Search Results (997)

Background/Objectives: Preoperative anemia and iron deficiency increase transfusion risk in cardiac surgery. We evaluated outcomes associated with a Patient Blood Management (PBM) pathway and assessed the robustness of these associations to baseline imbalance and secular trends. Methods: This single-center retrospective cohort study compared PBM patients treated in 2019, 2022, and 2023 with historical controls from 2017–2018. Outcomes included red blood cell (RBC) transfusion, length of stay, readmission, mortality, safety events, and costs. Analyses included multivariable regression, propensity-score matching (PSM), inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW), and adjacent-period matching. The hospital-perspective cost-consequence analysis used 2024-unit costs, bootstrap confidence intervals (CI), and log-link models. Results: Among 1374 patients (764 PBM; 610 No-PBM controls), any RBC transfusion occurred in 17.3% versus 39.2%, and transfusion of >2 units occurred in 2.6% versus 15.1%. The adjusted odds ratios were 0.30 (95% CI, 0.23–0.39) and 0.14 (95% CI, 0.08–0.24), respectively. PSM yielded 519 pairs, and sensitivity analyses were concordant. The adjusted overall direct-cost ratio was 0.75 (95% CI, 0.68–0.82), with an adjusted marginal mean difference of −EUR 5196 (bootstrap 95% CI, −EUR 6965 to −EUR 3485). Recorded incidences of myocardial infarction, stroke, thromboembolism, and cumulative infection were low and did not differ significantly between cohorts; hypophosphatemia and treatment-specific adverse reactions were not systematically assessed. Adjacent-period matching did not confirm a reduction in 12-month readmission, and mortality was similar between cohorts. Conclusions: PBM was associated with lower transfusion rates, shorter hospitalization, and lower direct costs. Residual temporal confounding limits causal interpretation, and the economic findings do not constitute formal cost-effectiveness results. Full article

Objectives: To describe short-term anatomical and visual outcomes after platelet-rich plasma (PRP)-assisted surgery for full-thickness macular holes (FTMHs) in a selected real-world cohort, predominantly consisting of previously operated and large holes. Methods: This retrospective, register-based cohort study included 61 eyes of 61 patients who underwent FTMH surgery with adjunctive autologous PRP. Anatomical closure, short-term BCVA change, and exploratory OCT associations were evaluated overall and by surgical subgroup. Results: Seven eyes underwent PRP-assisted primary surgery and 54 underwent repeat surgery. Complete closure occurred in 46/61 eyes (75.4%; 95% CI, 63.3–84.5%). Median BCVA improved from 0.74 to 0.53 logMAR (p < 0.001); results remained directionally consistent in a 21–42-day sensitivity window (n = 33; p = 0.016). Nine eyes underwent combined phaco-vitrectomy. Preoperative MLD differed across anatomical outcomes (p = 0.005), where the border-cyst association with postoperative BCVA was not significant after adjustment. Conclusions: PRP-assisted surgery was followed by substantial short-term anatomical closure and visual improvement, but the uncontrolled design, heterogeneous management, and incomplete characterization of prior surgery and PRP preclude attribution of efficacy or safety to PRP. Full article

Railway infrastructure is fundamental to national logistics and public transportation systems. Defects in railway tracks, such as squats, shelling, spalling, flaking, burned rails, and joint issues, can significantly compromise operational safety. Traditional inspection methods, which rely heavily on manual labour, are often inefficient, error-prone, and infeasible for large-scale deployment. This study proposes a comparative experimental evaluation of deep learning models, and a hybrid CNN-feature/Random Forest model, for classifying surface-level defects in railway tracks from pre-cropped images. The dataset, comprising 6465 images (4525 training/1940 test) across six defect classes, was compiled from real-world conditions on the Indian railway network and used to train and evaluate five transfer-learning CNN backbones (MobileNetV2, DenseNet121, VGG16, ResNet50, EfficientNetB0) and a Random Forest classifier operating on CNN-extracted features. MobileNetV2 achieved the highest test-set accuracy (81.2%, F1 = 0.81, AUC-ROC = 0.96), with VGG16 and DenseNet121 close behind (80.7% and 80.0%); all three show a widening train/validation loss gap consistent with overfitting despite reasonable test-set generalisation. This aggregate accuracy conceals a safety-relevant weakness: MobileNetV2’s recall for Burned Rail, a safety-critical defect category, is only 45.5%, the lowest recall of any class for this model. ResNet50 and EfficientNetB0 underperformed substantially (54.2% and 42.0%); training logs and learning curves confirm this reflects a training/optimisation failure rather than a demonstrated architectural limitation; EfficientNetB0 in particular shows chance-level ROC-AUC (0.50) on every class, indicating its predictions carry no discriminative signal. A Random Forest classifier operating on VGG16 features achieved 72.2% accuracy on an independently partitioned test set, with similarly low recall for minority classes. The study discusses deployment trade-offs between accuracy and computational efficiency and their connection to existing non-destructive testing workflows, and identifies verification work that remains outstanding for the Random Forest hyperparameters and evaluation split. Full article

