The Role of Surgery for Oligometastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is metastatic disease that refers to a limited number of metastatic sites. It is analogous to an intermediate stage of NSCLC, between localized and widely metastatic disease, even though no staging criteria establishes this distinction. Oligometastatic NSCLC describes a patient subgroup with limited metastasis to one or a few organs.

A Novel Technique for Muscle Flap Preservation in Posterolateral Muscle-Sparing Thoracotomy.

The muscle-sparing thoracotomy offers several benefits over the traditional posterolateral thoracotomy approach for surgically accessing the chest cavity. Some of the potential advantages of preserving the latissimus dorsi and serratus anterior muscles include both functional benefits and potential use of these muscles for future flap reconstruction. Nevertheless, the muscle-sparing thoracotomy technique has traditionally been described with a wide exposure and, as a result, a theoretically higher risk of seroma and hematoma formation due to the increased dead space.

Optimal Medical Therapy Prescribing Patterns and Disparities Identified in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndromes at an Academic Medical Center in an Area with High Coronary Heart Disease-Related Mortality.

Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD)-related mortality is high in the southern United States. A five-drug pharmacotherapy regimen for acute coronary syndromes (ACS), defined as optimal medical therapy (OMT), can decrease CHD-related mortality. Studies have indicated that OMT is prescribed 50-60% of the time.

ACCP Clinical Pharmacist Competencies.

The purpose of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) is to advance human health by extending the frontiers of clinical pharmacy. Consistent with this mission and its core values, ACCP is committed to ensuring that clinical pharmacists possess the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors necessary to deliver comprehensive medication management (CMM) in team-based, direct patient care environments. These components form the basis for the core competencies of a clinical pharmacist and reflect the competencies of other direct patient care providers.

Propofol-associated QTc prolongation.

Objectives: Propofol is a preferred agent for sedation in patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) due, in part, to its established safety profile. Despite this, recent case reports have suggested a potential for prolongation of the corrected QT interval (QTc) in ICU patients receiving propofol, though limited empirical work has been conducted to evaluate this association. As such, the purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between propofol infusion and QTc prolongation in a historical cohort of ICU patients.