Aquapheresis Versus Intravenous Diuretics and Hospitalizations for Heart Failure.

Objectives: The AVOID-HF (Aquapheresis versus Intravenous Diuretics and Hospitalization for Heart Failure) trial tested the hypothesis that patients hospitalized for HF treated with adjustable ultrafiltration (AUF) would have a longer time to first HF event within 90 days after hospital discharge than those receiving adjustable intravenous loop diuretics (ALD).

Background: Congestion in hospitalized heart failure (HF) patients portends unfavorable outcomes.

Methods: The AVOID-HF trial, designed as a multicenter, 1-to-1 randomized study of 810 hospitalized HF patients, was terminated unilaterally and prematurely by the sponsor (Baxter Healthcare, Deerfield, Illinois) after enrollment of 224 patients (27.

Rationale and design of the Aquapheresis Versus Intravenous Diuretics and Hospitalization for Heart Failure (AVOID-HF) trial.

Background: In patients hospitalized with acutely decompensated heart failure, unresolved signs and symptoms of fluid overload have been consistently associated with poor outcomes. Regardless of dosing and type of administration, intravenous loop diuretics have not reduced heart failure events or mortality in patients with acutely decompensated heart failure. The results of trials comparing intravenous loop diuretics to mechanical fluid removal by isolated venovenous ultrafiltration have yielded conflicting results.

Variations in the molecular masses of the capsular exopolysaccharides amylovoran, pyrifolan and stewartan.

Erwinia amylovora, causing fire blight of apple, pear and some ornamentals, Erwinia pyrifoliae, causing Asian pear blight, and Pantoea stewartii, causing Stewart's wilt of sweet maize, synthesize capsular extracellular polysaccharides (EPSs) with a high molecular mass. The EPSs are virulence factors and form viscous aggregates, which participate in clogging vessels of infected plants and causing wilting. The sizes of EPSs produced under different environmental growth conditions were determined by analysis with large pore HPLC columns.

Georg Kelling (1866-1945): the root of modern day minimal invasive surgery. A forgotten legend?

On 23 September 1901, at the 73rd meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in Hamburg, following his lecture "On the inspection of the gullet and the stomach with flexible instruments", the surgeon and gastroenterologist Georg Kelling from Dresden performed a laparoscopy on a dog. He called this procedure coelioscopy. Kelling's ingenious idea to connect his oral insufflation device with the Fiedler trocar and the Nitze cystocope, led to the coelioscopy in 1901 and marked the hour of birth of laparoscopy.

Ultrafiltration versus intravenous diuretics for patients hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure.

Objectives: This study was designed to compare the safety and efficacy of veno-venous ultrafiltration and standard intravenous diuretic therapy for hypervolemic heart failure (HF) patients.

Background: Early ultrafiltration may be an alternative to intravenous diuretics in patients with decompensated HF and volume overload.

Methods: Patients hospitalized for HF with > or =2 signs of hypervolemia were randomized to ultrafiltration or intravenous diuretics.