1,720,960 research outputs found
TAP Block Prior to Open Ventral Hernia Repair Improves Surgical Outcome
Full text linkBACKGROUND: Ventral hernias commonly affect patients after major abdominal surgery. To reduce postoperative pain, the effects of the transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block, epidural analgesia and medication-only protocol have been investigated. The primary outcome was the cumulative dosage of opioids (morphine milligram equivalents MME), of acetaminophen and diclofenac for postoperative pain control on postoperative day (POD) 0, 1, and 2. Secondary outcomes were length of stay (LOS) and the pain scale rating using the numeric rating scale (NRS) on POD 0, 1, and 2. METHODS: The data were retrospectively extracted from the charts of the patients admitted for a surgical operation for OVHR from January 2015 to December 2019. RESULTS: Patients receiving medication-only analgesia had longer LOS (mean 6.1 days; p < 0.00001). Cumulative opioid consumption was significantly lower at 24 and 48 h after surgery in the TAP block group than in the other groups (mean MME 1.9 mg and 0.7 mg, respectively; p < 0.05). The cumulative consumption of diclofenac was significantly lower in the TAP block group than in the others (44.1 mg; p ≤ 0.00001 on POD 1; 4.4 mg; p = 0.03 on POD 2). TAP block is more effective in pain control in POD 0 (mean NRS 5.4; p < 0.00001), POD 1 (mean NRS 6.1; p = 0.006), and POD 2 (mean NRS 4.9; p = 0.001) if it is performed after adopting the retromuscular technique. CONCLUSIONS: The comparison between the medication-only technique, epidural, and TAP block demonstrated the superiority of the last one for the aims considered in this study
Closed Incision Negative Pressure Therapy Achieves Better Outcome Than Standard Wound Care: Clinical Outcome and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Open Ventral Hernia Repair With Synthetic Mesh Positioning
Full text linkBackgroundSurgical site infections (SSIs) and surgical site occurrences (SSOs) are frequent post-operative complications that are dependent on the presence of different risk factors. The use of closed incision negative pressure therapy (ciNPT) is considered a measure by the WHO guidelines for prevention of SSIs. The prevention of SSOs is an extremely important issue in the ventral hernia repair (VHR) surgical field. SSO onset not only affects the patient's quality of life, but can also cause the onset of life-threatening conditions that may require re-hospitalization, re-intervention and often mesh removal. Such outcome can become extremely costly, contributing to increased health care costs for the patient as well as the hospital. This study aims (1) to describe the epidemiological characteristics of SSOs following VHR in our experience; (2) to compare the post-operative outcomes of those who underwent VHR with synthetic mesh when treated with standard wound care (SWC) using gauze dressings vs ciNPT, and finally (3) to perform a spending review of the ciNPT in the hypothesis of its application after VHR with use of synthetic prosthetic material; financial savings including cost-effectiveness were investigated in terms of prevention of wound complications.Materials and methodsA retrospective review was performed on patients who underwent open VHR with synthetic mesh positioning by analyzing the hospital medical records between January 2015 and December 2017, with a primary focus on high risk post-operative complications, such as age > 65, pre-existed wound infection, pulmonary diseases, BMI > 25 kg/m(2), malnutrition, ascites, hypertension, diabetes, active smoking, previous radiation therapy, steroid use, pharmacological immunosuppression, chronic inflammatory diseases. In the final analysis, the outcomes of 70 patients who received ciNPT and 110 who were managed with using adherent gauze dressings were compared.ResultsNine (12.8%) patients in the ciNPT group and 48 (43.6%) in the control group developed a wound complication (p < 0.0001). The relative risk (RR) was 0.29 (0.15 - 0.56), suggesting that infection is less likely to occur in ciNPT-treated incisions, compared with standard wound care. The differences observed between the superficial infection rate and the deep infection rate were significant with p respectively 0.0006 and 0.04. Wound complications were reported in patients after discharge from the hospital. Fever was reported in 28.6% of patients in the ciNPT group vs 54.5% in the control group (p = 0.0006; RR (95% CI) 0.52 (0.35 - 0.79); OR (95% CI) 0.33 (0.18 - 0.63)); leukocytosis affected 21.4% of patients treated with ciNPT vs 45.4% of patients in the control group (p = 0.001; RR (95% CI) 0.47 (0.29 - 0.77); OR 0.33 (0.16 - 0.65)). ciNPT patients had shorter hospitalization stay than control group (3 +/- 1.37 vs 6 +/- 2.39; p < 0.00001). The cost-effectiveness deterministic analysis estimated that if the ciNPT is routinely adopted, the reduction of total costs would be (sic)166'944.00 for 100 patients.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that ciNPT use in high-risk populations following VHR with synthetic mesh positioning is associated with positive clinical and economic outcomes
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Full text linkWe 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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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