Articles: outcome.
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Continued improvement in all aspects of the management of thermal injury has resulted in marked improvements in the traditionally reported outcome of mortality. This has resulted in the search for alternative parameters that can be monitored to indicate the performance of burn services. Length of stay (LOS) in hospitalised burn patients has long been considered reflective of injury-associated morbidity, cost and the quality of care, which can be monitored consistently across services. ⋯ This review has demonstrated that %TBSA and age are the best predictors of LOS in published literature. Current prognostic models do not explain a significant proportion of variation in LOS.
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The objectives of this study are to determine the prevalence, risk factors, and time to onset of delayed hemothorax and pneumothorax in adults who experienced a minor blunt thoracic trauma. ⋯ The presence of at least one rib fracture between the third and ninth rib on the x-ray of the hemithorax is a significant risk factor for delayed hemothorax and pneumothorax.
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To build new algorithms for prognostication of comatose cardiac arrest patients using clinical examination, and investigate whether therapeutic hypothermia influences the value of the clinical examination. ⋯ The clinical examination remains central to prognostication in comatose cardiac arrest patients in the modern area. Future studies should incorporate the clinical examination along with modern technology for accurate prognostication.
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Interact Cardiovasc Thorac Surg · Nov 2013
Multicenter StudyThe influence of seasons and lunar cycle on hospital outcomes following ascending aortic dissection repair.
The effect of the lunar cycle and seasonal variation on ascending aortic dissection surgery outcomes is unknown. We investigated these temporal effects on risk-adjusted hospital mortality and then on the length of stay (LOS) following surgery for survivors. ⋯ Season had no effect on mortality or LOS following aortic dissection repair, while patient age significantly increased the odds of death. The full-moon cycle appeared to reduce the odds of death, and the full-moon cycle, along with being male and requiring a concomitant cardiac procedure, was associated with shorter LOS.
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The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) Advisory Statement on Education and Resuscitation in 2003 included a hypothetical formula--'the formula for survival' (FfS)--whereby three interactive factors, guideline quality (science), efficient education of patient caregivers (education) and a well-functioning chain of survival at a local level (local implementation), form multiplicands in determining survival from resuscitation. In May 2006, a symposium was held to discuss the validity of the formula for survival hypothesis and to investigate the influence of each of the multiplicands on survival. This commentary combines the output from this symposium with an updated illustration of the three multiplicands in the FfS using rapid response systems (RRS) for medical science, therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for local implementation, and bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for educational efficiency. ⋯ Using bystander CPR as an example for the multiplicand educational efficiency, it was also difficult to provide a precise value, mainly because of differences between compression-only and standard CPR. The local implementation multiplicand (exemplified by therapeutic hypothermia) is probably the easiest to improve, and is likely to have the most immediate improvement in observed survival outcome in most systems of care. Despite the noted weaknesses, we believe that the FfS will be useful as a mental framework when trying to improve resuscitation outcome in communities worldwide.