Overuse of Hematocrit Testing After Elective General Surgery at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Objective: To evaluate the clinical usefulness and costs of routine postoperative hematocrit testing after elective general surgery.

Methods: We reviewed charts of all patients who had elective general surgery at New Mexico Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Albuquerque hospital from 2011 through 2014. Demographic data and patient characteristics (eg, comorbidities, smoking/drinking history), estimated blood loss (EBL), pre- and postoperative hematocrit levels, and signs and symptoms of anemia were compared in patients who did or did not receive a blood transfusion within 72 hours of the operation.

Dialysis-associated hyperglycemia: manifestations and treatment.

Purpose: Dialysis-associated hyperglycemia (DAH), is associated with a distinct fluid and electrolyte pathophysiology. The purpose of this report was to review the pathophysiology and provide treatment guidelines for DAH.

Methods: Review of published reports on DAH.

Symptomatic Hyperglycemia in a Patient with Dialysis Ascites.

An anuric woman with ascites rapidly developed extreme hyperglycemia and seizures after hemodialysis. During development of hyperglycemia, the decrease in serum sodium concentration (Δ[Na]) was nearly twice the value predicted by a formula accounting for the degree of hyperglycemia and the intracellular-to-extracellular volume ratio. The prediction assumed that ascitic fluid is part of the extracellular volume.

Feasibility of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies for Treatment of Type 1 Diabetes.

This review of iPSCs to treat T1D provides a current assessment of the challenges and potential for this proposed new therapy.