High Burden of Palliative Care Needs of Older Adults During Emergency Major Abdominal Surgery.

Objectives: To quantify preoperative illness burden in older adults undergoing emergency major abdominal surgery (EMAS), to examine the association between illness burden and postoperative outcomes, and to describe end-of-life care in the year after discharge.

Design: Retrospective study using data from Health and Retirement Study interviews linked to Medicare claims (2000-2012).

Setting: National population-based dataset.

Connective tissue growth factor and susceptibility to renal and vascular disease risk in type 1 diabetes.

Objective: We explored the relevance and significance of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) as a determinant of renal and vascular complications among type 1 diabetic patients.

Methods And Results: We measured the circulating and urinary levels of CTGF and CTGF N fragment in 1050 subjects with type 1 diabetes from the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial/Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (DCCT/EDIC) Study cohort. We found that hypertensive diabetic subjects have significantly higher levels of plasma log CTGF N fragment relative to normotensive subjects (P = 0.