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Despite the resurgence of early tourniquet use for control of exsanguinating limb hemorrhage in the military setting, its appropriate role in civilian emergency medical services (EMS) has been less clear.To describe the experience of prehospital tourniquet use in an urban, civilian EMS setting.A retrospective review of EMS prehospital care reports was performed from January 1, 2005 to December 1, 2012. Data, including the time duration of prehospital tourniquet placement, EMS scene time, mechanisms of injury, and patient demographics, underwent descriptive analysis. Outcomes data for participating receiving hospitals were also reviewed.Ninety-eight cases of prehospital tourniquet use were identified. The most common causes of injury were penetrating gunshot or stabbing wounds (67.4%, 66/98); 7.1% (7/98) of cases were due to blunt trauma; 23.5% (23/98) of cases were from nontraumatic hemorrhage related to uncontrolled hemodialysis shunt or wound bleeding; 45.4% (44/97) of cases were placed on a lower extremity; 54.6% (53/97) were placed on an upper extremity. Placement was successful in hemorrhage control in 91% (87/95, 95%CI: 85.9-97.3%) of cases. The average prehospital tourniquet placement time was 14.9 minutes. Half of all tourniquet placements were performed by basic life support providers. Hospital follow-up was available for 96.9% (95/98) of cases. Of these, the tourniquet was removed by EMS in 3.2% (3/95), the emergency department in 54.7% (52/95), or in the operating room (OR) in 31.6% (30/95) of the time; 46.7% (14/30) of these OR cases had a documented vascular injury needing repair. Ten deaths with hospital follow-up data were identified, none of which were due to tourniquet use. There was one case of forearm numbness potentially due to nerve injury and one case with potential vascular complication, representing an overall complication rate of 2.1% (2/95).The early use of tourniquets for extremity hemorrhage in an urban civilian EMS setting appears to be safe, with complications occurring infrequently.

Small-bowel obstruction secondary to internal hernia is a known postoperative complication of laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP). Petersen's defect is the most common site of postoperative internal herniation. The authors describe their technique of closure of the infracolic component of the Petersen's defect using continuous non-absorbable suture material. The method has been used successfully to reduce the incidence of internal herniation after laparoscopic RYGBP.

Purpose: To develop a standardized approach for molecular diagnostics, we used the gene expression ratio bioinformatic technique to design a molecular signature to diagnose malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) from among other potentially confounding diagnoses and differentiate the epithelioid from the sarcomatoid histologic subtype of MPM. In addition, we searched for pathways relevant in MPM in comparison with other related cancers to identify unique molecular features in MPM. Experimental Design: We conducted microarray analysis on 113 specimens including MPMs and a spectrum of tumors and benign tissues comprising the differential diagnosis of MPM. We generated a sequential combination of binary gene expression ratio tests able to discriminate MPM from other thoracic malignancies. We compared this method with other bioinformatic tools and validated this signature in an independent set of 170 samples. Functional enrichment analysis was conducted to identify differentially expressed probes. Results: A sequential combination of gene expression ratio tests was the best molecular approach to distinguish MPM from all the other samples. Bioinformatic and molecular validations showed that the sequential gene ratio tests were able to identify the MPM samples with high sensitivity and specificity. In addition, the gene ratio technique was able to differentiate the epithelioid from the sarcomatoid type of MPM. Novel genes and pathways specifically activated in MPM were identified. Conclusions: New clinically relevant molecular tests have been generated using a small number of genes to accurately distinguish MPMs from other thoracic samples, supporting our hypothesis that the gene expression ratio approach could be a useful tool in the differential diagnosis of cancers. Clin Cancer Res; 19(9); 2493–502. ©2013 AACR.

Complete surgical resection is the main therapy for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Survival rates remain, at best, 80% for stage IA, necessitating the development of effective systemic therapy. Several large randomized control trials and meta-analyses provide evidence for the use of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage I to III, and are the basis for the standards of care. Cisplatin-based adjuvant chemotherapy regimens have shown 4% to 15% survival advantage at 5 years. Given this modest survival benefit, research is focused on the identification of prognostic and predictive markers to aid in the selection of appropriate adjuvant chemotherapy regimens.