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OBJECTIVE: To analyse trends in the number of ultrasound examinations in relation to the effectiveness of prenatal detection of birth defects using population-based data in France. DESIGN: A multiple registry-based study of time trends in resource use (number of ultrasounds) and effectiveness (proportion of cases prenatally diagnosed). SETTING: Three registries of congenital anomalies and claims data on ultrasounds for all pregnant women in France...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the feasibility of specialist screening practitioners (SSPs) offering patient navigation (PN) to facilitate uptake of bowel scope screening (BSS) among patients who do not confirm or attend their appointment. DESIGN: A single-stage phase II trial. SETTING: South Tyneside District Hospital, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. PARTICIPANTS: Individuals invited for BSS at South Tyneside District Hospital during the 6-month recruitment period were invited to participate in the study...

CONTEXT: A rapid method of methadone conversion known as the Perth Protocol is commonly used in Australian palliative care units. There has been no follow-up or validation of this method and no comparison between different methods of conversion. OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that the achieved doses of methadone are independent of the conversion method (rapid vs slower). The secondary objectives included examining the relationship between calculated target doses, actual achieved doses and duration of conversions...

OBJECTIVE: High grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and undifferentiated uterine sarcomas are associated with a very poor prognosis. Although large surgical resection is the standard of care, the optimal adjuvant strategy remains unclear. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of patients with localized high grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and undifferentiated uterine sarcomas (stages I-III) treated in 10 French Sarcoma Group centers was conducted. RESULTS: 39 patients with localized high grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and undifferentiated uterine sarcomas treated from 2008 to 2016 were included...

Mulberry (M. alba L.) has prominent use in traditional Chinese medicine since ancient times but its therapeutic properties have not been sufficiently explored in India. Present study was designed to isolate and identify the polyphenolic constituents present in mulberry leaf (M. latifolia) using HPLC and to evaluate its antihyperglycemic and antihyperlipedemic properties in streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic wistar rat models. HPLC analysis identified chlorogenic acid (103mg/100gm), caffeic acid (4.3mg/100gm), coumaric acid (11...

BACKGROUND: Conventional laparoscopic and open distal gastrectomy procedures have inherent limitations such as restricted movement of straight forceps and tremor of the tip of the devices that can potentially be overcome using robotic distal gastrectomy (RDG). This single-institutional phase II trial aimed to evaluate the safety and feasibility of RDG with lymph node dissection for clinical stage IA gastric cancer. METHODS: The study included patients with clinical stage IA gastric cancer in the lower two-thirds of the stomach considered to be curatively resected via distal gastrectomy...

Specific treatments combining high temperatures of up to 150 °C and moderate pressure of up to 0.6 MPa have been applied to Bacillus subtilis 168 spores conditioned at different aw levels (between 0.10 and 0.70) corresponding to different residual water contents within the spore core. The spores were treated as a dry powder in a pressurized nitrogen environment or in water/glycerol solutions. These thermodynamic conditions were intended to prevent any water evaporation from the spore core during time/temperature treatments...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about severe pulmonary embolism in children. We aimed to report pulmonary embolism outcomes, identify risk factors for unfavourable outcomes, and evaluate the discriminative ability of two clinical-severity indices in children. METHODS: In this retrospective cohort study, we included consecutive patients aged 18 years or younger with acute pulmonary embolism, objectively diagnosed radiologically or pathologically, between Jan 1, 2000, and Dec 31, 2016, from two Canadian paediatric hospitals (The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, and the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, ON)...

The present study used a longitudinal randomized clinical trial to test whether an early intervention has causal effects on children's autonomic nervous system regulation. When children were infants, parents involved with Child Protective Services received Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC; N = 43), an intervention that promotes sensitive parenting, or a control intervention (N = 53). When children were 9 years old, children whose parents had received ABC exhibited higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia and lower heart rate at rest and during a parent-child interaction than children in the control group...

PURPOSE: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) targeting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1), or its ligand PD-L1, are the mainstay of metastatic cancer treatment. Patients receiving these treatments may develop immune-related adverse events (irAEs). This study aimed to estimate the prevalence and describe the clinical patterns of moderate to severe ocular irAEs-associated with anti-PD-(L)1 treatment. DESIGN: Prospective case series. METHODS: This study included patients recruited via i) a single-center prospective cohort and ii) a national pharmacovigilance registry between June 2014 and March 2018, and focused on patients with moderate to severe ocular irAEs following anti-PD-(L)1...

