Can Visual Acuity Be Reliably Measured at Home? Validation of Telemedicine Remote Computerised Visual Acuity Measurements.

Purpose: The recent pandemic has identified the need for telemedicine assessment of ophthalmology patients. A vital component of such assessment is visual acuity (VA) measurement. The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility and reliability of computerised 'at home' VA measurements using COMPlog software.

The characterization of the physicochemical and sensory properties of full-fat, reduced-fat and low-fat bovine, caprine, and ovine Greek yogurt (Labneh).

Concentrated/Greek yogurt or Labneh is a semisolid food produced from yogurt by eliminating part of its water and water-soluble compounds. Today's world is geared toward the production of lower fat foods without compromising the texture and flavor of these products. The objective of this study was to characterize the physicochemical and sensory properties of bovine, caprine, and ovine Labneh with different fat levels.

Association of National Hospital Quality Measure adherence with long-term mortality and readmissions.

Background: In existing studies, the association between adherence with recommended hospital care processes and subsequent outcomes has been inconsistent. This has substantial implications because process measure scores are used for accountability, quality improvement and reimbursement. Our investigation addresses methodological concerns with previous studies to better clarify the process-outcomes association for three common conditions.

Documentation of decision-making capacity, informed consent, and health care proxies: a study of surrogate consent.

Background: Patients in the general hospital are routinely asked to make decisions about their medical care. However, some of them are unable to express a choice, understand the information provided, weigh the options, or make a decision for themselves; when this occurs, the task of making an appropriate medical decision is left to another-a substitute decision-maker (SDM).

Objective: We sought to understand the practice patterns surrounding surrogate consent.

Predictors of nonadherence to national hospital quality measures for heart failure and pneumonia.

Background: Understanding factors associated with process measure nonadherence may improve both patient care and future measure design.

Methods: We analyzed 3401 patients with heart failure and 2186 patients with pneumonia who were eligible for at least 1 National Hospital Quality Measure at an urban tertiary medical center from July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2008. We investigated the association of socioeconomic, demographic, clinical, and care delivery factors with process measure nonadherence, using multivariable analysis.

Validation of a computerised logMAR visual acuity measurement system (COMPlog): comparison with ETDRS and the electronic ETDRS testing algorithm in adults and amblyopic children.

Background/aim: The COMPlog clinical visual acuity measuring system is being developed for both routine and research use. This study aimed to validate its performance in amblyopic children and both normal and diseased adults against the gold standard ETDRS chart and the E-ETDRS computerised acuity measurement algorithm.

Method: Timed test and retest fully interpolated five letters per line logMAR visual acuity measurements were taken for 70 adults and 59 amblyopic children using the ETDRS chart and the COMPlog visual acuity measurement system.

Epidural cooling for spinal cord protection during thoracoabdominal aneurysm repair: A five-year experience.

Purpose: We developed and applied a method for providing regional spinal cord hypothermia with epidural cooling (EC) during thoracoabdominal aneurysm (TAA) repair. Preliminary results indicated significant reduction in spinal cord ischemic complications (SCI), compared with historical controls, and a 5-year experience with EC was reviewed.

Methods: From July 1993 to September 1998, 170 patients with thoracic aneurysms (n = 14; 8.

Initial experience with endovascular aneurysm repair: comparison of early results with outcome of conventional open repair.

Purpose: To determine the safety, effectiveness, and problems encountered with endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). Initial experience with endoluminal stent grafts was examined and compared with outcome for a matched concurrent control group undergoing conventional operative repair of AAA.

Methods: Over a 3-year period, 30 patients underwent attempts at endovascular repair of infrarenal AAA.

Thoracoabdominal aneurysm repair: perspectives over a decade with the clamp-and-sew technique.

Objectives: Experience over a decade with thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAA) repair using a clamp-sew technique was reviewed to compare overall results with alternative operative methods.

Summary Background Data: Controversy continues as to the optimal technique for TAA repair, with frequent contemporary emphasis on bypass-distal perfusion methods. Proponents of this technique claim improved results compared to those of historic control subjects in the parameters of operative mortality, postoperative renal failure, and lower extremity neurologic deficit.

Magnetic resonance angiography in the management of lower extremity arterial occlusive disease: a prospective study.

Purpose: We conducted a prospective study to clarify the clinical utility of magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in the treatment of patients with lower extremity arterial occlusive disease.

Methods: During the interval of September 1993 through March 1995, 79 patients (43% claudicants, 57% limb-threatening ischemia) were studied with both MRA and contrast arteriography (ANGIO) and underwent intervention with either balloon angioplasty (9%), surgical inflow (28%), or outflow (63%) procedures. MRA and ANGIO were interpreted by separate blinded vascular radiologists, and arterial segments from the pelvis to the foot were graded as normal or with increasing degrees of mild (25% to 50%), moderate (51% to 75%), or severe (75% to 99%) stenosis or occlusion.

Renal artery reconstruction for the preservation of renal function.

Purpose: We reviewed a 13-year experience with an emphasis on long-term survival and renal function response when renal artery reconstruction (RAR) was performed primarily for the preservation or restoration of renal function in patients who had atherosclerotic renovascular disease.

Methods: From January 1, 1980, to June 30, 1993, 139 patients underwent RAR for renal function salvage and were retrospectively reviewed. Inclusion criteria were either preoperative serum creatinine level > 2.

Simultaneous aortic and renal artery reconstruction: evolution of an eighteen-year experience.

Purpose: We reviewed an 18-year experience with combined abdominal aortic and renal artery reconstruction (AOR) with a particular focus on patients' clinical risk profile and surgical results in contemporary practice as compared with earlier experience.

