Injury severity and comorbidities alone do not predict futility of care after geriatric trauma.

Background: When counseling surrogates of massively injured elderly trauma patients, the prognostic information they desire is rarely evidence based.

Objective: We sought to objectively predict futility of care in the massively injured elderly trauma patient using easily available parameters: age, Injury Severity Score (ISS), and preinjury comorbidities.

Methods: Two cohorts (70-79 years and ≥80 years) were constructed from The National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) for years 2007-2011.

Rapid evolution in the wild: changes in body size, life-history traits, and behavior in hunted populations of the Japanese mamushi snake.

Rapid evolution caused by human exploitation of wildlife is not usually addressed in studies of the impacts of such exploitation despite its direct relevance to population persistence. Japanese mamushi (Gloydius blomhoffii), an endemic venomous snake of the Japanese archipelago, has been heavily hunted by humans, and many populations appear to be declining or are already extirpated. We compared local populations that have been hunted regularly with populations that have not been hunted.

Consequences of unlocking the cardiac myosin molecule in human myocarditis and cardiomyopathies.

Myocarditis, often initiated by viral infection, may progress to autoimmune inflammatory heart disease, dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Although cardiac myosin is a dominant autoantigen in animal models of myocarditis and is released from the heart during viral myocarditis, the characterization, role and significance of anti-cardiac myosin autoantibodies is poorly defined. In our study, we define the human cardiac myosin epitopes in human myocarditis and cardiomyopathies and establish a mechanism to explain how anti-cardiac myosin autoantibodies may contribute to heart disease.

Conflict of interest or ideological divide: the need for ongoing collaboration between physicians and industry.

Continued collaboration between the health profession and industry is essential for future innovation and for fighting disease and illness well into the 21st century. Evidence that suggests conflicts of interest have a negative effect on patient care or the total cost of health care is lacking. Many arguments put forth to address this issue include strictly limiting or severing ties with industry.