REMOVE comments, stay with me. I've posted before that I am a survivor of an 11 hour heart surgery that saved my life in 1993. I had endocarditis from staph, a very bad prognosis. I received someone else's aorta and aortic valve, a human graft (thank you to that donor and donor family for saving me) but I suffered tremendous damage to my one ventricle due to the "cleansing" they had to do to get the infection/abscess out. I was a mess pre op and really prepared to die. So I don't need to explain why REMOVE results are of high interest to me. While we wait, I went back to the March 2, 2020 PR detailing the smaller 58 person study. It makes me a bit more optimistic regarding what the full 250 person study may reveal (I admit I could be completely wrong). Why? Try to follow this ex banker's medical logic. Of the 58 patients, 30 got Cytosorb usage during surgery while the control 28 did not. Although 5 of the 30 Cytosorbers got sepsis post op, none died from it. 3 did die, but I am uncertain if any of those 3 were from the 5 sepsis patients who had recovered from the sepsis but died from heart complications. Anyway, 3 people died but it was not from sepsis. Recall what I described in my own personal surgery where I survived the infection but the radical surgery and collateral heart damage nearly killed me. Shift to the control group. 11 of the 28 came down with sepsis post op and 5 die from it. Ironically sepsis kills all 5 from the control group that die, unlike the 3 who had Cytosorb but died from "something else". Am I foolishly optimistic? Maybe. But it seems like a bit of bad luck that 3 (10%) died from "something else" in the Cytosorb group while none in the control group did. It skews the mortality %. Should even out in a bigger study, no? Anyway, I felt I should go back and look at the March 2 stuff to understand better. Again, I am a retired banker and there are probably medical people here that can/will poke (blast?) holes in what I've written. I welcome other opinions and admit I am just theorizing and have no idea what the hell I'm talking about LOL.
