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Background Appropriate antimicrobial dosing for patients receiving continuous venovenous hemofiltration (CVVH) is complex. Pharmacist participation in antimicrobial dosing adjustment for patients receiving CVVH may be advantageous. Methods A comparative study was performed in a China hospital intensive care unit (ICU).Patients receiving CVVH in the intervention group received antimicrobial dosing adjustment service by pharmacists from January 2012 to June 2012, whereas patients in the control group received routine medical care between July 2012 and December 2012. The primary outcomes including patients’ length of ICU stay, mortality in ICU, ICU hospitalization costs, and the occurrence of adverse drug events (ADEs) were then compared. Results 87 and 93 patients were included in the control and intervention groups. During the intervention period, pharmacists made 256 antimicrobial dosing adjustment recommendations for 93 enrolled patients receiving CVVH, of which 224 (87.5%) recommendations were accepted by physicians. Changing in CVVH-related variables (175, 68.4%) were the most common risk factors for dosing errors, whereas β-lactams (131, 51.2%) were the most frequency of antimicrobials associated with dosing errors. Compared with the control group, pharmacist dosing adjustment resulted in £1637.7 cost savings per patient, and 2.36 times reduction of antimicrobial-related adverse drug events (ADEs) (11 vs 26, P = 0.002), while length of ICU stay and mortality in ICU showed no significant difference ( P > 0.05). Conclusions The involvement of pharmacist to participate in the ICU team rounds for patients receiving CVVH is associated with cost savings and reduction of ADEs. Hospital may consider employing ICU pharmacists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although numerous studies have suggested that elevated N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) is positively correlated with cardiovascular events, especially the heart failure and heart failure-related death (HFRD), evidence of the association between NT-proBNP and the adverse outcomes of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is still relatively limited. The present study was performed to evaluate the relationship between NT-proBNP and outcomes in patients with HCM., Methods: Observational cohort methodology was used in the present study, and a total of 227 patients were included. And the patients were followed for 44.97 ± 16.37 months. Patients were categorized into three groups according to these NT-proBNP tertiles: first tertile (≤910 pg/ml, n=68), second tertile (913-2141 pg/ml, n=68), and third tertile (≥2151 pg/ml, n=69). The adverse outcomes of the present study were all-cause death (ACD) and cardiac death (CD)., Results: According to the risk category of NT-proBNP, the incidence of ACD (P=0.005) and CD (P=0.032) among the three groups showed significant differences. Multivariate Cox regression analysis suggested that the ACD and CD in the third tertile have 7.022 folds (hazard risk [HR] = 7.022 [95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.397-35.282], P=0.018) and 7.129 folds (HR = 7.129 [95% CI: 1.329-38.237], P=0.022) increased risks as compared with those in the first tertile. Kaplan-Meier survival analyses showed that the cumulative risks of ACD and CD in patients with HCM tended to increase., Conclusion: The present study indicated NT-proBNP was a novel biomarker suitable for predicting adverse prognosis in patients with HCM, which may be used for early recognition and risk stratification., (© 2022 The Author(s).)