1,720,984 research outputs found
Training and mini-Delphi to implement heart failure treatment with mineralcorticoid receptor antagonists
[Management of hyperkalemia in Nephrology and Cardiology clinics: reality and perspectives]
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and chronic heart failure (CHF) are two entities that share several aspects: (i) these are two chronic conditions associated with poor prognosis; (ii) they involve frailty patients who need strict monitoring in terms of visits and treatment; (iii) both CKD and CHF patients benefit from renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (RAASI). RAASI proved effective in significantly reducing the risk for cardiovascular events, mortality and end-stage renal disease in CKD and CHF patients. Notwithstanding, RAASI use may induce hyperkalemia. High serum potassium (≥5.0 mEq/l) is, per se, responsible for higher risk for end-stage renal disease, arrhythmias and mortality. This risk is even reinforced when patients who develop hyperkalemia withdraw or reduce RAASI treatment, thus losing nephro- and cardioprotective effects. Current available strategies aimed at reducing hyperkalemia include dietary restriction, loop diuretics, potassium binders, namely sodium/calcium polystyrene sulfonate (SPS/CPS), patiromer, and sodium zirconium cyclosilicate (SZC). SPS and CPS have shown low safety/efficacy and several drug-drug interactions, these being major limitations to their use. Patiromer and SZC were found to reduce potassium with less side effects. These findings combined provide strong support that management of hyperkalemia is crucial for cardiologists and nephrologists to improve prognosis among CKD and CHF patients
Organizzazione e funzione del Gruppo Operativo Interdisciplinare Scompenso Cardiaco: la risposta sostenibile di un moderno sistema di cure a un problema emergente di sanità pubblica
Clinical and economic aspects of the use of nebivolol in the treatment of elderly patients with heart failure
Donatella Del Sindaco1, Maria Denitza Tinti2, Luca Monzo2, Giovanni Pulignano2,1Heart Failure Unit, Division of Cardiology, INRCA Institute of Care and Research for Elderly, Rome, Italy; 2Heart Failure Clinic, Division of Cardiology/CCU, San Camillo Hospital, Rome, ItalyAbstract: Heart failure is a common and disabling condition with morbidity and mortality that increase dramatically with advancing age. Large observational studies, retrospective subgroup analyses and meta-analyses of clinical trials in systolic heart failure, and recently published randomized studies have provided data supporting the use of beta-blockers as a baseline therapy in heart failure in the elderly. Despite the available evidence about beta-blockers, this therapy is still less frequently used in elderly compared to younger patients. Nebivolol is a third-generation cardioselective beta-blocker with L-arginine/nitric oxide-induced vasodilatory properties, approved in Europe and several other countries for the treatment of essential hypertension, and in Europe for the treatment of stable, mild, or moderate chronic heart failure, in addition to standard therapies in elderly patients aged 70 years old or older. The effects of nebivolol on left ventricular function in elderly patients with chronic heart failure (ENECA) and the study of effects of nebivolol intervention on outcomes and rehospitalization in seniors with heart failure (SENIORS) have been specifically aimed to assess the efficacy of beta-blockade in elderly heart failure patients. The results of these two trials demonstrate that nebivolol is well tolerated and effective in reducing mortality and morbidity in older patients, and that the beneficial clinical effect is present also in patients with mildly reduced ejection fraction. Moreover, nebivolol appears to be significantly cost-effective when prescribed in these patients. However, further targeted studies are needed to better define the efficacy as well as safety profile in frail and older patients with comorbid diseases.Keywords: beta-blockers, therapy, older, left ventricular dysfunction, prognosi
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
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
“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
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
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
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