ABSTRACT Objective: To compare health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients primarily treated with a no-touch saphenous vein graft with that of patients who received a conventional graft. Methods: The study included all individuals treated with a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) on a saphenous vein graft (SVG) between January 2006 and June 2020. The RAND-36 health survey was used to assess HRQoL. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to test differences in HRQoL between the two groups. Effect size was estimated via Cohen’s d. The average treatment effect between the groups was tested by propensity score matching (PSM). Results: Of the 346 patients treated with a PCI in a stenosed or occluded SVG, 165 responded to RAND-36 (no-touch: n=48; conventional: n=117). Patients with a no-touch graft reported better mean values on seven of the eight health survey domains. Statistically significant differences were observed for four of the domains, all in favour of the no-touch group. The effect size estimates indicated a small difference for five domains, with the highest values (>0.40) seen for the general health and energy/fatigue domains. PSM confirmed a statistically significant difference for the physical functioning and general health domains. Conclusion: At a mean follow-up of 5.4 years, patients who received a PCI in no-touch vein grafts showed significantly better HRQoL than those who received a PCI in conventional vein grafts.

ABSTRACT Purpose: To make a further evaluation of perioperative outcomes between the robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) and open radical prostatectomy (ORP), we conducted a comparison and trend analysis by using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) from 2009 to 2014. Materials and Methods: Adult prostate cancer patients with radical prostatectomy were abstracted from the NIS. RARP and ORP were identified according to the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification procedure codes. The perioperative outcomes included blood transfusion, intraoperative and postoperative complications, prolonged length of stay (pLOS), and in-hospital mortality. Propensity score matching method and multivariable logistic regression model were performed to adjust for the pre-defined covariates. The annual percent change (APC) was used to detect the change trend of rates for outcomes. Results: A total of 77.054 patients were included in our study. According to the results of propensity score matching analyses, RARP outperformed ORP in blood transfusion (1.96% vs. 9.40%), intraoperative complication (0.73% vs. 1.25%), overall postoperative complications (8.87% vs. 11.97%), and pLOS (13.39% vs. 36.70%). We also found that there was a significant decreasing tendency of incidence in blood transfusion (APC=-9.81), intraoperative complication (APC=-12.84), and miscellaneous surgical complications (APC=-14.09) for the RARP group. The results of multivariable analyses were almost consistent with those of propensity score matching analyses. Conclusions: The RARP approach has lower incidence rates of perioperative complications than the ORP approach, and there is a potential decreasing tendency of complication incidence rates for the RARP.

ABSTRACT In this study, we examined the effects of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) inoculant and beet pulp (BP) on the quality of yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) residue silage. Yacon silage was prepared using a small-scale system of silage fermentation, and the treatments were as follows: control silage without any additive and silages with LAB inoculant Chikuso-1 (Lactobacillus plantarum, 5 mg/kg, fresh matter basis), BP (30% fresh matter basis), and LAB+BP. Silages were opened on days 3, 5, 7, 15, 30, and 60 of fermentation. The chemical composition, organic acid content, and in vitro ruminal digestion of the 60-day silage were determined. The pH of LAB-treated silage was lower than that of the silage without LAB. Furthermore, the LAB-treated silage presented the lowest ammonia-N concentration among the four types of silages, and it inhibited the growth of harmful bacteria including molds and clostridia during the early stages of fermentation. The BP-treated silage had lower contents of crude protein and ether extract than the silage without BP. The 60-day silage inoculated with LAB had the highest in vitro dry matter (DM) digestibility among the four silages, and the production of methane was lower than that of the silage treated with BP. The pH showed a tendency toward stabilization after 30 days of fermentation, although the concentration of lactic acid exhibited fluctuations during fermentation. The results suggest that the addition of LAB and BP can improve the fermentation quality of yacon silage, and the yacon silage with LAB might increase in vitro DM digestibility, but decrease in vitro ruminal methane production.