Ruptured AAAs are larger in diameter and have a greater volume of thrombus compared with intact AAAs. However, there was no difference in the thrombus volume/aneurysm volume ratio in the two groups. In both intact and ruptured AAA groups, the thrombus was usually anterior and eccentric.

No abstract

Ten percent of patients required a shunt placement during CEA under CBA. Shunt placement was necessary in 56.8% of patients with SP less than 40 mm Hg. EEG identified cerebral ischemia in only 59.4% of patients needing shunt placement, with a false-positive rate of 1.0% and a false-negative rate of 40.6%. Both SP and EEG as a guide to shunt placement have poor sensitivity. Intraoperative monitoring of the awake patients under regional anesthesia (CBA) is the most sensitive and specific method to identify patients requiring shunt placement.

Hypothesis: Pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) is a safe procedure for a variety of periampullary conditions. Design: Retrospective review of a prospectively collected database. Setting: Academic tertiary care hospital. Patients: A total of 516 consecutive patients who underwent PD. Main Outcome Measures: Patient outcomes and survival factors. Results: Pathological examination demonstrated 57% periampullary cancers, 22% chronic pancreatitis, 12% cystic neoplasms, 4% islet cell neoplasms, and 5% other. Fiftyone percent of patients underwent pylorus preservation. Median operating time was 5 hours; blood loss, 1300 mL; and transfusion requirement, 1.5 U. Postoperative complications occurred in 43% of patients, including cardiopulmonary events (15%), fistula (9%), delayed gastric emptying (7%), and sepsis (6%). Additional surgery was required in 3% of patients, most commonly because of bleeding. Perioperative mortality was 3.9% overall but only 1.8% in patients with chronic pancreatitis; 25% of patients who died had preoperative complications associated with their periampullary condition. Three-year survival was 15% after resection for pancreatic cancer, 42% for duodenal cancer, 53% for ampullary cancer, and 62% for bile duct cancer. Univariate predictors of long-term survival in patients with periampullary adenocarcinoma included elevated glucose levels, liver function test results, abnormal tumor markers, blood loss, transfusion requirement, type of operation, and pathologic findings (periampullary adenocarcinoma type, differentiation, and margin and node status). Multivariate predictors were serum total bilirubin level, blood loss, operation type, diagnosis, and lymph node status. Conclusions: Pancreaticoduodenectomy continues to be associated with considerable morbidity. With careful patient selection, PD can be performed safely. Long-term survival in patients with periampullary adenocarcinoma can be predicted by preoperative laboratory values, intraoperative factors, and pathologic findings.

This study demonstrates that PCIS remains a suitable, less invasive first-line therapy for iliac artery occlusions. PCIS has lower morbidity, shorter hospital length of stay, and equivalent secondary patency but inferior primary patency compared with ABF.

No abstract

Increased ILASP results in corresponding increase in ITASP, and increased AAA size is associated with increased thrombus volume. However, neither thrombus volume nor AAA size has any relationship to ITASP.

Given the very ill nature of patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI), the use of percutaneous vascular interventions (PVIs) for limb salvage may or may not be efficacious; in particular, for those with polyvascular arterial disease. Herein, we reviewed large, multi-institutional outcomes of PVI in polyvascular and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) patients with CLI. An 18-hospital consortium collected prospective data on patients undergoing endovascular interventions for PAD with 6-month follow-up from January 2008 to December 2011. The patient cohort included 4459 patients with CLI; of those, 3141 patients had polyvascular (coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease and PAD) disease, whereas 1318 patients suffered from only PAD. All patients were elderly and with significant comorbidities. The mean ankle-brachial index (ABI) was 0.44 and was not different between those with and without polyvascular disease. Polyvascular patients had more femoropopliteal and infra-inguinal interventions and less aortoiliac interventions than PAD patients. Pre- and post-procedural cardioprotective medication use was less in the PAD patients as compared with polyvascular patients. Vascular complications requiring surgery were higher in PAD patients whereas other access complications were similar between groups. At 6-month follow-up, death was more common in the polyvascular group (6.7% vs 4.1%, p<0.001) as was repeat PVI, but no difference was found in the amputation rate. Considering the group as a whole at the 6-month follow-up, predictors of amputation/death included age (HR=1.01; 95% CI=1.002-1.02), anemia (HR=2.6; 95% CI=2.1-3.2), diabetes mellitus (HR=1.6; 95% CI=1.3-1.9), congestive heart failure (HR=1.6; 95% CI=1.4-1.9), and end-stage renal failure (HR=1.9; 95% CI=1.5-2.3), while female sex was protective (HR=0.7; 95% CI=0.6-0.8). In conclusion, from examination of this large, multicenter, multi-specialist practice registry, patients with polyvascular disease had higher 6-month mortality than PAD patients, but this was not a factor in 6-month limb amputation outcomes. This study also underscores that PAD patients still lag in cardioprotective medication use as compared with polyvascular patients.