Detection systems for antibiotics of the (fluoro)quinolone (FQ) group are in high demand among food safety regulators and agricultural inspectors. At the same time, the application of developed test systems may be complicated by the significant structural diversity of related FQs (including enantiomeric forms), which necessitates the careful evaluation of their selectivity. In this study, five polyclonal antibodies were generated by immunizing rabbits with the S- and R-enantiomers of ofloxacin (OFL) and its racemic mixture used as haptens. The cross-reactivity (CR) of the obtained antibodies toward 26 FQs, structural analogs of OFL, was evaluated using an indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Structure–activity relationship models were developed to analyze the obtained CR data. Three machine learning (ML) methods were applied: random forest classifier (RFC), logistic regression (LR), and a support vector classifier (SVC). The SVC model demonstrated the highest predictive performance in terms of the Log Loss metric. In contrast, the LR models showed the best overall balance across six statistical metrics, including precision, recall, and F1 score. Three-dimensional topological descriptors enabled discrimination between the S- and R-isomers of OFL, whereas constitutional and two-dimensional descriptors were less effective. The obtained results contribute to the development of FQ immunoassay systems and their computational analysis using ML approaches. Full article

This study investigates the deformation evolution and stability degradation of a rainfall-reactivated loess–carbonaceous slate landslide in Luoda Town, Gansu Province, China. Field investigation, borehole logging, water-content-controlled direct shear tests, GNSS monitoring, rainfall analysis, and FLAC3D modeling were integrated to examine the weak shear zone developed near the lithological contact. The landslide comprises loessial–colluvial deposits overlying weathered carbonaceous slate and exhibits a progressive rotational-slide pattern characterized by rear tensile cracking, middle translational movement, and frontal compressional bulging. As specimen water content increased from 17% to 24%, the cohesion and internal friction angle of the shear-zone soil decreased from 22.6 to 14.5 kPa and from 17.0° to 9.7°, respectively. GNSS monitoring identified steady creep, accelerating creep, and rapid failure, with G1 accelerating earlier than G2. The strongest observed rainfall–displacement correlations occurred at antecedent windows of 48 h for G1 and 120 h for G2, indicating spatially variable rainfall responses. Across the corresponding laboratory-derived strength states, the calculated factor of safety decreased from 1.512 to 0.898. These results indicate that the 2021 reactivation was controlled by a weak shear-zone layer near the lithological contact, with rainfall-related wetting likely contributing to strength degradation and progressive deformation. Full article

HERA-GM separates an offline learned tactical proposal from the authority to execute it. A Dueling Double DQN trained with Conservative Q-Learning proposes one of five tactical actions. The runtime process then uses the action-value margin, semantic feature availability, annotation density, a Mahalanobis diagnostic, and fixed hard-rule conditions to assign ACCEPT, DEFER, or RECOVER. The study separately examined proposer agreement, authority changes, closed-loop outcomes, and held-out-family discrimination. The original frozen evaluation used 113 nuPlan Mini scenarios from 39 logs and 1970 closed-loop runs. An additional exploratory behavior-cloning block added 339 runs. Behavior cloning had slightly higher offline macro-F1 than CQL, whereas DDQN without CQL had much lower agreement under the tested configurations. The main comparison between M1 and the simpler B3 gate showed no supported primary safety difference, indicating limited added endpoint effect from Mahalanobis and hard-rule evidence in this cohort. M1 also showed lower safety-failure and drivable-area violation rates than behavior cloning, but with lower conditional progress; the primary result did not remain below 0.05 after pooled Holm adjustment across the five clean comparisons. The Mahalanobis score did not distinguish held-out semantic families reliably. The findings describe the operating trade-offs and limits of conditional execution authority rather than a safety guarantee. Full article

