Quality of life before and after radiofrequency catheter ablation in patients with drug refractory atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia.

In a retrospective survey of 161 highly symptomatic patients, we found significant improvements in symptoms, patient utility, and use of medical care services after radiofrequency ablation for atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia.

Professionalism: rise and fall.

Historically, the early professionalization movements in medicine and the law appear as organizational projects which aspire to monopolize income and opportunities in markets of services or labor and to monopolize status and work privileges in occupational hierarchies. Their central task is to standardize training and link it to actual or potential markets of labor or services, a linkage that is structurally effected in the modern university. The second wave of professionalization has different protagonists than the older "market professions": placed in a different structural situation, the bureaucratic professions transform the model of profession (which they adopt as a strategy of collective ascension) into an ideology. The import of the ideology of professionalism is examined in relation to two issues: the relationships between professional occupations and bureaucratic organizations; and the position of professional occupations within the larger structure of inequality. Analysis of the first point requires consideration of the distinctions between professional occupations in the public and private sectors, the use of professional knowledge and the image of profession in bureaucratic organizations, and the specific characteristics of professions that produce their own knowledge. In the discussion of the second point, professional occupations and their ideology are examined in relation to other occupations and to the possibilities of political awareness generated by uncertain professional statuses.

Renal interstitial pressure in mineralocorticoid escape.

Studies were performed in normal and DOCA-treated rats to determine renal hydrostatic pressures within superficial peritubular capillaries, the vasa recta, and renal interstitium during mineralocorticoid escape to test the hypothesis that mineralocorticoid escape is associated with elevated renal interstitial hydrostatic pressure. Fractional sodium excretion was greater in the DOCA-treated rats (3.20 +/- 0.51%) compared with control rats (1.23 +/- 0.12%) with no difference in glomerular filtration rate and renal blood flow between the two groups. Superficial peritubular capillary hydrostatic pressure (13.4 +/- 0.6 vs. 8.3 +/- 0.3 mmHg), vasa recta hydrostatic pressure (13.8 +/- 0.5 vs. 9.0 +/- 0.4 mmHg), renal interstitial hydrostatic pressure (9.8 +/- 0.4 vs. 4.5 +/- 0.4 mmHg), and arterial pressure (145 +/- 6 vs. 120 +/- 7 mmHg) were greater in the DOCA-treated compared with the control rats. These studies establish that mineralocorticoid escape is characterized by high renal interstitial hydrostatic pressure.

Cost-effectiveness of radiofrequency ablation for supraventricular tachycardia.

BACKGROUND: Radiofrequency ablation is an established but expensive treatment option for many forms of supraventricular tachycardia. Most cases of supraventricular tachycardia are not life-threatening; the goal of therapy is therefore to improve the patient's quality of life. OBJECTIVE: To compare the cost-effectiveness of radiofrequency ablation with that of medical management of supraventricular tachycardia. DESIGN: Markov model. DATA SOURCES: Costs were estimated from a major academic hospital and the literature, and treatment efficacy was estimated from reports from clinical studies at major medical centers. Probabilities of clinical outcomes were estimated from the literature. To account for the effect of radiofrequency ablation on quality of life, assessments by patients who had undergone the procedure were used. TARGET POPULATION: Cohort of symptomatic patients who experienced 4.6 unscheduled visits per year to an emergency department or a physician's office while receiving long-term drug therapy for supraventricular tachycardia. TIME HORIZON: Patient lifetime. PERSPECTIVE: Societal. INTERVENTIONS: Initial radiofrequency ablation, long-term antiarrhythmic drug therapy, and treatment of acute episodes of arrhythmia with antiarrhythmic drugs. OUTCOME MEASURES: Costs, quality-adjusted life-years, life-years, and marginal cost-effectiveness ratios. RESULTS OF BASE-CASE ANALYSIS: Among patients who have monthly episodes of supraventricular tachycardia, radiofrequency ablation was the most effective and least expensive therapy and therefore dominated the drug therapy options. Radiofrequency ablation improved quality-adjusted life expectancy by 3.10 quality-adjusted life-years and reduced lifetime medical expenditures by $27 900 compared with long-term drug therapy. Long-term drug therapy was more effective and had lower costs than episodic drug therapy. RESULTS OF SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: The findings were highly robust over substantial variations in assumptions about the efficacy and complication rate of radiofrequency ablation, including analyses in which the complication rate was tripled and efficacy was decreased substantially. CONCLUSIONS: Radiofrequency ablation substantially improves quality of life and reduces costs when it is used to treat highly symptomatic patients. Although the benefit of radiofrequency ablation has not been studied in less symptomatic patients, a small improvement in quality of life is sufficient to give preference to radiofrequency ablation over drug therapy.