Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Physical Fitness in Volunteer Firefighters.

Forty-seven percent of volunteer firefighter line of duty deaths are caused by cardiovascular events. Aggressive cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factor reduction and improved physical fitness could reduce CVD mortality within this population. We assessed CVD risk factors and physical fitness in a large cohort of volunteer firefighters to help establish a health and fitness profile of this population, which may serve as evidence for the need to initiate programs aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality caused by CVD in the volunteer fire service.

Perioperative hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) infusions improve hepatic regeneration following portal branch ligation (PBL) in rodents.

Background: As hepatic surgery has become safer and more commonly performed, the extent of hepatic resections has increased. When there is not enough expected hepatic reserve to facilitate primary resection of hepatic tumors, a clinical adjunct to facilitating primary resection is portal vein embolization (PVE). PVE allows the hepatic remnant to increase to an appropriate size prior to resection via hepatocyte regeneration; however, PVE is not always successful in facilitating adequate regeneration.