Patient Based Research Worksheet

Patient Based Research Worksheet

Introduction:

Following is the detailed description of the questions mentioned in the worksheet:

Title, Abstract, Authors and Journal Review

The title:

The title suggests that it is a patient based cardiology related medical research, which employs testing method to look for results of administering Dipyridamole in cardiac patients. Cardiovascular surgeons would be interested in it, cardiac consultants and health professional would be interested in the research. Patients:

The research includes 933 patients, who were unable to go through the treadmill stress testing and also had to go through dipyridamole stress testing of pharmacological interventions. This study intent to study the adverse non-cardiac reactions shown by nuclear medicine outpatients who received intravenous dipyridamole. The purpose of administering medicine was to conduct pharmacological stress testing.

Methods:

The patients were tested using Dual-isotope 201Tl rest/99mTc-sestamibi stress imaging. The actual test began when the patients were injected with 130 mBq and imaging was then performed using two single-head gamma cameras, one of which had a high resolution collimator.

Measures:

Blood pressure of the patients was under continuous monitoring and if a drop in the blood pressure was observed, an immediate dose of 925 mBq was given. Results:

Out of all the patients, 55.7% showed no reaction while 44.3% showed some sort of reaction to the dypridamole intervention. Various types of reactions were observed in these patients, and total 604 such types were observed.

The authors:

The authors of the paper are nuclear experts and cardiac practitioners from Las Vegas, Nevada and belong to following four institutions:

Department of Health Physics, University of Nevada

Cardiovascular Consultants of Nevada

Advanced Heart Care Center

Jacques J. LaMothe Cardiology Center

Review of the journal:

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) is science and medicine based journal, which contains material related to nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The content is mostly of interest of scientists and practitioners of the relevant fields. Articles based on clinical investigations and original laboratory investigations are mainly added in the journal. It is the most renowned journal in the field of nuclear medicine and is the most peer reviewed and credible source of information. Impression of the Paper:

The paper provides detailed and in-depth account of the studies. It explains all the steps involved in detail, along with description of the reactions produced. It also details the amount of medicines used and exact statistics, that add to the authenticity and validity of the paper. However, the results are limited and cannot be generalized, thus limiting the effectiveness of the research paper.

Validity—Study validity:

Internal validity:

Appropriation of the patients selected:

The patients involved in the study have heart problems and are not able to withstand treadmill test. They were appropriate for the test as they all possessed symptoms that were essential for the conduction of test. Any other group might not have been equally effective, as patients with different symptoms might not react in the same way. Grouping of the patients:

Patients were grouped on the basis of weight and sex. The grouping, too, was appropriate as the differences thus calculated allowed a comparison between reaction of different sexes and by people with ...