[Analysis of costs of drug therapy in patients with acute respiratory insufficiency].

In a retrospective study, the authors analysed the clinical data of 38 patients who were admitted to a surgical intensive care unit (SICU) for mechanical ventilation lasted for at least 72 hours. The APACHE III score was calculated on the basis of clinical data documented during the first 24 hour of the treatment and the cost of drug administrations per patients per day was also determined by analysing all the drugs prescribed on the first 5 days of intensive care. The patients admitted to SICU with polytrauma or with abdominal septic focus required significantly higher cost of drug treatment than the patients after cardiopulmonary resuscitation or with bronchial asthma or pneumonia.

In vivo MRI visualization of acute myocardial ischemia and reperfusion in ferrets by the persistent action of the contrast agent Gd (BME-DTTA).

Background: Contrast agent-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to visualize myocardial ischemia. To date, however, no agent has been found that has a sustained effect that allows MRI detection for the entire duration of ischemia and reperfusion and thus is useful in conjunction with stress test MRI. In this article, we introduce the gadolinium complex of N3,N6-bis(2'-myrisotyloxyethyl)-1,8-dioxo-triethylene- tetraamine-N,N,N1,N1-tetraacetic acid [Gd(BME-DTTA)], an agent potentially useful for such a purpose.