1,721,201 research outputs found

    Is there a role for 'acute' or 'preemptive' intestinal transplantation?

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    PURPOSE OF REVIEW: 'Preemptive' transplantation is performed before underlying disease becomes advanced, compromising transplant feasibilities and posttransplant outcome while 'acute' transplant is performed when organ function is compromised and there is life-threatening risk. In intestinal transplantation an indication for transplant is failure of total parenteral nutrition in patients with intestinal insufficiency: liver disease associated with intestinal failure has a primary role in choosing the type of transplant to be performed and in establishing timing of transplantation. RECENT FINDINGS: Development of hepatic dysfunction represents an indication for preemptive intestinal transplantation at less than 1 year of parenteral nutrition. Regression of intestinal-failure liver disease may be achieved by isolated intestinal transplantation without liver grafting when liver disease is reversible. Therefore an early or preemptive indication for intestinal transplantation, in selected cases, represents liver salvage therapy associated with increased survival. Indications for acute intestinal or multivisceral transplant are few and confined to emergency trauma involving liver/bowel integrity and function, but above all the need of retransplant for multivisceral transplant recipients. SUMMARY: A preemptive isolated intestinal transplantation is strongly advised when liver disease occurs (if reversible) while there are only few clinical indications for acute intestinal transplantation (unless a multivisceral retransplant is needed). © 2007 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc

    P.O.P.A. Study: Prevention of Postoperative Abdominal Adhesions by Icodextrin 4% Solution After Laparotomy for Adhesive Small Bowel Obstruction. A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial

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    Background: Adhesive small bowel obstruction (ASBO) is an important cause of hospital admission, is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, and therefore is a substantial burden for healthcare systems worldwide. Icodextrin 4% solution (Adept, Shire Pharmaceuticals, UK) is a high-molecular-weight a-1,4 glucose polymer approved in Europe for use as intraoperative lavage and postoperative instillation to reduce the occurrence of post-surgery intra-abdominal adhesions. The present clinical study aimed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of icodextrin 4% in decreasing the incidence, extent, and severity of adhesions in patients after abdominal surgery for ASBO. Methods: The study was a single-center prospective, randomized investigation. The study is designed and conducted in compliance with the principles of Good Clinical Practice regulations. Safety and efficacy of icodextrin 4% in the study group are compared to no anti-adhesion treatment in a parallel control group with blinded evaluation of primary endpoints. Primary endpoints are the evaluation of the therapeutic role of icodextrin 4% in reducing ASBO recurrence incidence and the need of laparotomies for ASBO recurrence, as well as adhesion formation (with evaluation of their incidence, extent, and severity). A sum of 181 patients with ASBO and surgical indication to laparotomy were enrolled and randomized in two groups. Patients were submitted to adhesiolysis with bowel resection if required with or without anastomosis. The first group received traditional treatment (control group), whereas the second group was treated with the addition of icodextrin 4% solution before the abdominal closure. Results: Ninety-one patients were randomized to have icodextrin 4% solution administered intraperitoneally, and 90 patients were randomized to have the traditional treatment. The two study groups were homogeneous regarding their baseline characteristics. The ASBO recurrence rate was 2.19% (2/91) in the icodextrin groups vs 11.11% (10/90) in the control group after a mean follow-up period of 41.4 months (p < 0.05). No differences were found in the need of laparotomies for ASBO recurrence in the studied groups. The adhesion severity score seems lower in the group treated with the addition of icodextrin (p = n.s.). Conclusions: The data resulting from this RCT showed that the use of icodextrin 4% solution in ASBO is safe and reduces intra-abdominal adhesion formation and the risk of re-obstruction. © 2011 The Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

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