Age, GFR, and Ejection Fraction Score as a Good Predictor of Prognosis in Elderly Patients with Nonischemic Dilated Cardiomyopathy.

INTRODUCTION: Nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (NIDCM) is a heterogeneous disease, and patients still have high risk of sudden cardiac death even after receiving treatment. The Selvester QRS score and the ESTIMATED score reported as predictors contain many variables and are complex to calculate. There is a need for a simple predictive score to accurately assess prognosis in clinical practice. METHODS: A total of 953 elderly patients (age ≥60 years) diagnosed with NIDCM were enrolled from January 2010 to December 2019. In-hospital and long-term outcomes were studied. RESULTS: Univariate logistic regression analysis showed that the AGEF score was associated with in-hospital mortality (OR: 1.828; 95% CI: 1.559-2.144; p < 0.001). Receiver operator characteristic curve analysis showed that the AGEF score was excellent at predicting clinical outcomes. The optimal cutoff value of the AGEF score for predicting long-term mortality was 2.50 (AUC = 0.743; 95% CI: 0.710-0.776; p < 0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with an AGEF score >2.50 had a worse prognosis than those with an AGEF score ≤2.50 (log-rank χ2 103.69, p < 0.001). Moreover, multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis showed that an AGEF score ≤2.50 was associated with a lower risk of long-term mortality in elderly patients with NIDCM (HR: 0.405; 95% CI: 0.310-0.529; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The AGEF score could be considered as a simple and useful tool for risk stratification in elderly patients with NIDCM.

Evaluation of a plant material-based air purifier for removing H2S, NH3 and swine manure odour.

A plant material-based air purifier (PMAP) was evaluated for odour removal. Laboratory tests were performed using two identical chambers: one treated by PMAP, and one as the control. Swine manure, hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and ammonia (NH3) were tested as odour sources. The test was also conducted in a swine barn. Air samples were taken from test chambers and two rooms in the pig barn and analysed for H2S, NH3 and odour concentrations. When treated with PMAP, the H2S concentration in the sealed chamber was subject to exponential decay, with the decay constant ranging from 0.59 to 0.70 l/h. The H2S concentration was reduced from 20 to 3 ppm in 3 h and to 0.2 ppm in 7h for H2S produced by chemical reaction, and from 0.4 to 0.02 ppm in 3 h for swine manure as the odour source. When an equal amount of ammonia solution was placed in the two test chambers, the NH3 concentration reached a peak value of 25 ppm in the chamber treated by PMAP, and 43 ppm in the control. The NH3 concentration in the treated chamber was reduced to 5 ppm in 3.5 h but stayed at 37 ppm in the control. The PMAP reduced the NH3 concentration from 38 to 10 ppm when swine manure was used as the odour source. The PMAP was capable of reducing swine odour in both laboratory and in-barn conditions. The reduction rate was at least 50%. The results from this research indicate the plant-based materials provide an alternative, environmentally friendly way for odour control. It is also shown that the mode of odour reduction by the PMAP was the removal of odour compounds, in contrast to odour masking, which occurs for most plant materials that have been used for odour control.