Considerable effort and resources have been devoted to preserving life in patients with severe closed traumatic brain injury (TBI). We sought to identify temporal trends in mortality rates of these patients from the late 1800s to the present. We searched the literature for articles on severe TBI, abstracting numbers of patients studied, numbers of deaths, and years of patient entry. Mortality rates were calculated for each study, and meta-regression was used to pool data and to test for significant temporal trends. We reviewed 207 case series comprising more than 140,000 cases of severe closed TBI admitted to hospital over a span of almost 150 years. Since the late 1800s mortality has fallen by almost 50%. However, the rate has varied considerably among the four epochs chosen. Between 1885 and 1930, mortality decreased at a rate of 3% per decade. From 1970 to 1990, mortality declined at a rate of 9% per decade. Both changes are significant. There was no observed improvement in mortality between 1930 and 1970, nor is progress evident since 1990. The authors discuss possible reasons for the apparently intermittent progress in TBI survival over time.

OBJECTIVEThe objective of this study was to determine the relationship between A1C and glycemia in HIV infection.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSWe completed a prospective cross-sectional study of 100 HIV-infected adults with type 2 diabetes (77%) or fasting hyperglycemia (23%) with measured glucose, A1C, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and fructosamine. A total of 200 HIV-uninfected type 2 diabetic subjects matched for key demographic characteristics served as control subjects.RESULTSRelative to the control subjects, A1C underestimated glucose by 29 ± 4 mg/dl in the HIV-infected subjects. Current nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), higher MCV and hemoglobin, and lower HIV RNA and haptoglobin were associated with greater A1C-glucose discordance. However, only MCV and current NTRI use, in particular abacavir, remained significant predictors in multivariate analyses. Fructosamine more closely reflected glycemia in the HIV-infected subjects.CONCLUSIONSA1C underestimates glycemia in HIV-infected patients and is related to NRTI use. Use of abacavir and increased MCV were key correlates in multivariate analyses. Fructosamine may be more appropriate in this setting.

Aggressive ICP monitoring and treatment of patients with severe TBI is associated with a statistically significant improvement in outcome. This improvement occurs independently of temporal effects.

OBJECTIVE Hydrogen-1 MR spectroscopy (1H-MRS) is gaining acceptance as a noninvasive technique for assessment of hepatic steatosis, and the findings have been found to correlate closely with histopathologic grade. The aims of this study were to validate 1H-MRS performed with a 3-T MRI system for quantifying hepatic steatosis and to determine threshold values of 1H-MRS proton density fat fraction corresponding to standard histopathologic grade in patients undergoing diagnostic liver biopsy. SUBJECTS AND METHODS We conducted a prospective cross-sectional liver MRS study with 52 subjects undergoing diagnostic liver biopsy. The diagnostic accuracy of 1HMRS was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic curves. RESULTS The diagnostic accuracy of 1H-MRS for hepatic steatosis was high with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.94 (95% CI, 0.88–1.0). Results were similar for three 1H-MRS measurements obtained at different locations in the liver, for two independent pathologists, and whether fibrosis was present or absent. One third of participants had elevated transaminase concentrations of unknown cause, and 1H-MRS estimates of steatosis had perfect agreement with histopathologic grade in this group. Calculated 1H-MRS proton density fat fraction thresholds for histologic grades were less than 17% for grade 0 or trace steatosis, 17–38.6% for grade 1, and greater than 38.6% for grade 2 or higher. CONCLUSION Hydrogen-1 MR spectroscopy is an effective, noninvasive technique that can be used to diagnose and quantify hepatic steatosis. Hydrogen-1 MR spectroscopy thresholds corresponded with histopathologic grades and may be useful in the workup of patients with elevated transaminase concentrations.

Therapeutic (preclinical study).