This systematic review examines how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies relevant to human-factor risk reduction can be integrated into international and Spanish maritime safety frameworks. The formal PRISMA corpus comprises 23 core sources (13 peer-reviewed studies and 10 regulatory, institutional or technical documents), while a separate supplementary search provides recent independent technical and regulatory evidence up to 31 August 2026. The analysis covers computer vision, thermal and near-infrared sensing, multimodal fusion, behavioral and fatigue analysis, and onboard edge processing, with particular attention to precision, recall, false alarms, latency, computational requirements and operational robustness. The evidence shows that high detection performance can be achieved in specific maritime datasets, but the reported values depend strongly on the task, sensor, dataset and hardware and cannot be treated as a universal accuracy threshold. A system architecture is therefore proposed in which heterogeneous sensors feed synchronized edge processing, event verification, alarm management, VDR-compatible event logging, and human confirmation with defined fail-safe behavior. On the regulatory side, the study proposes staged adaptations of SOLAS, the ISM Code, STCW, MLC and Spanish inspection frameworks. The 2026 IMO MASS Code, considered as supplementary regulatory evidence, provides a relevant precedent for goal-based approval, risk assessment and progressive operational experience. Fixed tonnage and implementation-date thresholds are consequently treated as illustrative parameters rather than validated requirements; any mandatory carriage provision should be supported by formal safety assessment, type approval and operational evidence. The resulting framework links electronics implementation with a short-, medium- and long-term regulatory roadmap for safer merchant-ship operations. Full article

Thermal runaway (TR) severity can be ranked using absolute or energy-normalised heat and by the pathway through which heat leaves the cell, but whether these definitions identify the same high-hazard cells remains unclear. We analysed 98 non-ISC heater-triggered tests from 13 commercial or near-commercial cylindrical cell models in the Battery Failure Databank. Cathode chemistry was not analysed because it was incompletely documented. Total, body, and ejecta heat were evaluated using allometric scaling, S-FTRC-generation-adjusted fixed-effects models, hierarchical bootstrap ranking, and isometric log-ratio analysis. Scaling exponents for total, ejecta, and body heat were 0.899, 1.003, and 0.879, respectively, with all 95% bootstrap intervals including b = 1. Despite this approximate proportional scaling, generation-adjusted absolute-total and total-kJ/Wh rankings disagreed for 46.2% of cell-model pairs. Body- and ejecta-heat rankings diverged even more strongly, with 62.8% point discordance, a bootstrap median of 61.5% (95% interval 53.8–67.9%), and 28 of 78 pairs showing reversal probabilities ≥95%. These findings show that absolute heat, energy-normalised heat, body heat, and ejecta heat address different engineering questions and should be reported and interpreted separately rather than combined into a universal cell-safety ranking. Full article

Aflatoxin B₁ (AFB1), a potent carcinogenic metabolite produced by Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus, constitutes a significant threat to food safety. Conventional decontamination methods are costly or ineffective. Biological detoxification has emerged as a promising alternative. Kefir, a fermented milk beverage, comprises lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts with documented antifungal properties. This study evaluated whey permeate (WP) as a fermentation substrate for kefir microorganisms and assessed their AFB1-binding capacity. Kefir microorganisms cultivated in WP supported active fermentation, reaching 8.47 log CFU/mL LAB and 7.57 log CFU/mL yeasts, with concomitant lactose consumption and organic acid production. The ability of 13 individual kefir-derived microorganisms and the total kefir microbial community to bind AFB1 was evaluated under diverse conditions. All microorganisms exhibited AFB1 binding ability, although binding depended on strain, growth medium, pH, microbial concentration, and toxin concentration. The highest binding was observed for the total kefir community grown in WP. Binding remained stable over time for the total kefir community and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CIDCA 83114 and was independent of viability and hydrophobicity. AFB1 binding by kefir microorganisms significantly reduced AFB1-induced cytotoxicity in HepG2 cells. These findings demonstrate that WP can be valorized into a value-added fermented product containing microorganisms with strong AFB1 binding and cytoprotective properties. Full article

