Comparison between activated clotting time and anti-activated factor X activity for the monitoring of unfractionated heparin therapy in patients with aortic aneurysm undergoing an endovascular procedure.

Objective: Current guidelines recommend administration of unfractionated heparin (UFH) and measurement of activated clotting time (ACT) during endovascular procedures. The aim of this study was to compare ACT and anti-activated factor X (anti-Xa) measurements for monitoring of UFH therapy during an aortic endograft procedure and to assess the association of peak ACT and peak anti-Xa activity with periprocedural bleeding.

Methods: We retrospectively studied 104 patients with aortic aneurysm undergoing endovascular procedures with repeated coagulation measurements.

Mortality rates and mortality predictors in patients with symptomatic peripheral artery disease stratified according to age and diabetes.

Objective: Atherosclerotic peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is one of the most prevalent, morbid, and mortal diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate mortality rates of patients with atherosclerotic PAD stratified according to age and diabetes and to determine predictors of death.

Methods: We studied 487 patients with symptomatic PAD consecutively admitted to the hospital.

[Steatohepatitis and cirrhosis: first manifestation 23 years after jejunoileal bypass surgery].

Intestinal shunting procedures followed by gastrointestinal bypass surgery have been used as therapeutic modalities in the treatment of morbid obesity since the mid 1950s. Enthusiasm reached its peak in the early 1960s with the introduction of the jejunoileal bypass, however began to wane as various complications were identified in the remote postoperative period and later. Finally, the jejunoileal bypass was abandoned in the 1980s.

Erythrocyte mean corpuscular volume associated with severity of peripheral arterial disease: an angiographic evaluation.

Elevated erythrocyte mean corpuscular volume (MCV) may be a risk factor for peripheral arterial disease (PAD). The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether MCV was associated with the severity of atherosclerotic findings in the lower limbs of PAD patients, as measured by an angiographic scoring system based on vessel lumen reduction. One hundred male patients with symptomatic PAD were studied.