Implementation of a Regional Oxygen Saturation Thought Algorithm and Association with Clinical Outcomes in Pediatric Patients Following Cardiac Surgery.

Near infrared spectroscopy is routinely used in the noninvasive monitoring of cerebral and somatic regional oxygen saturation (rSO) in pediatric patients following surgery for congenital heart disease. We sought to evaluate the association of a bedside rSO thought algorithm with clinical outcomes in a cohort of pediatric patients following cardiac surgery. This was a single-center retrospective cohort study of patients admitted following cardiac surgery over a 42-month period.

Completeness of Written Discharge Guidance for English- and Spanish-Speaking Patient Families.

Objectives: Written discharge guidance for hospitalized pediatric patients should include language-appropriate key elements to ensure positive discharge outcomes. Our objective in this study was to determine the completeness of written pediatric discharge guidance and to test the hypothesis that Spanish-speaking families with limited English proficiency (LEP) receive less complete written discharge guidance than English-speaking families.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of written discharge guidance provided to 100 English- and 100 Spanish-speaking families at an urban nonfreestanding children's hospital to assess the inclusion of key elements: follow-up plan, contingency plan, telephone contact, discharge medications, discharge diagnosis, and hospital course.

Characterization of a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase-associated diiron arylamine N-oxygenase from Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola.

The regiospecific oxidation of aromatic amines to aryl nitro compounds is critical to the synthesis of several natural products having pharmacological importance. The arylamine N-oxygenase (AAO) from Streptomyces thioluteus (AurF) selectively oxidizes p-aminobenzoic acid to p-nitrobenzoic acid and has been the subject of investigation for its unique chemistry and substrate preferences. Little, however, is known about the biochemistry and substrate specificities of AurF homologues, which are often associated with non-ribosomal peptide synthetases or polyketide synthases and have substrate binding pockets with substantially different amino acid compositions based on sequence alignments.