Background. The recommended dose of aprotinin has been shown to reduce blood loss and need for blood transfusions, but the cost precludes its routine use. This study was designed to determine whether ...a less expensive, ultra-low dose of aprotinin is effective when used in coronary artery bypass grafting with left internal mammary artery.
Methods. Patients (n = 202) were randomized to receive either placebo or aprotinin, 0.5 million KIU before incision and 0.5 million KIU during initiation of cardiopulmonary bypass. Differences in quantity of blood transfused were analyzed. Further groups were analyzed to account for the effect of aspirin. Multivariable analysis was performed to determine risk factors for transfusion. Direct costs of blood products and aprotinin were tabulated for each group.
Results. There was an important reduction in the proportion of patients transfused, and number of blood units transfused when aprotinin was given before coronary artery bypass grafting. These differences were even more important in patients on aspirin preoperatively. Independent predictors for increased number of transfusions were aspirin continued before operation, smaller body surface area, and the use of placebo instead of ultra-low dose aprotinin. There was no difference in morbidity between treatment groups. There was a reduction in direct costs associated with the use of aprotinin.
Conclusions. These data support the routine use of aprotinin 1 million KIU in coronary artery bypass grafting with left internal mammary artery to reduce cost and transfusion requirements.
A simple system to deliver blood cardioplegia Provenzano, Jr, Sylvio C; Stacey, Robert; Newman, David C ...
The Annals of thoracic surgery,
11/2005, Letnik:
80, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We describe a simple and inexpensive system designed to deliver blood cardioplegia either diluted or at the patient's hematocrit, with controlled temperature and additive concentration. This system ...can be applied to any pump set, and suits any strategy for clinical myocardial preservation.
Liver uroporphyrinogen synthetase activity was measured in 45 mice, divided in three groups. The mice of the 1st group served as controls, those of the 2nd starved for 24 hours, while those of the ...3rd were injected intraperitoneally with phenobarbital. The enzymic activity was found significantly (p less than 0.001) lower in the animals of the 2nd group (17.49 +/- 2.25 nmol/g/h) and higher in those of the 3rd (25.82 +/- 3.73 nmol/g/h) as compared to the controls (20.89 +/- 2.11 nmol/g/h). If these effects also exist in the human it could be suggested that starvation may be doubly harmful for the patients with acute intermittent porphyria by aggravating both their enzymic disorders. On the contrary, in the case of phenobarbital its undesired effect on porphyria may be moderated by a simultaneous induction of the uroporphyrinogen synthetase.
This paper reports the result of IBIDEM, a collaborative project supported by the European Union under the Technology Initiative for Elderly and Disabled People-TIDE initiative. The goal of the ...project has been to build a prototype of a videophone, connected to standard PSTN lines, that can be used by hearing impaired persons in face-to-face communication. The most innovative content of the project has been the design, fabrication and use of a new generation of space-variant visual sensor characterized by a spatial resolution decreasing linearly with distance from the geometric center of the sensor's chip. This sampling strategy allows, with a limited number of pixels and consequently a high frame rate, transmission of high resolution information for "speech-reading" and a wide field of view for facial expressions and gestures.
