Feasibility and safety of same day subcutaneous defibrillator implantation and send home (DASH) strategy.

Purpose: To assess the feasibility and safety of same-day discharge after S-ICD implantation by implementing a specific analgesia protocol and phone follow-up.

Methods: Consecutive patients presenting for outpatient S-ICD implantation were enrolled between 1/1/2018 and 4/30/2019. An analgesia protocol included pre-operative acetaminophen and oxycodone, intraoperative local bupivacaine, and limited use of oxycodone-acetaminophen at discharge.

Feasibility of concomitant vacuum-assisted removal of lead-related vegetations and cardiac implantable electronic device extraction.

Background: Cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) infections associated with large, mobile vegetation adds to the complexity of lead extraction and is associated with significant patient morbidity and mortality.

Objective: To show the feasibility of concomitant cardiovascular implantable electronic device extraction and vacuum-assisted removal of lead-related vegetations.

Methods: This is a single-center retrospective case series of consecutive patients with persistent bacteremia, sepsis, or endocarditis despite medical therapy who have vegetations >2 cm and subsequently underwent immediate CIED lead extraction after debulking with vacuum-assisted suction.

Knowledge of an inflammatory biomarker of cardiovascular risk leads to biomarker-based decreased risk in pre-diabetic and diabetic patients.

Objective: Diabetes is a risk equivalent for cardiovascular events. The increase in vascular inflammation with diabetes is believed to be responsible for increased risk of ischemic events in diabetic patients. Our goal was to assess whether knowledge of vascular inflammation alters cardiovascular risk over time, and how knowledge of vascular inflammation changes risk in non-diabetic, pre-diabetic and diabetic patients.

QT prolongation is associated with increased mortality in end stage liver disease.

Aim: To determine the prevalence of QT prolongation in a large series of end stage liver disease (ESLD) patients and its association to clinical variables and mortality.

Methods: The QT interval was measured and corrected for heart rate for each patient, with a prolonged QT cutoff defined as QT > 450 ms for males and QT > 470 ms for females. Multiple clinical variables were evaluated including sex, age, serum sodium, international normalized ratio, creatinine, total bilirubin, beta-blocker use, Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD), MELD-Na, and etiology of liver disease.