Background: Superior outcomes after surgical treatment over medical treatment for primary aldosteronism (PA) has been reported in small-scale clinical studies, but no solid conclusion has been drawn as results of large randomized trials are lacking.Methods: We performed a search of PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase and Cochrane Library for randomized or observational studies that investigated cardiovascular outcomes in patients with PA undergoing medical versus surgical treatment. Meta-analyses of both composite and individual outcomes were conducted. Risks of bias of the included studies were assessed with Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies of Interventions (ROBINS-I) checklist. Trial sequential analysis (TSA) was performed to control the risk of random errors and assess whether the results in our meta-analysis were conclusive.Results: A total of 12 studies, including a total of 6148 PA patients, were included in the meta-analysis. The results of meta-analyses demonstrated lower incidence of composite cardiovascular outcomes among PA patients who underwent surgical treatment over medical treatment (odds ratio (OR): 0.49). Surgical treatment also led to less incidence of persistence of hypertension (OR of non-cure hypertension: 0.31). Fewer major cardiovascular events and mortality events were observed (OR: 0.60) after surgical treatment. TSA result showed that the required information size was 2151 and the cumulative Z curve crossed the futility boundary and reached the required information size.Conclusion: Superior performance of surgical treatment over medical treatment is confirmed with meta-analyses in terms of lower incidences of composite cardiovascular outcomes and non-cure of hypertension. Hence, adrenalectomy could now be concluded as the treatment of choice for lateralized PA.

Background: The role of routine intravascular imaging in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains unclear. This study evaluated the clinical outcomes of PCI guided by different imaging modalities in AMI patients.Materials and methods: Data from AMI patients who had undergone PCI between 2012 and 2022 were analyzed. The mean follow-up was 12.9 ± 1.73 months. The imaging modality-either intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), optical coherence tomography (OCT), or angiography alone-was selected at the operator's discretion. The primary endpoint was major adverse cardiac events (MACEs), including cardiovascular (CV) death, myocardial infarction (MI), target vessel revascularization.Results: Of the 1,304 PCIs performed, 47.5% (n = 620) were guided by angiography alone, 37.0% (n = 483) by IVUS, and 15.4% (n = 201) by OCT. PCI guided by intravascular imaging modalities was associated with lower 1-year rates of MI (1.3%, P = 0.001) and MACE (5.2%, P = 0.036). OCT-guided PCI was linked to lower rates of 1-year CV death (IVUS vs. OCT: 6.2% vs. 1.5%, P = 0.016) and MACE (IVUS vs. OCT: 6.4% vs. 2.5%, P = 0.032). Intravascular imaging modalities and diabetes were identified as predictors of better and worse 1-year MACE outcomes, respectively.Conclusion: PCI guided by intravascular imaging modalities resulted in improved 1-year clinical outcomes compared to angiography-guided PCI alone in AMI patients. OCT-guided PCI was associated with lower 1-year MACE rates compared to IVUS-guided PCI. Therefore, intravascular imaging should be recommended for PCI in AMI, with OCT being particularly considered when appropriate.

Objective: Leveraging patient data through machine learning techniques in disease care offers a multitude of substantial benefits. Nonetheless, the inherent nature of patient data poses several challenges. Prevalent cases amass substantial longitudinal data owing to their patient volume and consistent follow-ups, however, longitudinal laboratory data are renowned for their irregularity, temporality, absenteeism, and sparsity; In contrast, recruitment for rare or specific cases is often constrained due to their limited patient size and episodic observations. This study employed self-supervised learning (SSL) to pretrain a generalized laboratory progress (GLP) model that captures the overall progression of six common laboratory markers in prevalent cardiovascular cases, with the intention of transferring this knowledge to aid in the detection of specific cardiovascular event. Methods and procedures: GLP implemented a two-stage training approach, leveraging the information embedded within interpolated data and amplify the performance of SSL. After GLP pretraining, it is transferred for target vessel revascularization (TVR) detection. Results: The proposed two-stage training improved the performance of pure SSL, and the transferability of GLP exhibited distinctiveness. After GLP processing, the classification exhibited a notable enhancement, with averaged accuracy rising from 0.63 to 0.90. All evaluated metrics demonstrated substantial superiority ( ${p} < 0.01$ ) compared to prior GLP processing. Conclusion: Our study effectively engages in translational engineering by transferring patient progression of cardiovascular laboratory parameters from one patient group to another, transcending the limitations of data availability. The transferability of disease progression optimized the strategies of examinations and treatments, and improves patient prognosis while using commonly available laboratory parameters. The potential for expanding this approach to encompass other diseases holds great promise. Clinical impact: Our study effectively transposes patient progression from one cohort to another, surpassing the constraints of episodic observation. The transferability of disease progression contributed to cardiovascular event assessment.

(1) Background: Norepinephrine (NE) is the first-line vasoactive agent used in septic shock patients; however, the effect of norepinephrine on dialysis-required septic acute kidney injury (AKI-D) patients is uncertain. (2) Methods: To evaluate the impact of NE on 90-day mortality and renal recovery in septic AKI-D patients, we enrolled patients in intensive care units from 30 hospitals in Taiwan. (3) Results: 372 patients were enrolled and were divided into norepinephrine users and non-users. After adjustment by Inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW), there was no significant difference of baseline comorbidities between the two groups. NE users had significantly higher 90-day mortality rate and using NE is a strong predictor of 90-day mortality in the multivariate Cox regression (HR = 1.497, p = 0.027) after adjustment. The generalized additive model disclosed norepinephrine alone exerted a dose–dependent effect on 90-day mortality, while other vasoactive agents were not. (4) Conclusion: Using norepinephrine in septic AKI-D patients is associated with higher 90-day mortality and the effect is dose-dependent. Further study to explore the potential mechanism is needed.