BACKGROUND Critically ill patients are admitted to the pediatric ICU at all times, while staffing and other factors may vary by day of the week or time of day. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether admission during off-hours is independently associated with mortality in PICUs. METHODS A retrospective cohort study of admissions of patients <18 years of age to PICUs was performed us...

BACKGROUND Off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery has been demonstrated to reduce morbidity in elective patients. However, high-risk patients might benefit the most from this surgical procedure. Our goal was to investigate the effectiveness of on-pump and off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery on early clinical outcome in a consecutive series of overweight patients. METHODS AND RESULTS From...

OBJECTIVE To demonstrate the recent trends of admission and surgical management for diverticulitis in the United States. DESIGN Retrospective database analysis. SETTING The National Inpatient Sample database. PATIENTS Patients admitted to the hospital for diverticulitis from 2002 to 2007. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Patient characteristics, surgical approach, and mortality were evaluated for ...

BACKGROUND After initial years of improvement, the multiple pregnancy rate after in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Europe now remains stable at 23% with single embryo transfer (SET) constituting 19% of all IVF cycles. Although elective SET prevents multiple pregnancies after IVF, couples and professionals apparently often decide to transfer more embryos. Previous qualitative research has identifi...

OBJECTIVE To assess trends in elective single ET and identify factors associated with a good perinatal outcome. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Clinic-based data. PATIENT(S) A total of 886,686 fresh, nondonor cycles reported to the National Assisted Reproductive Technology Surveillance System during 1999-2010, of which 17,166 met criteria for elective single ET. INTERVENTION(...

OBJECTIVE We sought to determine the role of mean platelet volume (MPV) for predicting long-term outcomes of elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). METHODS On the basis of retrospective cohort study, we collected characteristics of 680 patients undergoing elective PCI from October 2005 to August 2010. The patients who had preoperative MPV were assessed for developing major adverse...

BACKGROUND Conventional coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CCAB) has been associated with greater myocardial injury than off-pump surgery (OPCAB). However, the extent of myocardial injury following CCAB and OPCAB has not been assessed by priority of surgery or the number of diseased vessels. We tested the hypothesis that the additional myocardial injury associated with CCAB compared with OPC...

OBJECTIVE Postoperative vasoplegic syndrome (PVS) is a potentially lethal condition with increased mortality and other postoperative morbidities. Many previous studies have examined the outcomes associated with on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery, little is known about the incidence of PVS after off-pump CABG. METHODS From November 21, 2005 to June 9, 2006, 334 patients und...