Monitoring bacterial contamination on surfaces is critical for hygiene and safety assurance in food, healthcare, and pharmaceutical settings, although routine methods still remain slow and laboratory dependent. Here, we report a portable respirometric platform based on sealed sensor sachets incorporating optical oxygen sensors to rapidly detect and quantify total aerobic viable counts (TVC) from swabbed surfaces. Following standardized surface swabbing, samples were incubated in the sachets and oxygen depletion kinetics were recorded with a handheld reader and microbial activity was inferred from oxygen consumption. Reference quantification was obtained by serial dilution and aerobic plate counting, enabling direct benchmarking of the respirometric readout against an industry-accepted culture method such as ISO 4833:2013. The platform demonstrated strong agreement with plate counts (R² > 0.94), achieving a median detection limit of 2.69 log₁₀ CFU/cm² and a dynamic range of 0–6 log₁₀ CFU/cm² for surface-associated microbial loads. The sensor system was also applied in a semi-industrial setting in a meat processing plant. Across replicate measurements, the assay provided consistent kinetic signatures and quantitative outputs, suitable for rapid and practical decision-making. Compared with traditional culture-based approaches (requiring up to 72 h), the respirometric sachets delivered actionable results within 10 h using a portable, low-infrastructure workflow, supporting rapid on-site hygiene verification and sanitation control. Full article

Purpose: To compare the clinical and functional outcomes of two successive generations of a trifocal intraocular lens (IOL), the original Liberty 677MY and the optimized Liberty 677CMY. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first head-to-head comparison between two successive generations of any IOL model reported. Methods: This retrospective study included 42 patients (84 eyes) who underwent bilateral phacoemulsification with implantation of either the Liberty 677MY (26 eyes) or the Liberty 677CMY (58 eyes). The primary outcome was postoperative binocular intermediate visual acuity (VA). Secondary outcomes included monocular intermediate VA, monocular and binocular distance and near VA, the proportion of patients or eyes achieving ≤0.1 LogMAR, and defocus curves. Exploratory outcomes included spectacle independence, patient-reported satisfaction (Quality of vision—QoV- and Catquest-9SF), photic phenomena, and intraoperative or postoperative complications. Results: At 3 months, binocular UIVA differed by approximately 0.10 LogMAR in favor of the 677CMY cohort, which was considered clinically significant, although the difference did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.052). Supporting this tendency, monocular UIVA was significantly better with the 677CMY IOL (p = 0.012). Also, a significantly higher percentage of patients and eyes achieved binocular and monocular UIVA ≤ 0.1 LogMAR with the 677CMY IOL (p = 0.025). Defocus curves additionally showed significant between-group differences at intermediate defocus levels (−1.00 and −1.50 D; p < 0.05), favoring the 677CMY cohort. No between-group differences were observed for any distance VA parameter. Binocular near VA and near-vision thresholds were also comparable between groups, although a greater proportion of eyes achieved monocular UNVA ≤ 0.1 LogMAR with the 677CMY IOL (p = 0.016). Spectacle use, overall satisfaction, photic phenomena profile, and postoperative complications were comparable between groups. Conclusions: The optimized Liberty 677CMY exhibited a favorable pattern of intermediate visual performance compared with the 677MY while maintaining comparable distance and near VA and a similar safety profile. These findings suggest potential clinical benefits of the design modifications, although larger prospective studies are warranted to confirm these observations. Full article

Reliable determination of the surge limit of an installed centrifugal compressor cannot rely solely on OEM performance maps, theoretical predictions, or previously configured surge lines. The actual field boundary is influenced by installation-specific characteristics, including piping volumes, recycle-system dynamics, valve response, and instrumentation, all of which affect compressor behavior as surge is approached. At the same time, field surge testing is inherently demanding, because it is a safety-critical procedure that requires careful execution and often depends on the experience of specialist personnel. This paper presents a semi-automated supervisory framework for field surge limit verification intended for use by trained site engineers under operator supervision. The framework guides the testing process through readiness checks, instrumentation verification, recycle-valve assessment, gradual reduction of surge margin, real-time monitoring, surge-event identification, recovery actions, and structured data logging. Because early surge precursors are not consistently visible using standard plant instrumentation, the proposed approach relies on a practical signal-based event-recognition method derived from installed measurements and referenced to a pre-event baseline. The paper also introduces a structured method for tuning staged Recycle Trip^® recovery actions following surge limit verification using a limited number of field tests. The field evaluation included seven industrial compressor records: five independently confirmed surge cases, one shutdown/non-surge transient, and one confirmed no-surge case. Using a record-specific baseline threshold, all five confirmed surge events were recognized, with reported detection delays of 0–0.1 s. The supporting dynamic simulation environment was used for logic development and qualitative assessment of the supervisory and recovery-tuning concepts. Overall, the proposed approach provides a more structured and repeatable basis for supervised field surge limit verification while preserving operator authority. Full article

