BACKGROUND Urgent catheter ablation is often required for various tachyarrhythmias; however, its efficacy and safety in elderly patients have not been fully elucidated. METHODS This study included consecutive octogenarians who underwent urgent radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) for various serious tachyarrhythmias (urgent group, n=28) that were life-threatening, hemodynamically deleterio...

BACKGROUND We examined the association of atrial fibrillation (AF) and oral anticoagulant use with perioperative death and bleeding among patients undergoing major noncardiac surgery. METHODS AND RESULTS A population-based study of patients aged 66 years and older who underwent elective (n=87 257) or urgent (n=35 930) noncardiac surgery in Ontario, Canada (April 2012 to March 2015) was perfor...

BACKGROUND Many health care systems now use priority wait lists for scheduling elective coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery, but there have not yet been any direct estimates of reductions in in-hospital mortality rate afforded by ensuring that the operation is performed within recommended time periods. METHODS We used a population-based registry to identify patients with establishe...

Article Highlights: 1) This article provides a full anticoagulant reference for the practicing orthopaedic surgeon which can be used in any clinical scenario, whether urgent or elective surgical intervention is required 2) A comprehensive list of anticoagulant reversal agents and drugs with short half-lives (for bridging) are described with the intention to provide the data needed t...

Methods A prospective, descriptive study for 4 months (period: Oct 2014 Jan 2015) in patients (pts.) admitted to our ICU. We included adults undergoing emergent, elective or semi-urgent heart valve replacement, coronary artery bypass grafting, and aortic aneurysm surgery. The pts. with chronic diseases that can increase the baseline NT-PRO-BNP level like chronic kidney disease, peripheral vascu...

A recent development to reduce ED crowding and increase urgent patient admissions is the opening of an Emergency Observation and Assessment Ward (EOA Ward). At these wards urgent patients are temporarily hospitalized until they can be transferred to an inpatient bed. In this paper we present an overflow model to evaluate the effect of employing an EOA Ward on elective and urgent patient admissi...

OBJECTIVES To assess perceptions of the informed consent process in patients undergoing urgent abdominal surgery. DESIGN A prospective observational study was carried out using structured questionnaire-based interviews. Patients who had undergone urgent abdominal surgery were interviewed in the postoperative period to ascertain their perceptions of the informed consent process. Replies were c...

BACKGROUND Unplanned, urgent initiation of renal replacement therapy (RRT) is associated with poorer outcomes than planned initiation. However, in many services worldwide, substantial numbers of patients still do not begin treatment electively. The aim of this study was to identify numbers of and possible risk factors for, patients starting unplanned RRT despite being known to renal services fo...