Methods: One hundred seventy patients underwent AOR during the interval January 1, 1976 to June 30, 1994. To examine parameters representative of current practice, the cohort was divided into group I patients (n = 110) treated before 1990 and group II (n = 60) treated between 1990 and 1994.

The durability of different reconstructive techniques for atherosclerotic renal artery disease.

Purpose: Among various surgical techniques for renal artery reconstruction (RAR), anatomic aortorenal bypass has been the preferred standard. Yet concern regarding origin of the bypass from a diseased aorta and desire to avoid a major aortic operation in these patients who are often at poor risk has led to increasing use of extraanatomic bypass grafting, particularly hepatorenal and splenorenal bypass. This study was conducted to compare the safety and long-term performance of these different techniques of renal artery reconstruction.

Fever in pheochromocytoma.

Background: Fever is an infrequently reported finding in patients with pheochromocytoma. Fever in patients with pheochromocytoma may be caused by the tumor, an infection or other factors, each of which will dictate different treatment strategies.

Methods: To determine the incidence, cause, and significance of fever in patients with pheochromocytoma, we reviewed the medical records of 50 hospitalizations of 48 patients.

The diagnostic value of upper gastrointestinal radiography.

We reviewed the indications for and results of 788 consecutive upper gastrointestinal radiographs (UGIs) performed for ambulatory patients. Sixty-three percent of tests were ordered for the evaluation of abdominal pain, dyspepsia, or esophageal reflux. Of these tests, only 4.

Is upper gastrointestinal radiography necessary in the initial management of uncomplicated dyspepsia? A randomized controlled trial comparing empiric antacid therapy plus patient reassurance with traditional care.

Study Objective: To compare two strategies for the evaluation and management of patients who have had acute dyspepsia for four days or more: empiric high-dose antacid therapy combined with patient reassurance (empiric care) versus therapy based on prompt upper gastrointestinal radiography (traditional care).

Design: Prospective, randomized trial. The patients in the empiric care group were reassured that upper gastrointestinal radiography was not necessary and were subsequently treated with high-dose empiric antacid therapy (15-30 ml of high-potency antacid one and three hours after meals and at bedtime).

The effect of a new branched chain--enriched amino acid solution on postoperative catabolism.

Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) may regulate muscle amino acid flux. Metabolic studies of both experimental animals and humans utilizing comparatively large amounts of BCAAs infused with hypocaloric glucose have shown that catabolism and proteolysis can be blunted. These studies suggested that the nitrogen-sparing properties of amino acid solutions used in postoperative trauma or sepsis might be improved by increasing the amount of BCAAs.

Infusion of branched-chain enriched amino acid solution in patients with hepatic encephalopathy.

Hospitalized patients with hepatic insufficiency often suffer from severe catabolic states and are in urgent need of nutritional support during their acute illness. Protein intolerence, however, remains a significant problem with respect to the provision of adequate nutrition, either enterally or parenterally. The following report is an anecdotal series of 63 consecutive patients in a large urban hospital treated prospectively with nutritional support using a prototype high branched-chain amino acid solution (FO80) given by technique of total parenteral nutrition by the subclavian or internal jugular route with hypertonic dextrose.

Comparison of distal and proximal splenorenal shunts: a randomized prospective trial.

Controversy still surrounds the place of portalsystemic shunting in the therapy of bleeding esophageal varices. Recently, a selective shunt, the distal splenorenal shunt, has achieved some degree of popularity and, apparently, is associated with less chronic encephalopathy. Because of this, a trial was initiated at the Massachusetts General Hospital and continued at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, prospectively randomizing central and distal splenorenal shunts in consecutive elective cases of patients with established variceal bleeding.

Comparative study of parenteral nutrition in renal failure using essential and nonessential amino acid containing solutions.

One of the controversies in the nutritional therapy of patients with renal failure is the respective role of either the essential amino acids alone or both essential and nonessential amino acids in the treatment of these patients. During a period when essential amino acids were unavailable, a large number of patients with acute renal failure was treated with a modified solution consisting of both essential and nonessential amino acids. The solution consisted of 3.

Plasma amino acids as predictors of the severity and outcome of sepsis.

Sepsis is a major catabolic insult resulting in a peripheral energy deficit which is made up in part by increased breakdown of lean body mass and oxidation of amino acids, principally the branched chain amino acids. The prognosis in any given case of sepsis is difficult to predict, but should theoretically be related to the degree of disturbance in peripheral energy deficit, which may in turn, be related to plasma amino acid pattern. In order to study whether this hypothesis was correct, plasma amino acids and some of their metabolic byproducts, the beta-hydroxyphenylethanolamines, were studied in 25 septic patients, and were used as discriminant variables in a series of computer performed discriminant analyses and multiple regressions.

Infusion of the branched chain amino acids in postoperative patients. Anticatabolic properties.

Postinjury metabolism is characterized by breakdown of muscle protein as substrate for energy production and gluconeogenesis and by the resultant loss of lean body mass and weight loss. The branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) which are principally oxidized by the skeletal muscle have been implicated in recent in vitro and in vivo studies as having special anticatabolic and regulating effects in skeletal muscle. We studied the anticatabolic effects of the BCAAs in 35 patients undergoing operative injury of moderate severity.

Chromium deficiency during total parenteral nutrition.

Chromium is required for maintenance of normal glucose tolerance. After complete bowel resection and five months of total parenteral nutrition, severe glucose intolerance, weight loss, and a metabolic encephalopathy-like confusional state developed in a patient. Serum chromium levels were at the lowest normal level.