Importance of In-Hospital Prospective Registry and Infectious Endocarditis Heart Team to Monitor and Improve Quality of Care in Patients with Infectious Endocarditis.

Aim: To investigate the value of prospective in-hospital registry data and the impact of an infectious endocarditis heart team approach (IEHT) on improvement in quality of care and monitor outcomes in hospitalized patients with IE.

Methods: Between December 2014 and the end of 2019, 160 patients were hospitalized in one centre with the definite diagnosis of infectious endocarditis (IE) and entered in a prospective registry. From 2017, an IEHT was introduced.

Laboratory information system requirements to manage the COVID-19 pandemic: A report from the Belgian national reference testing center.

Objective: The study sought to describe the development, implementation, and requirements of laboratory information system (LIS) functionality to manage test ordering, registration, sample flow, and result reporting during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Materials And Methods: Our large (>12 000 000 tests/y) academic hospital laboratory is the Belgian National Reference Center for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing. We have performed a moving total of >25 000 SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction tests in parallel to standard routine testing since the start of the outbreak.

Regression of left ventricular mass by antihypertensive treatment: a meta-analysis of randomized comparative studies.

Blood pressure-lowering therapy reduces left ventricular mass, but the question of whether differences exist among drug classes has not been fully resolved. Our aim was to compare the effects of diuretics, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, and angiotensin receptor blockers on left ventricular mass regression in patients with hypertension on the basis of prospective, randomized comparative studies. We performed meta-analyses, involving pooled pairwise comparisons of the drug classes and of each class versus other classes statistically combined, and meta-regression analyses to identify the determinants of the regression.

Preoperative prediction of early mortality and morbidity in coronary bypass surgery.

Objective: A scoring system to predict early mortality and morbidity in CABG, distinguishing low and high risk patients.

Methods: 563 patients (1998) served as development dataset, 969 patients as validation set. Univariate and logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors.