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Journal and News Scan
January 5, 2015
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
This patient presented with a large distal arch and proximal descending aortic aneurysm (7 cm). He underwent a Total Arch Replacement and Frozen Elephant Trunk Procedure using the Thoraflex Hybrid Graft (Vascutek Terumo). The entire operation was performed via a hemi-sternotomy (half incision size). He had an enhanced recovery and was discharged home on postoperative day 6.
January 5, 2015
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
Overall, 13.4% of single ventricle patients received ECMO support following the Norwood operation. Although there were no preoperative or operative predictors of the requirement of ECMO support following the Norwood operation, unplanned reoperation for shunt problems or technical complications was associated with an increased need for ECMO use. Although hospital death was high at 58% in patients who required
postoperative ECMO support, those who survived to hospital discharge had interstage mortality, progression through consecutive palliation stages, freedom from heart transplantation, and late survival that were comparable to those in patients who did not require ECMO following their Norwood operation.
December 30, 2014
Submitted by: J. Rafael Sadaba
This is a retrospective review of 260 patients undergoing TAVI, looking at the relationship between aortic valve calcium score and post procedural paravalvular leakage. The results suggest that the amount of calcification significantly impacts the occurrence, the degree and localization of paravalvular leakage after TAVI.
December 28, 2014
Submitted by: J. Rafael Sadaba
This is a retrospective study comparing outcomes in 25 octogenarian patients undergoing percutaneous mitral valve intervention with the Mitraclip device and 35 octogenarian patients undergoing surgical mitral valve repair or replacement for isolated mitral regurgitation. Mitraclip patients were older, had higher calculated risk scores, and had worse NYHA functional status. At 30 days, there was a non significant difference in mortality but there were significantly less complications among Mitraclip patients. Patients in the surgical mitral valve repair or replacement group showed better 2-year survival and freedom from more than grade II mitral regurgitation.
December 28, 2014
Submitted by: J. Rafael Sadaba
This is a retrospective study looking at 2,768,007 Medicare beneficiaries in the US undergoing myocardial revascularization between 2008 and 2012. From a surgical point of view it is interesting to see that the proportion of CABG among all revascularization procedures declined from 24.8% in 2008 to 23.2% in 2012. The number of centers performing less than 100 CABG procedures per year increased from 23.4% of the total number of centers performing CABG in 2008 to 29.5% in 2012, and the proportion of centers performing more than 500 CABG procedures per year declined from 5.1% in 2008 to 3.2% in 2012. In hospital mortality for isolated CABG varied between 2.27 and 2.56%.
December 27, 2014
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
The authors translated 10 common medical phrases into 26 foreign languages and had native speakers of those languages translate those phrases back to English. 42% of the translations were wrong, with the worst accuracy among African and Asian languages.
December 27, 2014
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
The authors describe an inexpensive and readily available means to amplify music from a smart phone for use during operations. The phone is placed in a clean, empty suction canister and the open end of the canister is aimed at the listeners.
December 27, 2014
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
To some, the veracity of the content of televised medical advice shows has always been suspect. This study categorized such content from "The Dr. Oz Show" and "The Doctors" and determined whether it is supported by published evidence. Supportive evidence was identified for 46% and 63%, respectively. Contradictory evidence was found for 15% and 14%. No evidence was found for 39% and 24%. Potential conflicts of interest were rarely addresssed.
December 23, 2014
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
This retrospective analysis of patients admitted emergently for acute MI, heart failure, or cardiac arrest examined 30-day mortality for admissions during periods when cardiologists were attending national meetings vs admissions immediately surrounding the meeting dates. Mortality for each condition was lower during meeting dates than during non-meeting dates. High risk pts admitted for AMI during meeting dates had a lower incidence of PCI without any change in mortality.
December 20, 2014
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
A fictional paper authored by Simpsons characters Edna Krabappel and Maggie Simpson, as well as someone called Kim Jong Fun (who we can only imagine is a slightly more approachable relative of North Korea’s leader) has just been accepted into two scientific journals.
Titled “Fuzzy Homogeneous Configurations”, the article makes absolutely no sense and is made up entirely of a random string of words, but both the Journal of Computational Intelligence and Electronic Systems, and the Aperito Journal of NanoScience Technology have agreed to publish it.
Don’t worry, you didn’t miss the episode where Ms Krabappel and Maggie got their PhDs - the paper was created as a hoax set out to expose predatory journals, as Joseph Stromberg reports for Vox. And it clearly worked.
These predatory journals spam thousands of scientists and - for a fee - will publish literally anything. They usually claim that the papers they accept are peer reviewed, but, as this example clearly demonstrates, that’s not the case.
Still, many young researchers desperate to build up their profile are unfortunately duped by them.
In an attempt to raise awareness about these scam journals, US engineer Alex Smolyanitsky recently created this completely incoherent “scientific” paper using a random text generator