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In a prospective study of the actual oral nutritional intake of patients with respiratory failure in the first week following extubation, average intake failed to exceed 50% of daily requirements on all seven days.
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In this retrospective study of patients hospitalized because of severe chronic liver disease, venous thromboembolism was relatively common and "auto-anticoagulation" in the form of an elevated INR had no apparent protective effect.
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The use of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in all acute myocardial infarction (MI) patients is controversial. Thus, these investigators from the Register of Information and Knowledge about Swedish Heart Intensive Care Admissions (RIKS-HIA) examined the association between ACE inhibitor therapy and mortality in unselected patients with acute MI.
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Serious infections caused by Acinetobacter baumannii are appearing in the community, spread by patients who acquired the organism in the hospital setting, and conversely, the organism is being introduced into the hospital from long-term nursing care patient settings. Resistance to antimicrobial agents has increased over the six-year study period, along with the severity of disease.
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Early antibiotic administration was associated with reduced likelihood of death, mechanical ventilation, and readmission (but increased risk of Clostridium difficile infection) among patients hospitalized for acute exacerbations of COPD.
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Ischemic cardiomyopathy remains a frequent cause of heart failure. Management of patients with coronary artery disease with LV dysfunction has traditionally been achieved with coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). More recently, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has shown similar results to CABG in patients with multi-vessel coronary artery disease.
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In this study, Sacher and colleagues, from three well-know ablation centers, report their experience with epicardial ventricular tachycardia (VT) ablation.
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Ambulatory cardiac telemetry uses a cellular phone monitor to continuously receive transmissions from a sensor on the patient, interpret them, and send ECG strips, considered to be possibly dangerous arrhythmias, to a central station for review and possible intervention.
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