A. Portolés

Use of albumin in two Spanish university hospitals

AbstractObjectives: The aim of this study was to characterize the use of seralbumin, evaluating how appropriate its prescription is and what possible economic repercussions may result from inappropriate use. Methods: We performed a prospective study that included all patients receiving albumin in two University Hospitals from October 1995 to March 1996. The reasons for albumin use were considered appropriate if they coincided with the recommendations of a panel of experts. Results: During the study period, 197 patients received albumin and a total of 3208 50-ml vials (20%) were used. The internal medicine and gastroenterology services prescribed this drug the most often. The most frequent prescription motives were paracentesis in cirrhotic patients (25.9%), hypoalbuminemia (24.9%) and chronic handling of cirrhotic patients (18.6%). Only 16 prescriptions (8.1%) (corresponding to 315 vials, 9.8%) were considered appropriate. One cause of inappropriate prescribing was that colloid solutions had not previously been used in 56 (30.9%) of the 186 inappropriate prescriptions. During the study period, 74 306 ECUs were spent on inappropriate indications. Conclusions: The use of albumin in our centers is incorrect and has important economic repercussions. Some educational and informative measures must be established to change this situation.

Experimental Validation of a Numerical Method that Predicts the Size of the Heat Affected Zone. Optimization of the Welding Parameters by the Taguchi’s Method

This work outlines the experimental validation of a numerical method which determines the size of the heat affected zone (HAZ) in a low carbon steel plate using the gas metal arc welding technique. The welding parameters match between the experimental and numerical simulations. The later allows the calculation of the weld beads and temperature fields from which the size of the HAZ can be inferred. This size from numerical simulations compares quite well with the experimentally measured HAZ from the metal grain macrostructure. A relationship between the bead size and the thermal energy source parameters, defined by the Goldak’s double ellipsoid, is found. Finally, the size of the HAZ is optimized by Taguchi’s method, which make use of the signal-to-noise ratio and the analysis of variance to obtain the influence of the parameters on the size of HAZ. The numerical code can be used for other electric arc welding techniques as GTAW or FCAW.