OBJECTIVE The benefit of carotid endarterectomy for carotid artery stenosis relates to both appropriate patient selection and careful surgical technique. Critical to the latter is the ability to afford intraoperative neuroprotection during carotid cross-clamping, although the optimal strategy to assure this protection remains debated. This report describes the impact of adding preoperative coll...

Background: Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) is helpful to maintain the stable haemodynamics in patients receiving cardiac surgery. However, there are concerns regarding the nephrotoxicity of HES. Objectives: This study was to evaluate the nephrotoxicity of HES 130/0.4 in patients receiving on-pump coronary artery bypass surgery. Methods: Patients receiving on-pump coronary artery bypass surgery in Xi...

Previous studies have shown regional differences in atrial distensibility. We studied 12 open-chest dogs to test the hypothesis that left atrial compliance is decreased after removal of the left atrial appendage and to determine the effect of altered atrial compliance on atrial reservoir and conduit function. Sonomicrometer crystal pairs were used to measure the long- and short-axis diameters o...

Gunnerson and colleagues [1] found in their retrospective study that critically ill patients with lactate acidosis had a higher mortality compared to patients with hyperchloremic acidosis, whose mortality was not significantly different from patients with no acidosis. Because of its iatrogenic etiology the authors commented that it is reassuring that hyperchloremic acidosis is not associated wi...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Well over 1 million Umbilical Cord Blood units (UCB) have been stored globally in the last 10 years. Already, over 20,000 transplants been performed using UCB for haematopoietic reconstitution alone, now this potential is joined by regenerative medicine. However, more needs to be known about processing of this stem cell source for it to reach full potential. METHODS ...

We have previously shown that the member of the HES family hairy2 induces the ectopic expression of dorsal markers when it is overexpressed in the ventral side of Xenopus embryos. Intriguingly, hairy2 represses the mesoderm transcription factor brachyury (bra) throughout its domain in the marginal zone. Here we show that in early gastrula, bra and hairy2 are expressed in complementary domains. ...

Recent OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) and GLITP (Gravitational Lens International Time Project) monitoring data for QSO 2237+0305 (Huchra et al. 1985) have been analyzed through a newly optimized N-body microlensing analysis method, the Local HAE Caustic Modeling (LOHCAM). This method simultaneously solves for the size of the source and N-body HAE (High Amplification Events) ca...

Introduction The Scandinavian Starch for Severe Sepsis/Septic Shock (6S) trial [1] showed increased mortality in patients with severe sepsis resuscitated with hydroxyethyl starch 130/0.42 (HES) vs. Ringer’s acetate. The underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are, however, not fully elucidated. The endothelium may be important for the effects of fluid therapy, and the different fluids may impa...

BACKGROUND This paper describes trends in hospital activity, hospital admissions, and treatments for colorectal cancer on residents of the South Thames regions (population 8 million) between 1989-1993 against the background of the Calman Report on the future of cancer services in England and Wales. METHODS The analyses are derived from UK hospital data, which are collected as finished consult...

is, to the best of our knowledge, not known. If increased hydrostatic pressure is important, then the use of furosemide can be justified. Therapy directly aimed at neutralizing PGE2 is currently experimental. 5 Although estimation of blood loss during major bleeding may be difficult, we do not think that our patient developed pulmonary oedema due to overtransfusion as we are confident that we d...