Cognitive outcomes in patients treated with neuromuscular electrical stimulation after coronary artery bypass grafting.

Objective: Mechanisms of neurocognitive injury as post-operative sequelae of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) are not understood. The systemic inflammatory response to surgical stress causes skeletal muscle impairment, and this is also worsened by immobility. Since evidence supports a link between muscle vitality and neuroprotection, there is a need to understand the mechanisms by which promotion of muscle activity counteracts the deleterious effects of surgery on long-term cognition.

ISMETT: An International Collaboration on Organ Transplantation.

The Institute of the Mediterranean for Transplantation and High Specialty Therapies (ISMETT) is a multi-organ transplant and high specialty center located in Palermo, Italy and managed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Clinical transplant activity started in 1999 and, herein, we illustrate the outcomes achieved over the past 15 years. In total, ISMETT has performed 997 liver transplants (83.

Impact of recipients' socio-economic status on patient and graft survival after liver transplantation: the IsMeTT experience.

Aim: We aimed to determine whether education level and socioeconomic status in a cohort of liver transplant recipients in the south of Italy were potential predictors of graft and patient survival.

Methods: This retrospective study included 221 liver transplant recipients at Istituto Mediterraneo per i Trapianti e Terapie ad Alta Specializzazione between January 2006 and September 2009. Donor gender and age, cold ischaemic time, extended criteria donors, recipient age, gender, body mass index, primary aetiology, Model for End-Stage Liver Disease score, co-morbidities, patient health score assessed on the basis of clinical follow-up, highest level of education achieved, and socioeconomic status were collected and analysed.

Analysis of surgical and perioperative complications in seventy-five right hepatectomies for living donor liver transplantation.

Aim: To present an analysis of the surgical and perioperative complications in a series of seventy-five right hepatectomies for living-donation (RHLD) performed in our center.

Methods: From January 2002 to September 2007, we performed 75 RHLD, defined as removal of a portion of the liver corresponding to Couinaud segments 5-8, in order to obtain a graft for adult to adult living-related liver transplantation (ALRLT). Surgical complications were stratified according to the most recent version of the Clavien classification of postoperative surgical complications.