No abstract

EuroSCORE II improves on the original logistic EuroSCORE, though mainly for combined AVR and CABG cases. Concerns still exist, however, over its use for isolated AVR procedures, aortic surgery and miscellaneous procedures. There is still room for improvement in risk modelling.

RDW is a significant factor after risk adjustment, determining in-hospital morbidity, mortality and long-term survival in patients post-potentially curative resections for non-small-cell lung cancer. Further work is needed to elucidate the exact mechanism of RDW impact on in-hospital morbidity, mortality and long-term survival. We speculate that subtle bone marrow dysfunction may be an issue.

Aortic curvature is relatively more important that aortic diameter, blood pressure, cardiac output, beta-blocker use, and patient size with regard to the force acting on the aortic wall. This may explain why some patients with normal diameter ascending aortas with or without Marfan's syndrome develop type A dissections and aneurysms. Aortic curvature may also help to explain the site of entry tear in acute type A dissection. Further clinical study is needed to validate this study's finding.

Aprotinin inhibits thrombin-induced platelet activation by preventing proteolysis of the PAR1 receptor. These findings argue against aprotinin being prothrombotic and suggest instead that aprotinin may have significant antithrombotic effects.

This loss of calibration, the agreement between observed and predicted event rates, has been found to have occurred over Background-The calibration of several cardiac clinical prediction models has deteriorated over time. We compare different model fitting approaches for in-hospital mortality after cardiac surgery that adjust for cross-sectional case mix in a heterogeneous patient population.

No abstract

Unlike in breast cancer, a high BMI in lung cancer patients after resection has protective effects. This may be due to the better nutritional status of the patient, a less aggressive cancer type that has not resulted in weight loss at the time of presentation or it may be due to certain hormones released from the adipose tissue. BMI can be a predictor of outcome after lung resection in cancer patients.