Editor's Choice -- Survival, Limb Salvage, and Management of Patients with Lower Limb Acute Ischaemia: A French National Retrospective Observational Study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim was to describe the baseline characteristics of French patients referred with acute limb ischaemia (ALI), and their clinical management and outcome (death, amputation). METHODS: This retrospective observational cohort study used the National Health Data System. All adults hospitalised for ALI who underwent revascularisation with an endovascular or open surgical approach between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2020 were included and followed up until death or the end of the study (31 December 2021). A one year look back period was used to capture patients' medical history. The risks of death, and major and minor amputations were described using Kaplan-Meier and Aalen-Johansen estimators. A Cox model was used to report the adjusted association between groups and risk of death and Fine-Gray models for the risk of amputations considering the competing risk of death. RESULTS: Overall, 51 390 patients (median age 70 years, 69% male) were included and had a median follow up of 2.7 years: 39 411 (76.7%) were treated with an open approach and 11 979 (23.3%) with a percutaneous endovascular approach. The preferred approach for the revascularisation varied between French regions. The one year overall survival was 78.0% and 85.2% in the surgery and endovascular groups, respectively. The surgery group had a higher risk of death (hazard ratio [HR] 1.17, 95% CI 1.12 - 1.21), a higher risk of major amputation (sub-distribution HR 1.20, 95% CI 1.10 - 1.30) and lower risk of minor amputation (sub-distribution HR 0.66, 95% CI 0.60 - 0.71) than the endovascular group. Diabetes and dialysis increased the risk of major amputation by 52% and 78%, respectively. Subsequent ALI was the third most common cause of hospital re-admission within one year. CONCLUSION: ALI remains a condition at high risk of death and amputation. Individual risk factors and ALI severity need to be considered to choose between approaches. Continued prevention efforts, improved management, and access to the most suitable approach are necessary.

A Global View of the Relationships between the Main Behavioural and Clinical Cardiovascular Risk Factors in the GAZEL Prospective Cohort.

Although it has been recognized for a long time that the predisposition to cardiovascular diseases (CVD) is determined by many risk factors and despite the common use of algorithms incorporating several of these factors to predict the overall risk, there has yet been no global description of the complex way in which CVD risk factors interact with each other. This is the aim of the present study which investigated all existing relationships between the main CVD risk factors in a well-characterized occupational cohort. Prospective associations between 12 behavioural and clinical risk factors (gender, age, parental history of CVD, non-moderate alcohol consumption, smoking, physical inactivity, obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes, sleep disorder, depression) were systematically tested using Cox regression in 10,736 middle-aged individuals free of CVD at baseline and followed over 20 years. In addition to independently predicting CVD risk (HRs from 1.18 to 1.97 in multivariable models), these factors form a vast network of associations where each factor predicts, and/or is predicted by, several other factors (n = 47 with p<0.05, n = 37 with p<0.01, n = 28 with p<0.001, n = 22 with p<0.0001). Both the number of factors associated with a given factor (1 to 9) and the strength of the associations (HRs from 1.10 to 6.12 in multivariable models) are very variable, suggesting that all the factors do not have the same influence within this network. These results show that there is a remarkably extensive network of relationships between the main CVD risk factors which may have not been sufficiently taken into account, notably in preventive strategies aiming to lower CVD risk.

Long-term persistence of knee pain and occupational exposure in two large prospective cohorts of workers.

BACKGROUND: The persistence of knee pain (KP) and its relationship with occupational factors were investigated in two prospective cohorts of French workers: retirees of the Gazel cohort and workers in the Cosali cohort. METHODS: KP was defined according to the Nordic questionnaire (>1 day in the last year), and the information was extracted from two questionnaires in 2006 and 2012 for the Gazel cohort, and in 2002-2005 and 2007-2010 for the Cosali cohort. The personal and occupational factors and the severity of KP were measured at baseline. Of the 4590 members of the Gazel cohort with KP at baseline, 4140(90.2%) were followed up, as were 637(63.1%) members of the Cosali cohort. Logistic models were used to evaluate associations (ORs) between occupational exposure and the persistence of KP separately by sex, adjusted on indicators of severity of KP. RESULTS: KP was no longer present at follow-up for 38.3% of Gazel men and 46.0% of Cosali men (33.4% of Gazel women and 50.6% of Cosali women). The persistence of KP in men was associated with carrying or handling heavy loads on univariate analyses and with kneeling on multivariate analyses, with ORs of 1.3(1.0-1.6) (Gazel) and 1.6(1.0-2.6) (Cosali). Climbing stairs was not significantly associated with the persistence of knee pain among men. The persistence of KP in women was not significantly associated with such occupational exposure. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the role of occupational factors in the persistence of KP for men, in particular kneeling and handling/carrying loads.