Sri Ram Pentakota

Rutgers New Jersey Medical School | UMDNJ · Department of Medicine

Background: Missing data in costs and/or health outcomes and in confounding variables can create bias in the inference of health economics and outcomes research studies, which in turn can lead to inappropriate policies. Most of the literature focuses on handling missing data in randomized controlled trials, which are not necessarily always the dat...

Introduction: Frailty in trauma has been found to predict poor outcomes after injury including additional in-hospital complications, mortality, and discharge to dependent care. These gross outcome measures are insufficient when discussing long-term recovery as they do not address what is important to patients including functional status and qualit...

e24088 Background: The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recently updated its guidelines on fertility preservation based on similar rates of pregnancy from oocyte and embryo preservation. However, fertility preservation in female pediatric and young adults undergoing cancer treatment remains a challenge due to barriers in communication,...

Tuberculosis is unusual among bacterial diseases in that treatments which can rapidly resolve symptoms do not predictably lead to a durable cure unless treatment is continued for months after all clinical and microbiological signs of disease have been eradicated. Using a novel steady-state antibiotic exposure system combined with chromosomal barcod...

Initial responses to tuberculosis treatment are poor predictors of final therapeutic outcomes in drug-susceptible disease suggesting that treatment success depends on features that are hidden within a small minority of the overall infecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) population. We developed a multi-transwell robotic system to perform numerou...

Background Development of a prediction model using baseline characteristics of tuberculosis (TB) patients at the time of diagnosis will aid us in early identification of the high-risk groups and devise pertinent strategies accordingly. Hence, we did this study to develop a prognostic-scoring model for predicting the death among newly diagnosed drug...

Background COVID-19 is a multi-system infection with emerging evidence-based antiviral and anti-inflammatory therapies to improve disease prognosis. However, a subset of patients with COVID-19 signs and symptoms have repeatedly negative RT-PCR tests, leading to treatment hesitancy. We used comparative serology early in the COVID-19 pandemic when ba...

Background Because of the rising prevalence of obesity, the use of steatotic grafts in orthotopic liver transplantation is becoming increasingly obligatory. The purpose of this study was to determine the relative distribution of microvesicular steatosis (MiS) burden across categories of macrovesicular steatosis (MaS) and the effect of biopsy-source...

Background The utility of convalescent COVID-19 plasma (CCP) in the current pandemic is not well defined. We sought to evaluate safety and efficacy of CCP in severely or life threateningly ill COVID-19 patients when matched with a contemporaneous cohort. Methods Patients with severe or life threatening COVID-19 were treated with CCP according to F...

Background Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is increasingly prevalent in the range of 2% to 24% in the US population. OSA is a well-described predictor of pulmonary complications after elective operation. Yet, data are lacking on its effect after operations for trauma. We hypothesized that OSA is an independent predictor of pulmonary complications in...

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has a substantial mortality risk with increased rates in the elderly. We hypothesized that age is not sufficient, and that frailty measured by preadmission Palliative Performance Scale would be a predictor of outcomes. Improved ability to identify high-risk patients will improve clinicians’ ability to...

Hepatic encephalopathy is a major neuropsychiatric complication of liver disease that affects 30% to 40% of cirrhotic patients. Hepatic encephalopathy is characterized by a brain dysfunction that is associated with neurologic complications. Those complications are associated with cognitive impairments, which negatively impacts patients' physical an...

Background: Obesity is a major public health burden that affects the transplant community because of its key role in fatty liver disease and transplantation outcomes. Objectives: To evaluate the role of sleeve gastrectomy in treating recurrent and de novo nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in liver transplant recipients. Setting: A unive...

Introduction: Older patients are more vulnerable to poor outcomes after trauma than younger patients. Sarcopenia, loss of skeletal mass, is prevalent in trauma patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), and it has been shown to correlate with adverse outcomes, such as mortality and ICU days. Yet, little is known whether it predicts other...

Background New Jersey (NJ) has a significant burden of tuberculosis (TB) cases (ranked 8th in the United States) and 22% of the cases are among foreign-born (FB) individuals. We have approximately 33% FB residents in our targeted counties in Central NJ of whom 43% are originally from high TB burden areas of South Asia. Central NJ is home to the cou...

Background: Older patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) have higher mortality and morbidity than their younger counterparts. Palliative care (PC) is recommended for all patients with a serious or life-limiting illness. However, its adoption for trauma patients has been variable across the nation. The goal of this study was to assess PC utiliz...

Background: Residents of skilled nursing facilities (SNF) with acute abdomen present with more comorbidities and frailty than community-dwelling (CD) counterparts. Outcomes in this population are poorly described. Methods: We hypothesized that SNF patients have higher mortality and morbidity than CD patients. This retrospective review of the NSQ...

Background: Palliative Care (PC) is indicated in patients with functional dependency and advanced care needs in addition to those with life-threatening conditions. Older trauma patients have PC needs due to increased risk of mortality and poor long-term outcomes. We hypothesized that older trauma patients discharged alive with poor outcomes are no...

Background: Older trauma patients have increased risk of adverse in-hospital outcomes. We previously demonstrated that low pre-injury Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) independently predicted poor discharge outcomes. We hypothesized that low PPS would predict long-term outcomes in older trauma patients. Methods: Prospective observational study...

Objective: To determine the association between language and ideal cardiovascular health among Asian Americans and Latinos. Design/study participants: Cross-sectional study using 2011-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of Asian Americans (n=2,009) and Latinos (n=3,906). Interventions: Participants were classified according t...

Background The influence of serious mental illness (SMI) on the treatment and survival of patients with high‐grade prostate cancer is not well understood. We compared the initial cancer treatment and cancer‐specific mortality of SEER‐Medicare patients with locoregional high‐grade (nonmetastatic) prostate cancer with and without preexisting SMI. Me...

