Intensive versus conventional insulin therapy: a randomized controlled trial in medical and surgical critically ill patients.

Objective: The role of intensive insulin therapy in medical surgical intensive care patients remains unclear. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of intensive insulin therapy on mortality in medical surgical intensive care unit patients.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Diagnostic yield of closed pleural biopsy in exudative pleural effusion.

Objective: Closed pleural biopsy is known to be diagnostic in approximately 75% of pleural effusion undiagnosed by thoracocentesis or pleural fluid evaluation. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of closed pleural biopsy in a Saudi tertiary care teaching hospital.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the diagnostic utility of all closed pleural biopsies performed from January 1988 to December 1997 at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.