Postgraduate medical journal
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Polyclonal hypergammaglobulinaemia (PH) represents a classic diagnosis problem in internal medicine. However, there is no consensus threshold for PH. The aim of this study was to define a threshold for PH. ⋯ This is the first study to scientifically define a PH threshold. The main limitation is that our threshold is only biological. The study was not designed to associate this threshold with a clinically active disease. In conclusion, while the 19 g/L cut-off seems the most relevant threshold, but it will need to be validated by prospective studies.
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Clinical Trial
Prospective cohort study of topical versus general anaesthesia for flexible bronchoscopy.
Topical anaesthesia (TA) and general anaesthesia (GA) are performed for flexible bronchoscopy (FB) worldwide. However, few studies have compared the two anaesthesia methods in terms of perioperative discomforts. ⋯ Compared with TA, GA significantly reduced the total complication scores of perioperative discomforts and improved the satisfaction score of patients for FB.
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We investigated the association between international normalised ratio (INR) and prothrombin time (PT) levels on hospital admission and in-hospital outcomes in acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) patients. ⋯ High INR at admission was independently associated with death or major disability, death and major disability at hospital discharge in AIS patients and increased PT was also associated with death at hospital discharge.
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This study focused on the predictive ability of the 3 scores for all-cause mortality in 6444 patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). ⋯ HATCH score has better ability in predicting mortality in comparison to other two scores in patients with AF.