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Objective: There is paucity of data on the epidemiological, microbiological, and clinical characteristics of patients admitted with infective endocarditis (IE) in the Bronx, New York., Patient and Methods: We conducted a retrospective study at Jacobi Medical Center, a tertiary care hospital in the Bronx. All adult patients who were hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of new-onset IE between January 1st, 2010 and September 30th, 2020 were included. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. A logistic regression model was used to identify baseline variables associated with in-hospital mortality., Results: 182 patients were included in this analysis (female sex: 38.5%, median age: 54 years). 46 patients (25.3%) reported intravenous drug use. 153 patients (84.1%) had positive blood cultures. Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) was the most common isolated pathogen (45.1% of monomicrobial IE). Nearly half of the cases secondary to S. aureus were methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (34/69). 164 patients (90.1%) were diagnosed with native valve IE. The mitral valve was involved in 32.4% of patients followed by the aortic valve (19.8%). The in-hospital mortality was 18.1%. The mortality was higher in the cohort 2010-2015 compared to the cohort 2016-2020 (22.1% vs 14.6%). Increasing age, MRSA IE, and active malignancy were the only variables found to have significant association with in-hospital death., Conclusion: S. aureus was the most common causative agent and MRSA accounted for about half of the S. aureus IE cases. The incidence of IE in patients with intravenous drug use increased over time, while the median age decreased. The in-hospital death rate was higher in 2010-2015 compared to 2016-2020., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.)

The use of drug-coated devices (DCD) in peripheral arterial disease (PAD) intervention continues to remain controversial after a recent meta-analysis raised concerns of higher late mortality outcome with the use of these devices. Given this, there is need for more data with regards to the late mortality outcome with DCD use. We sought to assess the 2-year mortality outcome in patients with PAD treated with DCD in an inner-city public hospital that mainly serves patients of lower socio-economic status., Methods: This was an observational study of consecutive patients with femoropopliteal arterial disease who had revascularization procedures from 2014 to 2018 at Jacobi Medical Center and were followed for 2 years. Patients were classified into DCD and non-drug-coated (nDCD) groups based on the device used at the index procedure. The primary endpoint was 2-year mortality. Propensity cohort matching was applied. A multivariate Cox regression model was used to identify baseline variables associated with 2-year mortality., Results: 152 patients were included in this analysis (DCD group = 83, nDCD group =69). No significant difference in mortality between the two groups was identified at 2 years after propensity score matching with replacement (DCD: HR 0.72; 95% CI 0.30-1.71; p = 0.457). Patients that had revascularization because of intermittent claudication had lower mortality at 2 years compared to patients with critical limb ischemia as procedure indication (HR 0.18; 95% CI 0.04-0.82; p = 0.026)., Conclusions: This propensity score matched study revealed no difference in 2-year mortality between patients treated with DCD compared to patients treated with nDCD., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To explore the possible associations of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in-hospital mortality and need for invasive mechanical ventilation., Patients and Methods: A retrospective, observational, cohort study was conducted at 2 tertiary academic medical centers in Boston and New York. Eligible participants were hospitalized adult patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 between February 1, 2020, and May 15, 2020. Demographic and clinical characteristics, comorbidities, medications, and disease-related outcomes were extracted from electronic medical records., Results: The final analysis included 144 patients with confirmed COVID-19 (median age, 66 years; 64 [44.4%] male). Overall mortality was 18%, whereas patients with 25(OH)D levels of 30 ng/mL (to convert to nmol/L, multiply by 2.496) and higher had lower rates of mortality compared with those with 25(OH)D levels below 30 ng/mL (9.2% vs 25.3%; P=.02). In the adjusted multivariable analyses, 25(OH)D as a continuous variable was independently significantly associated with lower in-hospital mortality (odds ratio, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.90 to 0.98; P=.007) and need for invasive mechanical ventilation (odds ratio, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.93 to 0.99; P=.01). Similar data were obtained when 25(OH)D was studied as a continuous variable after logarithm transformation and as a dichotomous (<30 ng/mL vs ≥30 ng/mL) or ordinal variable (quintiles) in the multivariable analyses., Conclusion: Among patients admitted with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, 25(OH)D levels were inversely associated with in-hospital mortality and the need for invasive mechanical ventilation. Further observational studies are needed to confirm these findings, and randomized clinical trials must be conducted to assess the role of vitamin D administration in improving the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19., (Copyright © 2021 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. All rights reserved.)