Background: Elderly patients presenting with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) often have comorbidities that increase risk of thromboembolic (TE) disease and recurrent TBI. A significant number are on anticoagulant therapy at the time of injury and studies suggest that continuing anticoagulation can prevent TE events. Understanding bleeding, recurren...

Background: End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is a life-limiting condition that is often complicated by acute abdominal emergency. Palliative care (PC) has been shown to improve the quality of life in patients with serious illness and yet is underutilized. We hypothesize that ESRD patients with abdominal emergency have high unmet PC needs. Objective:...

AIM To compare trends in donor/recipient characteristics and outcomes using four period cohorts of liver transplant recipients from 1990 to 2009. METHODS Seventy thousand three hundred and seventy-seven adult first-time recipients of whole-organ deceased-donor liver grafts from 1990 to 2009 were followed up until September 2013. Four periods based...

[This corrects the article on p. 423 in vol. 58.].

Background: When patients with dementia develop acute surgical abdomen, patients, surrogates, and surgeons need accurate prognostic information to facilitate goal-concordant decision making. Palliative care can assist with communication, symptom management, and family and caregiver support in this population. We aimed to characterize outcomes and...

Purpose To evaluate the impact that the 2012 US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening guidelines have had on the diagnosis of prostate cancer, we compared the incidence and distribution of new cases diagnosed in 2011-before the USPSTF PSA screening recommendations versus 2014 at which time the guidelines...

Background: A maternal group B streptococcal (GBS) vaccine could prevent neonatal sepsis and meningitis. Its cost-effectiveness in low-income sub-Saharan Africa, a high burden region, is unknown. Methods: We used a decision tree model, with Markov nodes to project infants' lifetimes, to compare maternal immunization delivered through routine ant...

The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency and outcomes of breast malpractice suits among all enrollees in One Call Medical Inc.'s panel of interpreting radiologists nationally and to evaluate state-by-state variations. The 8401 radiologists enrolled had 4764 suits, of which 826 were related to breast disease. In New York and New Jers...

Little evidence exists examining cardiovascular risk factors among Asian Americans and how social determinants such as nativity status and education pattern risk in the United States (U.S.) context. We used the 2011–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which purposely oversampled Asian Americans from 2011 to 2014, and examined pre...

Background. Despite longstanding infant vaccination programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), pertussis continues to cause deaths in the youngest infants. A maternal monovalent acellular pertussis (aP) vaccine, in development, could prevent many of these deaths. We estimated infant pertussis mortality rates at which maternal vaccination...

Background: Surgeons and other health care providers are frequently consulted for gastrostomy tube placement in seriously ill patients at risk of outcomes poorly aligned with patient goals. Palliative care assessments have been recommended to guide decision-making in this setting. We aimed to characterize patient-centered outcomes and define the e...

Background: The elderly injured have significant palliative care (PC) needs due to increased mortality and poor functional outcomes. We hypothesized the Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) could be predictive of poor outcomes in elderly trauma patients. Methods: Retrospective study of trauma patients 55 years or older admitted to the surgical int...

To the Editor In their research letter, Dr Udell and colleagues¹ stated that clinical trial participants had a lower risk profile and a more favorable prognosis compared with the broader population included in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) Acute Coronary Treatment and Intervention Outcomes Network Registry–Get With The Guidelines...

Introduction: Public reporting of cardiovascular outcomes from registries has been useful in monitoring and improving quality of care. However, participation in registries such as National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) is voluntary and information could be biased due to self-selection of the participating hospitals thus limiting the external...

Concentric hypertrophy is thought to transition to left ventricular (LV) dilatation and systolic failure in the presence of long standing hypertension (HTN). Whether or not this transition routinely occurs in humans is unknown. We consecutively enrolled African American patients hospitalized for acute decompensated volume overload heart failure (HF...

Purpose: Descriptive studies on breast reconstruction utilizing free flaps (FF) are often a review of high volume centers that may not represent the national average.1 The goals of the current study are 1) to identify the rate of return to the operating room (ROR) during initial hospital stay in patients undergoing FF breast reconstruction and 2) t...

Much debate exists regarding the role of culture versus socioeconomic position in shaping the health of Latino populations. We propose that both may matter for health and explicitly test their independent and joint effects on smoking and physical activity. We used the 2010 National Health Interview Survey, a population-based survey of the U.S. popu...

To evaluate the relationship between diabetes care and types of comorbidity, classified by the degree to which their treatment is concordant with that for diabetes. Retrospective cohort study (fiscal year [FY] 2001 to FY 2004) of 42,826 veterans with new-onset diabetes in FY 2003. Veterans were classified into five chronic comorbid illness groups (...

To estimate the proportion of patients with type 2 diabetes who were eligible for statin treatment per American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommendations and the proportion who were actually prescribed a statin in US clinical practice. Factors associated with receiving a statin prescription were also determined. Patients ≥ 25 years diagnosed with...

The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes mellitus continues to rise. Although glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor medications are effective, there are differences between these products, including method of administration (injectable versus oral). The objective of this study was to examine patient preference...

To describe the epidemiology of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) in a predominantly minority population with low childhood immunization rates and high HIV prevalence, during the early childhood pneumococcal vaccine (PCV7) era. A retrospective cases series analysis of 131 patients diagnosed with IPD at University Hospital in Newark, NJ from 2000...

In 2002, federal regulations authorized the use of standing orders programs (SOPs) for promoting influenza and pneumococcal vaccination. In 2003, the New Jersey Hospital Association conducted a demonstration project illustrating the efficacy of SOPs, and the state health department informed healthcare facilities of their benefits. We describe the p...