Treatment of bleeding pseudoaneurysms in patients with chronic pancreatitis.

Background: In patients with chronic pancreatitis, an actively bleeding pseudoaneurysm can be life-threatening. Angioembolization is an attractive alternative to often complex operative management, and its feasibility was assessed in a retrospective analysis.

Methods: During 1993-2005, 33 patients (27 males, median age 51 years) with bleeding pancreatic pseudoaneurysms underwent urgent angiographic evaluation followed by angioembolization if possible.

AMES, MACIS and TNM prognostic classifications in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

The need for total thyroidectomy and extended for lymphadenectomy and the need for postoperative radioiodine ablation in the treatment of papillary thyroid carcinoma is continuously debated. Since less aggressive treatment in low-risk patients has been suggested, several scoring systems have been developed to identify low-risk patients. In the current study, we compared the AMES, MACIS and TNM staging systems in predicting carcinoma-specific mortality in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Predicting fatal outcome in the early phase of severe acute pancreatitis by using novel prognostic models.

Background/aims: Survival in acute pancreatitis and particularly in severe acute and necrotizing pancreatitis is a combination of therapy-associated and patient-related factors. There are only few relevant methods for predicting fatal outcome in acute pancreatitis. Scores such as Ranson, Imrie, Blamey, and APACHE II are practical in assessing the severity of the disease, but are not sufficiently validated for predicting fatal outcome among patients with severe acute pancreatitis.

Long-term health-related quality of life in survivors of severe acute pancreatitis.

Objective: To evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQL) and postdischarge outcome after severe acute pancreatitis.

Design And Setting: Observational study in a department of surgery (surgical and general intensive care unit) in a tertiary care hospital.

Patients And Participants: Of 283 patients with severe acute pancreatitis 211 survived; during a follow-up period an additional 27 died.

Multiple organ dysfunction associated with severe acute pancreatitis.

Objective: To compare three different multiple organ dysfunction scores in predicting hospital mortality rates and to discover which one best assesses organ dysfunction/failure in patients with severe acute pancreatitis in a general intensive care unit.

Design: Retrospective, observational study.

Setting: Surgical department and a ten-bed general intensive care unit in a tertiary care hospital.