UNASSIGNED: Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is considered a poor prognostic factor for miliary tuberculosis (MTB), but little is known about the effectiveness of steroid pulse therapy for MTB complicated by ARDS.
UNASSIGNED: Medical records were used to retrospectively investigate the prognosis and clinical information of 13 patients diagnosed with MTB complicated by ARDS among 68 patients diagnosed with MTB at our hospital between January 1994 and October 2016. None of the patients had multidrug resistant tuberculosis (TB). MTB was diagnosed by 1 radiologist and 2 respiratory physicians based on the observation of randomly distributed, uniformly sized diffuse bilateral nodules on chest computed tomography and the detection of mycobacterium TB from clinical specimens. ARDS was diagnosed based on the Berlin definition of ARDS. The effect of steroid pulse therapy on death within 3 months of hospitalization was examined using Cox proportional hazards models. Variables were selected by the stepwise method (variable reduction method).
UNASSIGNED: Six of 8 patients with MTB complicated by ARDS were alive 3 months after hospitalization in the steroid pulse therapy group, whereas only 1 of 5 patients was alive in the non-steroid pulse therapy group. Analysis of factors related to the survival of patients with MTB complicated by ARDS revealed that steroid pulse therapy was the strong prognostic factor (hazard ratio = 0.136 (95 % CI: 0.023-0.815)).
UNASSIGNED: Our findings suggest that steroid pulse therapy improves the short-term prognosis of patients with MTB complicated by ARDS.

UNASSIGNED: The mouse orthotopic lung transplantation (LTx) model is of enormous research value in lung transplantation. This study compares 2 anastomotic methods (anterior and posterior hilum anastomosis) of mouse LTx in term of difficulty, operation time, and postoperative effects.
UNASSIGNED: Twenty mice received LTx with slipknots for anterior hilum anastomosis (AH group), and 28 received LTx with a microvessel clip for posterior hilum anastomosis (PH group), all by a single surgeon. The operation time was recorded and the grafts were evaluated 24 hours after surgery.
UNASSIGNED: The success rates in the recipient animals were 85% (17/20) in AH group and 89% (25/28) in PH group (P > .05). The recipient operation time and back table time in AH group were longer than those in PH group (52.8 ± 5.0 vs 47.3 ± 5.7 minutes, 27.8 ± 3.9 vs 25.3 ± 2.8 minutes, P < .05), but the warm ischemia time did not differ significantly (13.1 ± 2.1 vs 12.2 ± 2.6 minutes, P = .258), meaning that the time discrepancies predominantly originated from the hilum treatment. In AH group, 2 cases failed due to pulmonary venous thrombosis and atelectasis respectively at 24 hours after LTx, but none failed in PH group. No significant difference was observed in the postoperative performance of the successful recipients (thoracic radiographs, macroscopic appearance, oxygenation index, pulmonary compliance, pathologic changes) between the 2 groups.
UNASSIGNED: Compared with anterior hilar anastomosis, posterior hilum anastomosis with a microvessel clip is less complicated and less time-consuming in the management of hilar structures and causes fewer postoperative complications.