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“Background: Black patients have a higher mortality rate than nonblacks after abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. We sought to understand the factors responsible for this racial disparity in the mortality rate after aneurysm repair.

Methods: The Medicare database (2001-2006) was used to identify, 160,785 patients undergoing open and endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs. We used risk-adjusted mortality as our primary measure of quality and logistic regression to determine the relationship between race and mortality, sequentially adding contributing factors WH-4-023 in vivo including patient characteristics, the type of repair

(endovascular vs open repair), socioeconomic status, and hospital quality. From these sequential regression models, we estimated the proportion of the disparity that can be explained by each factor.

Results: Black patients had a 36% higher risk-adjusted mortality after aneurysm repair than nonblack patients (odds ratio [OR], 1.36; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.20-1.53). Even after accounting for the type of repair, a significant difference in mortality remained (OR, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.18-1.50). Mortality rates were higher in hospitals treating a higher proportion of black patients. Palbociclib Adjusting for these

differences in hospital quality, this disparity was no longer significant (OR, 1.07; 95% CI, 0.93-1.25). We estimate that 29% of the observed disparity in mortality is caused by patient comorbidities, 6% from the use of endovascular repairs, 26% due to socioeconomic factors, and 25% because black patients receive care in lower-quality hospitals.

Conclusions:

Although many factors contribute, a large proportion of observed disparities in outcomes are attributable to black patients receiving care in lower-quality hospitals. Efforts aimed at improving disparities must focus on improved access to high-quality, hospitals over and improved resources at the hospitals that treat higher proportions of black patients. (J Vasc Surg 2009;50:709-13.)”
“Hemiparesis, unilateral weakness or partial paralysis, is a common outcome following hemispherectomy in humans. We use the non-human primate as an invaluable translational model for our understanding of developmental plasticity in response to hemispherectomy. Three infant vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus sabeus) underwent hemispherectomy at a median age of 9 weeks and two additional monkeys at 48 months. Gross motor assessment was conducted in a large open field that contained a horizontal bar spanning the width of the cage. Subjects were assessed yearly following surgery in infantile lesions for a period of 3 years. Adult-lesioned subjects were assessed 40 months following surgery.