirty-day readmission from AHF was an infrequent event in the present cohort (5.0%). The strongest hemodynamic predictors of WHF were cardiac power at baseline and its change during the initial 6 hours of monitoring. Other hemodynamic parameters associated with WHF events were blood pressure and its increase, cardiac output, and pulmonary wedge pressure change during the initial 6 hours of monitoring. WHF was found to be a strong predictor of 6-month mortality.ConclusionsWHF is a common morbid event clustered mostly during the first week of AHF admission and is associated with higher 6-month mortality. The hemodynamic measurements associated with WHF are similar to those predicting adverse outcome in AHF and cardiogenic shock (low cardiac power, higher pulmonary capillary wedge pressure, and vascular resistance), emphasizing the notion that early WHF should become an important AHF-specific outcome measure.     

Predictors of pneumocystosis or tuberculosis in HIV-infected Asian patients with AFB smear-negative sputum pneumonia

OBJECTIVES: To identify predictors of Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (PCP) or pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in acid-fast bacillus smear-negative HIV-infected patients and to develop clinical prediction rules. DESIGN: A cohort study conducted in consecutive hospitalized Asian patients. METHODS: Multivariate analyses were performed on the Cambodian sample to determine clinical, radiological, and biological predictors of PCP or TB at hospital admission. The Vietnamese sample was kept for independent validation. RESULTS: In Cambodia, the gold standard technique for TB and PCP were fulfilled in 172 (27 cases) and 160 (84 cases) patients, respectively. For TB, independent predictors included the following: headache [odds ratio (OR) 3.0; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04 to 8.6], localized radiological opacity (OR 5.8; 95% CI 1.9-17.9), and mediastinal adenopathy (OR 10.1; 95% CI 3.5 to 29.0); and for PCP: resting oxygen saturation <90% (OR 3.3; 95% CI 1.3 to 8.5 for resting arterial oxygen saturation >or=80%; and OR 9.1; 95% CI 1.8 to 44.5 for resting arterial oxygen saturation <80%), trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole prophylaxis (OR 0.1; 95% CI 0.04 to 0.6), and diffuse radiological shadowing (OR 7.0; 95% CI 2.7 to 18.6). PCP risk predicted by a score based on these 3 factors ranged from 3% to 92% (Cambodia). When tested on Vietnamese patients (n = 69, 38 with PCP), the score maintained correct predictive ability (c-index = 0.72) but with poor calibration. CONCLUSIONS: The PCP score could provide a useful clinical tool to identify PCP among acid-fast bacillus smear-negative pneumonia and start specific therapy.     

Posterior urethral injuries associated with pelvic injuries in young adults: computerized finite element model creation and application to improve knowledge and prevention of these lesions

Introduction  

Young adult males involved in motorcycle accidents are particularly at risk for posterior urethral injury whenever pelvic injury occurs. Posterior urethral injuries remain problematic because their diagnosis may be missed, and during the initial treatment response the urethral injury can be aggravated by urethral catheterization. Few anatomical and clinical tools exist that establish a correlation between injuries and fractures of the pelvic ring and the risk of posterior urethral injury.     

Mesenchymal stem cells derived from Wharton's jelly: comparative phenotype analysis between tissue and in vitro expansion

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are useful multipotent stem cells that are found in many tissues. While MSCs can usually be isolated from adults via bone marrow aspiration (BM-MSCs), MSCs derived from the discarded umbilical cord, more precisely from Wharton's jelly (WJ), offer a low-cost and pain-free collection method of MSCs that may be cryogenically stored, and are considered extremely favorable for tissue engineering purpose. The aim of this study was to analyze the harvested number of cells per centimeter of human umbilical cord (UC) and carry out the phenotype of these WJ-MSCs after explant or enzymatic methods. Fresh UCs were obtained from full-term births, and processed within 6 hours from partum to obtain the WJ-MSCs. UC sections were analyzed in confocal microscopy to analyze cells phenotype in situ. Others UC components were treated either by enzymatic method or by explant method to obtain isolated cells and to analyze cells phenotype until the end of the first passage. We have successfully generated MSCs from UC by using explant and enzymatic methods. Using microscopy confocal, we identified the expression of some MSCs markers in situ of Wharton's jelly tissue as well as in perivascular region. Our comparative study, between explant and enzymatic digestion, indicated, that WJ expressed most of MSCs markers in both conditions, but a remarkable variation of cell phenotype expression was distinguished after primary culture comparing to directly isolated cells by enzymatic digestion. We also studied the expression of CD271, which showed to be weakly expressed in situ on fresh fragment of WJ.     

Determination of the myocardial area at risk with pre- versus post-reperfusion imaging techniques in the pig model

The purpose of this study was to compare the accuracy of post-reperfusion cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and pre-reperfusion multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) imaging to measure the size of the area at risk (AAR), using pathology as a reference technique in a porcine acute myocardial infarction model. Fifteen pigs underwent balloon-induced coronary artery occlusion for 40 min followed by reperfusion. The AAR was assessed with arterial enhanced MDCT performed during occlusion, while two different T2 weighted (T2W) CMR imaging sequences and the contrast-enhanced (ce-) CMR endocardial surface length (ESL) were performed after 90 min of reperfusion. Animals were euthanized and the AAR was assessed by pathology. Additional measurements of the myocardial water content in the AAR, remote and the AAR border zones were performed. AAR by pathology best correlated with measurements made by MDCT (R(2) = 0.88; p < 0.001) with little bias on Bland-Altman plots (bias 2.5%, SD 6.1% LV area). AAR measurements obtained by T2W STIR, T2W ACUTE sequences or the ESL on ce-CMR showed a fair correlation with pathology (R(2) = 0.72, R(2) = 0.65 and R(2) = 0.69, respectively; all p ≤ 0.001), but significantly overestimated the size of the AAR with important bias (17.4 ± 10.8% LV area; 11.7 ± 11.0% LV area; 13.0 ± 10.3% LV area, respectively). The myocardial water content in the AAR border zones was significantly higher than the remote (82.8 vs. 78.8%; p < 0.001). Our data suggest that post-reperfusion imaging methods overestimated the AAR likely due to the presence of edema outside of the boundaries of the AAR. Pre-reperfusion arterial enhanced MDCT showed the greatest accuracy for the assessment of the AAR.