Early goal-directed therapy in severe sepsis and septic shock: insights and comparisons to ProCESS, ProMISe, and ARISE.

Prior to 2001 there was no standard for early management of severe sepsis and septic shock in the emergency department. In the presence of standard or usual care, the prevailing mortality was over 40-50 %. In response, a systems-based approach, similar to that in acute myocardial infarction, stroke and trauma, called early goal-directed therapy was compared to standard care and this clinical trial resulted in a significant mortality reduction.

Postoperative rhabdomyolysis following laparoscopic gastric bypass in the morbidly obese.

Hypothesis: Laparoscopic approaches for weight reduction in the morbidly obese have become common with more than 50,000 bariatric surgical procedures being performed in 2001. The objective of this article is to raise awareness among surgeons of a new complication of rhabdomyolysis from this frequent procedure.

Design: Case series extracted from surgical database from January 2, 2001, through December 31, 2002.