Israel Medical Association Journal

Background: There are two main approaches to breast reduction surgery today: the traditional long scar ("Wise-pattern") technique and the more recent short ("vertical") scar technique, which is becoming more popular. During the last two decades there has been a gradual shift between the two techniques, including in our institute.

Objectives: To evaluate the evidence behind this obvious trend.

Methods: We retrospectively collected data from archived hospital charts of all patients who underwent breast reduction surgery during the period 1995–2007. Epidemiological, clinical and postoperative data were analyzed and compared between patients who were operated on by means of the short scar vs. the long scar techniques.

Results: During the study period 91 patients underwent breast reduction surgery in our department: 34 with the Wise-pattern breast reduction technique and 57 with the short-scar procedure. There was no significant difference in operative and postoperative data, including length of hospital stay. In some of the categories there was even a slight advantage (but not statistically significant) to the former. The only significant difference was the size of reduction, with a tendency to prefer the long scar technique for larger reductions; however, with gained experience the limit for short scar reductions was gradually extended to a maximum of 1470 g.

Conclusions: We noticed a sharp increase in the safe and uneventful practice of the short scar technique in breast reduction in our institute for removing ≤ 1400 g – especially in young women without extreme ptosis. This observation, together with other advantages, namely, reduced scar length, prolonged shape preservation and better breast projection, support use of this technique.
 

Background: Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a common and serious complication of diabetes mellitus (DM).

Objectives: To evaluate the clinical characteristics, hospital management and outcomes of patients with DKA.

Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients hospitalized with DKA during the period 1 January 2003 to 1 January 2010. Three groups were compared: patients with mild DKA, with moderate DKA, and with severe DKA. The primary outcome was in-hospital all-cause mortality. The secondary outcomes were 30 days all-cause mortality, length of hospital stay, and complication rate.

Results: The study population comprised 220 patients with DKA. In the mild (78 patients) and moderate (116 patients) groups there was a higher proportion of patients with type 1 DM (75.6%, 79.3%) compared with 57.7% in the severe group (26 patients, P = 0.08). HbA1C levels prior to admission were high in all three groups, without significant difference (10.9 ± 2.2, 10.7 ± 1.9, and 10.6 ± 2.4 respectively, P = 0.9). In all groups the most frequent precipitating factors were related to insulin therapy and infections. The patients with severe DKA had more electrolyte abnormalities (hypokalemia, hypomagnesemia, hypophosphatemia) compared with the mild and moderate forms of the disease. While 72.7% of the entire cohort was hospitalized in the general medical ward, 80.8% of those with severe DKA were admitted to the intensive care unit. The in-hospital mortality rate for the entire cohort was 4.1%, comparable with previous data from experienced centers. Advanced age, mechanical ventilation and bedridden state were independent predictors associated with 30 day mortality: hazard ratio (HR) 1.1, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02–1.11; HR 6.8, 95% CI 2.03–23.1; and HR 3.8, 95% CI 1.13–12.7, respectively.

Conclusions: Patients with DKA in our study were generally poorly controlled prior to their admission, as reflected by high HbA1c levels. Type 2 DM is frequently associated with DKA including the severe form of the disease. The most common precipitating factors for the development of DKA were related to insulin therapy and infections. Advanced age, mechanical ventilation and bedridden state were independent predictors of 30 day mortality.
 

Background: Vascular insufficiency is considered to play an important role in the pathogenesis of normal-tension glaucoma (NTG). Autoregulation of blood flow in the eye has been shown to be impaired in NTG, resulting in the inability to compensate for changes in intraocular pressure or blood pressure in order to maintain adequate perfusion. Objectives: To evaluate the occurrence of combined bradycardia-hypotension during 24 hour monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate in patients with NTG.

Methods: Eleven NTG patients participated in the study. All had episodic symptoms of dizziness or lightheadedness, but were confirmed as not having a diagnosis of orthostatic hypotension. Twenty-four hour monitoring was performed with systemic blood pressure and heart rate automatically measured every 20 minutes during daytime and every hour during the night. The cardiac diastolic and systolic double products (dDP and sDP) at each reading were calculated by multiplying the heart rate by the respective blood pressure. dDP < 3600 and sDP < 5400 (corresponding to a heart rate of 60 beats/min and a blood pressure of 60 and 90 mmHg, respectively) were considered abnormally low, and dDP < 2500 and sDP < 4000 (corresponding to a heart rate 50 beats/min and a blood pressure of 50 and 80 mmHg, respectively) were considered severely abnormal.

Results: dDP was abnormally low in all 11 NTG patients on at least one occasion, the majority occurring during the night-time hours, while abnormally low sDP was present in 8 of the 11 patients. The mean cumulative duration of low dDP readings was 4.2 ± 3.2 hours. Severely low dDP readings were observed in six patients.

Conclusions: Abnormally low dDP was recorded in all NTG patients, lasting more than an hour in the majority of cases. Abnormally decreased dDP may represent a state of cardiovascular autonomic dysregulation, resulting in low ocular perfusion in certain NTG patients.