Case reports still valuable

Post-traumatic amnesia: still a valuable yardstick.

Records of coma and post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) were collected for a group of 38 patients with closed head injury. The results confirmed earlier studies indicating that patients may have short or negligible coma but report prolonged PTA. Comparison of eight patients with prolonged PTA (> 7 days) and short coma (< 6 hours) with the rest of the group on MRI in the acute stage showed that these p...

GATA3 and kidney development: why case reports are still important.

Culpability analysis is still a valuable technique.

The February 2013 issue of the IJE included our study which used culpability analysis to examine the association of cellphone use with motor vehicle crashes. In a commentary in the same issue, Sanghavi stated that ‘culpability analysis won’t help us understand crash risk due to cellphones’. Sanghavi’s categorical rejection of culpability analysis is unfortunate and seems based on a misunderstan...

Pulmonary Artery Banding is Still a Valuable Option

In this work, Corno (1) presents long-term outcomes in a small group of patients with multiple ventricular septal defects treated with adjustable pulmonary artery banding (PAB). The results were satisfactory, with few complications. Despite recent progress in pediatric cardiac surgery, surgical management of very small babies with true Swiss cheese septum and cardiac failure is still challengin...

Pulmonary artery banding: still a valuable option in developing countries?

OBJECTIVE We examined whether the socio-economic circumstances of a developing country justify pulmonary artery banding (PAB) for the deferral of perceived high-risk patients requiring biventricular repair. METHODS A retrospective cohort analysis was done on 143 consecutive patients with ventricular anatomy suitable for a biventricular repair, who had a pulmonary artery band applied between 1...