OBJECTIVES The prevalence of obesity is increasing rapidly and globally, yet systemic reviews on this topic are scarce. Our meta-analysis and systemic review aimed to assess how obesity affects 5 postoperative outcomes: biopsy-proven acute rejection, patient death, allograft loss, type 2 diabetes mellitus after transplant, and delayed graft function. MATERIALS AND METHODS We evaluated peer-re...

BACKGROUND Guidelines recommend that implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) candidates have an estimated longevity of ≥1 year. Longevity can be affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD). METHODS AND RESULTS Using the National Cardiovascular Data Registry ICD registry linked with the Social Security Death Master File, we assessed the rate of death after primary prevention ICD placement be...

Diabetes mellitus has been associated with an increased risk of mortality and stent thrombosis after implantation of drug-eluting stents (DES). Little is known about the prognostic impact of diabetes on clinical outcomes in an Asian population treated with DES. We compared adverse outcomes between 865 patients with diabetes and 2,295 patients without diabetes treated with DES after adjustment f...

BACKGROUND Early and midterm results of the arterial switch operation (ASO) in transposition of the great arteries (TGA) are good, but late outcome data in large populations are still few. METHODS AND RESULTS Twelve hundred patients had an ASO for TGA between 1982 and 1999, with prospective follow-up of 1095 survivors. Outcome measures included late death, reoperation, aortic insufficiency (A...

OBJECTIVES To describe deaths in prison among opioid-dependent people, and examine associations between receipt of opioid substitution therapy (OST) and risk of death in prison. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Adult prisons in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. PARTICIPANTS 16 715 opioid-dependent people who were received to prison between 2000 and 2012. INTERVENTIONS Opioid s...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The safety of carotid artery stenting (CAS) and carotid endarterectomy (CEA) has varied by symptomatic status in previous trials. The Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy Versus Stenting Trial (CREST) data were analyzed to determine safety in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. METHODS CREST is a randomized trial comparing safety and efficacy of CAS versus CEA in...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE To investigate the prognostic value of cerebral microbleeds (CMB) regarding overall, cardiovascular-related, and stroke-related mortality and to investigate possible differences based on a cerebral amyloid angiopathy-type and nonlobar distribution of microbleeds. METHODS We included 435 subjects who were participants from the nested MRI substudy of the PROspective Study...

BACKGROUND In patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE), rapid and accurate risk assessment is paramount in selecting the appropriate treatment strategy. Right ventricular (RV) enlargement on chest CT has previously been shown to correlate with an unstable hospital course, but its role as a predictor of death is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS We evaluated 431 consecutive patients (mean age, 5...

BACKGROUND The risk of restenosis and other adverse cardiac events with bare-metal stents (BMS) is increased with smaller stent diameters and longer stent lengths. Drug-eluting stents (DES) may reduce this effect in select patients; however, whether this benefit occurs in high-risk lesions and patients in routine practice is not clear. METHODS AND RESULTS Clinical outcomes (target-vessel reva...

BACKGROUND Immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies to tissue transglutaminase (tTG) are the serologic test of choice for diagnosing celiac disease (CD). Our aim was to determine if elevated IgA anti-tTG were associated with increased mortality risk. METHODS Stored serum samples of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III (1988-1992) were available for 6032 individuals aged 50 y...