Accidental electrocutions kill about 1000 individuals annually in the USA alone. There has not been a systematic review or modeling of elapsed time duration defibrillation success rates following ...electrically-induced VF. With such a model, there may be an opportunity to improve the outcomes for industrial electrocutions and further understand arrest-related-deaths where a TASER ® electrical weapon was involved. We searched for MedLine indexed papers dealing with defibrillation success following electrically-induced VF with time durations of 1 minute or greater post VF induction. We found 10 studies covering a total of 191 experiments for defibrillation of electrically-induced VF for post-induction durations out to 16 minutes including 0-9 minutes of pre-shock chest compressions. The results were fitted to a logistic regression model. Total minutes of VF and use of pre-shock chest compressions were significant predictors of success (p<; .00005 and p= .003 respectively). The number of minutes of chest compressions was not a predictor of success. With no compressions, the 90% confidence of successful defibrillation is reached at 6 minutes and the median time limit for success is 9.5 minutes. However, with pre-shock chest compressions, the modeled data suggest a 90% success rate at 10 minutes and a 50% rate at 14 minutes.
To investigate whether the second-order kinetics model of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) increase would be more appropriate in some cases than the traditionally assumed first-order model. PSA levels ...are used to detect tumor recurrence after radical prostatectomy, and the rate of PSA increase is used to predict patients’ prognosis.
Sequential PSA values from 147 patients showing detectable PSA after radical prostatectomy were analyzed by nonlinear regression analysis. The best-fitting model was chosen using the lowest sum of squares residual error.
Of the 147 cases, 90 (61.2%) followed the first-order kinetics, and 57 (38.8%) were better described by second-order kinetics. The order of PSA increase correlated with the Gleason score of the tumor in the radical prostatectomy specimens. The first-order kinetics were associated with tumors with Gleason scores of 5 to 6, 7, and 9, and the second-order kinetics were associated with tumors with a Gleason score of 8 (
P <0.01). Our data did not show a correlation between the order of PSA increase and the clinical prognosis.
The presence of a group of tumors in which the increase in PSA follows second-order kinetics is significant. Such an increase may be associated with an autocatalytic mechanism assisting tumor growth. The existence of such a mechanism requires additional investigation.
Abstract Background Headache is a common complaint in emergency department (ED) patients. Nearly 15% of ED headache patients will have brain computed tomography (CT) done. One frequent finding on ...these scans is “chronic sinusitis.” Assuming that “chronic sinusitis” is the cause of the patient's headache is a potential source of mis-diagnosis. Study Objective We hypothesized that CT findings of chronic sinusitis occur with equal frequency in patients with atraumatic headache as in control patients with minor head injury. Methods This is a retrospective, single-center medical record review of consecutive discharged patients who received noncontrast head CT scans in an urban ED for either minor closed head injury or atraumatic headache. Each patient's head CT radiologic report was reviewed for findings of sinusitis and classified as chronic sinusitis, indeterminate for sinusitis, air-fluid levels, or no findings of sinusitis. Results We enrolled 500 patients (234 in the atraumatic headache group, 266 in the minor head injury group). The two groups were similar except that more women were enrolled in the atraumatic headache group. CT findings of chronic sinusitis in the atraumatic headache group (22.2%) and the minor head injury group (17.7%; difference 4.5%; 95% confidence interval of −2.5–11.6%). Conclusion Prevalence of CT findings of sinusitis in ED patients with atraumatic headaches and mild head injury are similar. This strongly suggests that CT findings of chronic sinusitis in patients with atraumatic headache may be incidental, and are rarely the cause of a patient's acute headache.
In this study, I examined the effect of failure (defined normatively) on subsequent persistence on an achievement task. Subjects were given two successive tasks described as measures of intelligence. ...Both tasks were unsolvable. However, subjects were given descriptions of one of two (normative) difficulty levels (i.e., most subjects could solve the tasks or most subjects could not solve the task) for the priming and target tasks. Results showed that persistence on the target task was greatest if both the prime and target tasks were described as moderately easy. Persistence on the target tak was least if both prime and target tasks were described as highly difficult.
We compared results for urinary creatinine, serum creatinine, and creatinine clearance, as determined with the Ames Seralyzer, with results determined with the Beckman ASTRA, the DuPont aca, and ...Technicon's AutoAnalyzer and SMAC. Results for urinary creatinine from the Seralyzer differed significantly (p less than 0.05) from those obtained with the ASTRA and AutoAnalyzer, but not with the aca. The Seralyzer results for serum creatinine were at least 1.0 mg/L higher (p less than 0.05) than by the other three methods. Results for creatinine clearance from the Seralyzer were 8 to 11 mL/min lower (p less than 0.05) than results by the other three methods. These differences are related to the positive interference by bilirubin in the Seralyzer creatinine method. We also evaluated 23 other compounds for interference with these methods for creatinine.
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