EXPLORATION AND PREFERENTIAL RANKING OF PATIENT BENEFITS OF MEDICAL DEVICES: A NEW AND GENERIC INSTRUMENT FOR HEALTH ECONOMIC ASSESSMENTS.

Objectives: For medical devices, benefits other than direct clinical effects may have a large impact on the patients' well-being, but a standardized method for measuring these benefits is unavailable. The objective was to explore potential patient benefits provided by medical devices, and to assess the relative preferences of these benefits in the general Swedish population.

Methods: To identify attributes of patient benefit, healthcare personnel within a wide range of disease areas were interviewed.

Association between high-sensitive troponin I and coronary artery calcification in a Danish general population.

Background: High-sensitive troponin I (hs-TnI) is an individual predictor of future cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, the relationship between hs-TnI and coronary artery calcification (CAC) as determined by computed tomography (CT) has not previously been investigated in a general population.

Methods: 1173 randomized, middle-aged subjects without known CVD underwent a non-contrast cardiac-CT scan for CAC determination.

Simple circumcision device: proof of concept for a single-visit, adjustable device to facilitate safe adult male circumcision.

Objective: To conduct a proof-of-concept study to determine the potential utility of a novel, adjustable single-visit, disposable device to facilitate rapid adult circumcision.

Design: Prospective pilot trial of a novel surgical device.

Setting: Tertiary care Veterans Administration medical center.

Increased vascularization of shoulder regions of carotid atherosclerotic plaques from patients with diabetes.

Objective: Increased vascularization is considered an important contributing factor for plaque vulnerability. Microvascular proliferative disease in patients with diabetes results in renal damage and visual loss. We assessed the hypothesis that vascularization in carotid atherosclerotic tissue is increased in diabetic patients, especially in the critical shoulder regions of the plaque.

Consistent differences in protein distribution along the longitudinal axis in symptomatic carotid atherosclerotic plaques.

Identifying proteins associated with a complicated atherosclerotic plaque phenotype would provide potential biomarkers for detection of patients at elevated risk for clinically overt disease. We hypothesized that the protein content of carotid atherosclerotic tissue differs between complicated segments located in the internal carotid artery (ICA) and more stable segments in the common carotid artery (CCA). Using differential proteomics, we aimed to identify proteins differentially expressed between these segments of symptomatic carotid plaques.