Aims There is limited evidence for the correlation between short-term mortality and red cell distribution width (RDW) in critical patients with heart failure. Herein, a retrospective cohort study was conducted to investigate whether RDW was independently associated with short-term mortality in critically ill patients with heart failure. Methods and resultsAs a retrospective cohort study, it involved a total of 9465 patients with heart failure from the MIMIC-IV database. The target-dependent and independent variables were in-hospital mortality, 90 day mortality and RDW measured at baseline, respectively. The relationship between all-cause death and baseline RDW in hospital and after 90 days of admission to ICU was evaluated by using the Kaplan-Meier plot and Cox proportional hazard analysis. The average age of participants was 74.4 (64.2, 83.5) years old, among whom about 54.6% were male. Results of the adjusted Cox proportional hazard model revealed that RDW had a positive association with both in-hospital and 90 day mortality risk after the adjustment of confounders (HR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.04-1.15, P < 0.001; HR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.08-1.14, P < 0.001, respectively). A non-linear relationship was found between RDW and 90 day mortality, which had a threshold of 14.96%. The effect sizes and confidence intervals below and above the threshold were 1.36 (1.14 to 1.62) and 1.09 (1.04 to 1.15), respectively. It was also found by subgroup analysis that there were stronger correlations in male and patients with normal renal function. Conclusions Our data suggest that the short-term mortality of critically ill patients with HF is independently predicted by RDW. At the same time, large prospective research and longer follow-up time are required to further validate the findings of this study.Keywords Red cell distribution width; Critically ill patients with heart failure; Prognosis

Aims Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) are more vulnerable to intracardiac thrombus than other types of cardiomyopathies, although explicit anticoagulant strategy is not sure. Too aggressive anticoagulation therapy can lead to severe bleeding events. Hence, we want to construct a risk stratification model for intracardiac thrombus in PPCM patients. Methods and results A total of 159 suspected PPCM cases were initially screened, whereas 123 confirmed cases were enrolled in the final analysis. The study population was randomly assigned as derivation group ( N = 83) and validation group ( N = 40). The derivation cohort was utilized to develop the model, and the validation cohort was used to internal validate the discriminatory ability of the model. Formation of intracardiac thrombus was detected in 22 patients. After adjusted by multivariable logistic regression analysis, left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF, OR 0.772, 95% CI 0.665–0.897, P = 0.001), haemoglobin levels (OR 1.050, 95% CI 1.003–1.099, P = 0.038), and thrombocyte counts (OR 1.018, 95% CI 1.006–1.029, P = 0.003) were identified as risk factors independently associated with intracardiac thrombus and were finally included in the tentative risk stratification model with a C‐indexes of 0.916 (95% CI: 0.850–0.982, P < 0.001). A score of ≤7 was regarded as low risk, 8–10 defined intermediate risk, and ≥11 defined high risk in our model. Internal validation showed good discriminatory ability of the model with a C‐indexes of 0.790 (95% CI: 0.644–0.936, P = 0.017). Conclusions In our retrospective study, impaired LVEF, elevated haemoglobin levels, and high thrombocyte counts were regarded as independent risk factors for intracardiac thrombus in PPCM. A risk stratification model derived from these risk factors, which was economic and easily applicable in clinical practice, could rapidly and accurately identify PPCM patients with higher‐risk of intracardiac thrombus.

Summary The β‐Carotene (BC), an important precursor of vitamin A (VA), possesses antioxidant activity but is fat‐soluble and has low bioavailability. In previous in‐vitro assays evaluating antioxidant and 2,2′‐azobis(2‐amidinopropane) dihydrochloride (AAPH) free radical scavenging, both BC and VA showed a strong ability to scavenge radicals and protected cells from oxidative stress. Here, we used artificially simulated gastrointestinal digestion and Caco‐2 cell absorption models to evaluate the bioavailability of the BC during gastrointestinal digestion and absorption using high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis. We observed high absorptive and transfer rates of BC and detected retinol metabolites (Vitamin A). Therefore, BC can be detected in the acidic gastrointestinal environment using HPLC. Optimised method provided better separation of BC and VA in the column, improving the accuracy of the test results.