Background and Objectives: Ozanimod is approved for the treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical, biochemical, and endoscopic outcomes. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective, multicenter, cohort study. Clinical, biochemical, endoscopic, and safety data were collected from medical records. Τhe primary outcome was clinical response at week 12. Secondary outcomes included clinical remission, endoscopic improvement and remission, biochemical outcomes, treatment persistence, and safety. Clinical outcomes were assessed at weeks 12 and 48, while treatment persistence was evaluated over the complete 48-week follow-up period, using Kaplan–Meier analysis. Clinical response was defined as a ≥30% reduction in partial Mayo score and remission as a partial Mayo score < 3, with no individual sub-score > 1 and a rectal bleeding sub-score of 0. Clinical response and remission were primarily assessed using an observed-case approach, with an additional sensitivity analysis classifying discontinuations due to lack of efficacy as treatment failures. Results: A total of 79 patients were included (62.0% male; median age 44 years, IQR 31–56). Prior biologic exposure was recorded in 29.1%, and 64.6% were previously exposed to oral corticosteroids. Among patients with available clinical assessment at week 12 (n = 62), clinical response and clinical remission were achieved in 77.4% and 71.0%, respectively. Among patients with available data at week 12 (n = 32), endoscopic improvement was observed in 65.6%, while endoscopic remission was achieved in 15.6%. At week 48, among 26 evaluable patients, clinical response and remission rates were 96.2% and 84.6%, respectively; when discontinuations due to lack of efficacy were considered treatment failures, the corresponding rates were 52.1% and 45.8%. Treatment persistence did not differ significantly according to overall prior biologic exposure, whereas previous vedolizumab exposure was associated with lower treatment persistence over the week 48 follow-up (log-rank p = 0.037). In multivariable Cox regression, previous vedolizumab exposure remained associated with an increased hazard of treatment discontinuation (adjusted HR 3.07, 95% CI 1.23–7.67; p = 0.016). Adverse events were reported in 13.9% of patients. Conclusions: Ozanimod demonstrated good efficacy and a favorable safety profile in patients with moderate UC. Full article

Background/Objectives: Transaxillary access (TAx) is an established alternative to transfemoral access (TF) for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in patients with unfavorable iliofemoral anatomy. While TAx-TAVI has been increasingly adopted at experienced centers, propensity score-matched comparative data with VARC-3 endpoint definitions are scarce, and most existing series originate from Western European cohorts. We aimed to address this gap by reporting outcomes from a propensity-matched TAx versus TF cohort using VARC-3 endpoints, contributing contemporary data from a high-volume Turkish center with established alternative access expertise. Methods: Among 2389 consecutive TAVI procedures screened between January 2016 and December 2024, 291 patients with complete data were included. After stratification by access route (TAx n = 51; TF n = 240) and exclusion of one TAx patient with missing covariates, 1:2 greedy nearest-neighbor propensity score matching was performed using nine covariates. The final cohort comprised 150 patients (50 TAx, 100 TF). All outcomes were defined per VARC-3 criteria. Results: All nine covariates achieved standardized mean differences <0.1 after matching. Technical success was comparable (TAx 94.0% vs. TF 96.0%; p = 0.686). The VARC-3 early safety event rate did not differ significantly (16.0% vs. 15.0%; p = 1.000); no equivalence can be inferred given the small event counts and wide confidence intervals. Any bleeding (VARC-3) was significantly lower in the TAx group (8.0% vs. 22.0%; OR 0.31, 95% CI 0.10–0.95; p = 0.039), confirmed by conditional logistic regression for the matched structure (OR 0.32 [0.10–0.97]; p = 0.043); this should be considered an exploratory finding. Thirty-day all-cause mortality (encompassing in-hospital deaths) (6.0% vs. 10.0%; p = 0.545), 1-year mortality (12.0% vs. 16.0%; p = 0.628), and Kaplan–Meier 1-year survival (88.0% vs. 84.0%; log-rank p = 0.510) did not differ significantly. ICU stay (median 2 [1–2] vs. 2 [1–3] days; p = 0.020) and hospital stay (median 5 [4–6] vs. 5 [4–6] days; p = 0.005) yielded statistically significant p-values; however, medians were identical in both comparisons, and significance was driven by outlier-prolonged admissions in the TF group rather than a meaningful difference in typical recovery duration. Conclusions: TAx-TAVI demonstrated comparable mortality, safety, and hemodynamic outcomes to TF-TAVI, with a significantly lower rate of bleeding complications. Axillary access represents a safe and effective alternative route in patients unsuitable for transfemoral TAVI. Full article

