Novel CABIN score outperforms other prognostic models in predicting in-hospital mortality after salvage transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunting.

Background: Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) is now established as the salvage procedure of choice in patients who have uncontrolled or severe recurrent variceal bleeding despite optimal medical and endoscopic treatment.

Aim: To analysis compared the performance of eight risk scores to predict in-hospital mortality after salvage TIPS (sTIPS) placement in patients with uncontrolled variceal bleeding after failed medical treatment and endoscopic intervention.

Methods: Baseline risk scores for the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II, Bonn TIPS early mortality (BOTEM), Child-Pugh, Emory, FIPS, model for end-stage liver disease (MELD), MELD-Na, and a novel 5 category CABIN score incorporating Creatinine, Albumin, Bilirubin, INR and Na, were calculated before sTIPS.

Corrigendum: Evaluation of self-reported confidence amongst radiology staff in initiating basic life support across hospitals in the Cape Town Metropole West region.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.4102/sajr.v23i1.

Evaluation of self-reported confidence amongst radiology staff in initiating basic life support across hospitals in the Cape Town Metropole West region.

Background: The immediate response to cardiac arrest is regarded as the most time-critical intervention. First responders for cardiac arrests in imaging departments are often radiology staff. The study aim was to determine radiology staff members' confidence in initiating basic life support.

Screening for occult penetrating cardiac injuries.

Objective: To determine the sensitivity of emergency department ultrasonography (US) in the diagnosis of occult cardiac injuries.

Background: Internationally, US has become the investigation of choice in screening patients for a possible cardiac injury after penetrating chest trauma by detecting blood in the pericardial sac.

Methods: Patients presenting with a penetrating chest wound and a possible cardiac injury to the Groote Schuur Hospital Trauma Centre between October 2001 and February 2009 were prospectively evaluated.

A straight left heart border: a new radiological sign of a hemopericardium.

Background: Detection of a cardiac injury in a stable patient after a penetrating chest injury can be difficult. Ultrasound of the pericardial sac may be associated with a false negative result in the presence of a hemothorax. A filling in of the left heart border inferior to the pulmonary artery, called the straight left heart border (SLHB), is a radiological sign on chest X-ray that we have found to be associated with the finding of a hemopericardium at surgery.

Imaging the Rex vein preoperatively using wedged hepatic venous portography.

Background: Mesentericoportal bypass, the Rex shunt, restores the physiological hepatic portal flow and reduces the clinical sequelae of portal hypertension in children with extrahepatic portal vein obstruction (EHPVO). The preoperative evaluation includes an accurate assessment of the portal venous inflow and outflow. The former is readily assessed by ultrasound and MRI, while the outflow intrahepatic portal vein is harder to assess.

Takayasu arteritis: clinical features and management: report of 272 cases.

Background: Takayasu's arteritis is a condition of unknown aetiology with an unpredictable natural history. Most of the literature available has originated from Asia, with a few contributions from Africa where the pattern of the disease may be different. This is a single institution's experience review.

Angiographic features of 26 children with Takayasu's arteritis.

Background: Takayasu's arteritis (TA) is a chronic idiopathic inflammatory disease affecting primarily the aorta, its proximal branches and the pulmonary arteries.

Objectives: To retrospectively review the angiograms of children with TA so as to describe the patterns of vascular involvement.

Patients And Methods: Twenty-six children with TA who differed from most other studies in that almost all of them presented with hypertension, reflecting the incidence of abdominal aortic and renal artery involvement.