Factors associated with out-of-hospital coronary heart disease death: the national longitudinal mortality study

PURPOSE: A significant portion of coronary heart disease deaths occur out of the hospital, prior to access to life saving medical care. Improving the immediacy of care could have important impact on coronary mortality. METHODS: The objective of this research is to identify factors associated with the occurrence of out-of-hospital coronary heart disease death as compared with in-hospital. Identification of these factors could lead to additional strategies for rapid treatment of coronary attack symptoms. A large national cohort study with individually identified characteristics was matched to the National Death Index to identify deaths by cause occurring in up to 11 years of follow-up. Approximately 60,000 deaths occurred in the cohort of approximately 700,000 participants aged 25 years or more. Location of death was defined as either in- or out-of-hospital. RESULTS: Among deaths classified as coronary heart disease (CHD), multivariate logistic models of the association between selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals prior to death and place of death show that black persons are more likely to die out of hospital, as are persons who live alone or are unmarried, persons at the lowest end of the income distribution, and persons who live in rural areas vs. urban areas. CONCLUSIONS: The factors most strongly associated with a CHD death occurring out-of-hospital as compared with in-hospital are race (black persons are 1.23 times more likely to die out of hospital than white persons, net of demographic and socioeconomic differentials) and living status (persons who are not married are 1.60 times more likely to die out of hospital than persons who are married, net of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics). Attention should be paid to these groups to emphasize the need for rapid attention to the signs of a coronary attack so that rapid and potentially life saving intervention can be implemented.     

World health system performance revisited: the impact of varying the relative importance of health system goals

Background

In 2002, the World Health Organization published a health system performance ranking for 191 member countries. The ranking was based on five indicators, with fixed weights common to all countries.

Methods

We investigate the feasibility and desirability of using mathematical programming techniques that allow weights to vary across countries to reflect their varying circumstances and objectives.

Results

By global distributional measures, scores and ranks are found to be not very sensitive to changes in weights, although differences can be large for individual countries.

Conclusions

Building the flexibility of variable weights into calculation of the performance index is a useful way to respond to the debates and criticisms appearing since publication of the ranking.     

Molecular identity and regulation of renal potassium channels

K channels are ubiquitous in animal cells, where they are involved in a variety of physiological functions. In epithelial cells of the kidney, K channels are primarily involved in maintaining membrane potential, recycling and secreting K and regulating cell volume. As many renal K channels have now been studied or identified at the molecular level by means of a variety of approaches, including patch-clamp recordings, cDNA cloning and immunohistochemistry, the purpose of this review is to summarize what is presently known about the molecular identity of renal K channels with an emphasis on their regulatory properties.     

Ventral hernia repair: a study of current practice

Ventral wall hernias are common; despite this, there are no guidelines on the best surgical management. The aim of this study was to examine the types of repair in use for abdominal wall hernias in the West of Scotland over a 3-month period. Data were gathered on 120 patients. There were 60 incisional, 32 umbilical, and 28 epigastric hernias. The main indication for repair was pain (78%), while 12 patients (10%), presented acutely with incarceration or strangulation. The most common method of repair was sutured (55%), followed by mesh (29%) and Mayo repair (16%). There was no correlation between use of mesh and hernia size or whether repair was for a recurrent hernia. Surgical practice varies widely in the repair of ventral wall hernias. Clinical trials are required to establish the best method of repair for this common condition. Electronic Publication