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Psychological factors are involved in many functional gastrointestinal disorders including globus. The aim of the present study was to assess the clinical and psychological correlates associated with globus. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 707 patients (69% female, 45.2 ± 16.5 years, BMI 27.2 ± 11.7 kg/m2 ) filled an MMPI-2 questionnaire and a standard Rome III clinical questionnaire and were included in this cross sectional study. Data analysis was performed using a univariate analysis and a multivariate logistic regression with a backwards selection procedure on significant scales after a univariate analysis...

BACKGROUND: Breakfast consumption is associated with better diet quality and healthier weights, yet many adolescents miss breakfast. Nationally, 17.1% of students participate in the School Breakfast Program (SBP). Only 10% of high school students participate. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to evaluate an environmental intervention to increase SBP participation in high schools. DESIGN: A group randomized trial was carried out from 2012 to 2015. PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: Ninth- and 10th-grade students enrolled in 16 rural schools in Minnesota (median 387 students) were randomized to intervention or control condition...

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to compare the prognostic value of 2-dimensional (2D) right ventricular (RV) speckle tracking (STE) against cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) RV ejection fraction (EF) and feature tracking (FT) and conventional echocardiographic parameters on overall and cardiovascular (CV) survival in patients with heart failure with reduced EF (HFrEF). BACKGROUND: Prior works showed that RV systolic function predicts prognosis in HFrEF. 2D RVSTE had recently been proposed as new echocardiographic method to evaluate RV dysfunction...

INTRODUCTION: Hearing loss is common and associated with poorer health and impeded communication. Little is known about the association between hearing loss and substance use disorders in the general population. The objective of this study was to assess substance use disorder prevalence among individuals with hearing loss, versus those without hearing loss, in a nationally representative sample of adults. METHODS: Two years (2015 and 2016) of National Survey on Drug Use and Health (unweighted N=86,186) were combined to compare substance use disorders among adults with and without self-reported hearing loss...

INTRODUCTION: Tradeoffs exist between efforts to increase influenza vaccine uptake, including early season vaccination, and potential decreased vaccine effectiveness if protection wanes during influenza season. U.S. older adults increasingly receive vaccination before October. Influenza illness peaks vary from December to April. METHODS: A Markov model compared influenza likelihood in older adults with (1) status quo vaccination (August-May) to maximize vaccine uptake or (2) vaccination compressed to October-May (to decrease waning vaccine effectiveness impact)...

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Our objective was to identify factors impacting false positive recalls in screening mammography. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed our screening mammography database from August 31, 2015 to September 30, 2016, including full field digital mammograms (FFDM) and digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) mammograms. False positive (FP) exams were defined as Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) 1 or 2 assessments at diagnostic imaging with 1 year cancer-free follow-up, Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System 3 assessment at diagnostic imaging with 2 years cancer free follow-up, or biopsy with benign pathology...

Workshops are an important part of the IFPA annual meeting as they allow for discussion of specialized topics. At IFPA meeting 2018 there were nine themed workshops, four of which are summarized in this report. These workshops discussed new knowledge and technological innovations in the following areas of research: 1) viviparity in ocean-living species; 2) placental imaging; 3) epigenetics; and 4) extracellular vesicles in pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether abatacept as initial biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis is associated with an increased risk of serious infections, including bone and joint, gastrointestinal, respiratory tract, skin and soft tissue, and urinary tract, when compared with other biologic DMARDs. METHODS: We performed a population-based cohort study among patients newly-treated with biologic DMARDs within the US-based Truven MarketScan® population and Supplemental US Medicare from 2007 to 2014...

BACKGROUND: Elevated homocysteine is observed in schizophrenia and associated with illness severity. The aim of this study was to determine whether vitamins B12 , B6 , and folic acid lower homocysteine and improve symptomatology and neurocognition in first-episode psychosis. Whether baseline homocysteine, genetic variation, sex, and diagnosis interact with B-vitamin treatment on outcomes was also examined. METHODS: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was used...