Background: Female sex is widely regarded as an independent risk factor for adverse outcomes after conventional coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and is incorporated as a risk variable in EuroSCORE II. Whether this disadvantage persists in the setting of minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass (MIDCAB), in which sternotomy and cardiopulmonary bypass are avoided, remains insufficiently characterised. We assessed sex-specific short- and long-term outcomes after MIDCAB in a single-centre cohort with extended follow-up. Methods: We retrospectively analysed 350 consecutive patients who underwent MIDCAB at Hannover Medical School between July 1999 and April 2025 (follow-up to April 2025). Eligibility criteria and heart team-applied exclusion criteria (prior left thoracotomy, unfavourable LAD anatomy, prohibitive respiratory reserve, hostile chest wall, active endocarditis, or haemodynamic instability requiring on-pump revascularization) are detailed in the Methods. Females (n = 102) and males (n = 248) were compared before and after 1:1 propensity score matching using greedy nearest-neighbour matching with a caliper of 0.2 × SD of the logit propensity score. The primary endpoint was all-cause long-term mortality; secondary endpoints included perioperative complications and in-hospital outcomes. Long-term survival was assessed by Kaplan–Meier analysis and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression performed in the full unmatched cohort. A pre-specified subgroup analysis of long-term survival by coronary disease pattern (single-vessel vs. multivessel disease) was also performed. Results: Matching produced 100 female–male pairs with excellent covariate balance (all standardized mean differences < 0.20). MIDCAB was completed without intraoperative conversion in all patients. Thirty-day mortality was 0% in both sexes; no postoperative stroke or new requirement for dialysis occurred. New-onset atrial fibrillation (3.0% vs. 1.0%, p = 0.621), length of intensive care unit stay (median 1 day in both groups), and hospital length of stay (median 8 days in both groups) were comparable between females and males. Re-exploration for bleeding was numerically more frequent in women (5.0% vs. 0.0%; Newcombe 95% CI for the risk difference +0.3 to +11.2%; Fisher’s exact p = 0.059). At a median follow-up of 19.0 years (IQR 11.8–23.9), all-cause mortality was identical (12.0% vs. 12.0%, p = 1.000; log-rank p = 0.703). In multivariable Cox regression in the full unmatched cohort, female sex was not associated with long-term mortality (adjusted HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.38–1.70, p = 0.560); only advancing age emerged as a strong independent predictor (HR 1.10 per year, 95% CI 1.05–1.15, p < 0.001), with EuroSCORE II approaching significance (HR 1.67 per unit, 95% CI 1.00–2.82, p = 0.052). Long-term survival in patients with multivessel disease (20-year Kaplan–Meier 90.9%) was equivalent to that in single-vessel disease (92.3%; log-rank p = 0.94). Conclusions: In this propensity-matched analysis with two decades of follow-up, MIDCAB conferred equivalent perioperative safety and long-term survival in women and men. Female sex was not an independent predictor of adverse outcome. These findings support MIDCAB as a sex-neutral revascularization strategy for single-vessel and LAD-predominant coronary artery disease in the very low-risk, appropriately selected population studied, and are consistent with the most recent published MIDCAB literature. Full article