Implementation of an acute care emergency surgical service: a cost analysis from the surgeon's perspective.

Background: Acute care surgical services provide comprehensive emergency general surgical care while potentially using health care resources more efficiently. We assessed the volume and distribution of emergency general surgery (EGS) procedures before and after the implementation of the Acute Care and Emergency Surgery Service (ACCESS) at a Canadian tertiary care hospital and its effect on surgeon billings.

Methods: This single-centre retrospective case-control study compared adult patients who underwent EGS procedures between July and December 2009 (pre-ACCESS), to those who had surgery between July and December 2010 (post-ACCESS).

Nocturnal hemodialysis increases arterial baroreflex sensitivity and compliance and normalizes blood pressure of hypertensive patients with end-stage renal disease.

Background: Impaired neural control of heart rate, elevated arterial stiffness, and hypertension place patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) at increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. Nocturnal hemodialysis (6 x 8 hours/week), a more intense program than conventional hemodialysis (3 x 4 hours/week), lowers blood pressure and restores brachial dilator responses to hyperemia and nitrates.

Methods: We hypothesized that nocturnal hemodialysis would increase arterial baroreflex sensitivity for heart rate of hypertensive ESRD patients by an afferent vascular mechanism.

Early radiation-induced endothelial cell loss and blood-spinal cord barrier breakdown in the rat spinal cord.

Using a rat spinal cord model, this study was designed to characterize radiation-induced vascular endothelial cell loss and its relationship to early blood-brain barrier disruption in the central nervous system. Adult rats were given a single dose of 0, 2, 8, 19.5, 22, 30 or 50 Gy to the cervical spinal cord.