Medication use evalution

BACKGROUND: The combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy (immunoradiotherapy) has been increasingly used for treating a wide range of cancers. However, some tumors are resistant to immunoradiotherapy. We have previously shown that MER proto-oncogene tyrosine kinase (MerTK) expressed on macrophages mediates resistance to immunoradiotherapy. We therefore sought to develop therapeutics that can mitigate the negative impact of MerTK. We designed and developed a MerTK specific antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) and characterized its effects on eliciting an anti-tumor immune response in mice...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Cerebral collaterals have been identified as one of the primary determinants for treatment options in acute ischemic stroke. Several works have been proposed, but these have not been adopted for a routine clinical usage due to their manual and heuristic nature as well as inconsistency and instability of the assessment. Herein, we present an advanced deep learning-based method that can automatically generate a multiphase collateral imaging (collateral map) derived from dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced MR perfusion (DSC-MRP) in an accurate and robust manner...

Since the emergence of COVID-19, deep learning models have been developed to identify COVID-19 from chest X-rays. With little to no direct access to hospital data, the AI community relies heavily on public data comprising numerous data sources. Model performance results have been exceptional when training and testing on open-source data, surpassing the reported capabilities of AI in pneumonia-detection prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. In this study impactful models are trained on a widely used open-source data and tested on an external test set and a hospital dataset, for the task of classifying chest X-rays into one of three classes: COVID-19, non-COVID pneumonia and no-pneumonia...

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is an effective treatment developed for infertile couples in the world. As a result, women suffering from infertility benefit from ART treatment. However, even when ART treatment is successfully performed, there are cases where conception is not achieved or maintained. Kampo medicine was originally developed in Japan, and Sho is the central part of Kampo concept. Although it is thought that Kampo medicine is useful for various women-specific symptoms in modern Japan, evidence is still lacking regarding the effectiveness of combination of Sho -based Kampo and Western medicine such as ART...

Background: Non-pharmacologic auxiliary treatments have been considered crucial therapies for treating chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) during the past decades worldwide. Several treatment patterns are available, but their relative efficacy is obscure because there are no head-to-head randomized controlled trials, especially in children. We conducted this network meta-analysis to evalute the effectiveness of these therapies in improving defecation function based on their direct comparisons with standard medical care...

Importance: The fibula free flap donor site is associated with both short-term and long-term morbidity. Split-thickness skin graft (STSG) loss can lead to long delays in donor site healing and is associated with significant adverse sequelae. Patients may experience initial good STSG uptake after bolster removal but may have subsequent partial or total loss related to contact pressure or shearing. Objective: To determine if increased duration of bolster use is associated with increased STSG uptake rates following fibula free flap reconstruction...

INTRODUCTION: In the gynecology emergency departments, a pregnancy of uncertain viability is diagnosed in 29% of all first-trimester pregnancy medical consultations that require an ultrasound. The question of pregnancy viability is therefore common in our medical practice and comes along with human implications. In 2014, the CNGOF (French National College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) promulgated clear guidelines regarding missed early miscarriage diagnosis and treatment. We wanted to evaluate our level of compliance with the diagnosis dimension of those guidelines and assess their optimization level since they were published...

The background and the aim of the work: The Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology of the "Carlo Poma" Hospital (Social Territorial Health Authority of Mantova), has pointed out in 2017, through the questionnaires survey over the citizens satisfaction, an appreciation decrease compared to the previous years. The obtained data were not sufficiently explanatory of the reasons for that kind of deterioration and also not enough specific to define possible corrective measures. The aim of this work was to identify the patients' perception regarding the hospitalization phases (from booking to follow up), taking into account five kind of operations and pathologies: 1st knee, shoulder and tibio-talar arthroscopy; 2nd hip and knee prosthesis; 3rd upper limb traumatology; 4th lower limb traumatology and 5th orthogeriatrics...

Objective: To investigate the changes of life quality in children with intermittent exotropia (IXT) and their parents 1 year after surgical treatment. Methods: Retrospective study. The scores of Chinese version of the intermittent exotropia questionnaire (CIXTQ) and follow-up visits at 1 week preoperatively and 3 months, 12 months postoperatively were collected from 122 IXT children with successful eye positions 3 months postoperatively and their parents in Department of Ophthalmology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from December 2015 to July 2016...

The versatile roles of toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems in bacterial physiology and pathogenesis have been investigated for more than three decades. Diverse TA loci in Bacteria and Archaea have been identified in genome-wide studies. The advent of massive parallel sequencing has substantially expanded the number of known bacterial genomic sequences over the last 5 years. In staphylococci, this has translated into an impressive increase from a few tens to a several thousands of available genomes, which has allowed us for the re-evalution of prior conclusions...

BACKGROUND: Nonembolic acute limb ischemia (ALI) is a condition characterized by a sudden decrease in limb perfusion and requires immediate interventions. There are multiple treatment options available including surgery, catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT), endovascular procedures, and hybrid treatment (a combination of open and endovascular techniques). Randomized trials provide information only on clinical efficacy, but not on economic outcomes. The objective of the study was to perform the cost-effective analysis comparing different treatment alternatives of ALI...

BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation is a common rhythm disturbance in the general medical-surgical intensive care unit. Amiodarone is a popular drug in this setting but evidence to inform clinical practice remains scarce. We aimed to identify whether variation in the clinical use of amiodarone was associated with recurrent atrial fibrillation. METHODS: This was a retrospective audit of 177 critically ill patients who developed new-onset atrial fibrillation after admission to a tertiary level medical-surgical trauma intensive care unit...

Biologic image guided radiotherapy (RT) with escalated doses to tumour sub volumes challenges today's RT dose planning and delivery systems. In this phantom study, we verify the capability of a clinical dose planning and delivery system to deliver an 18F-FDG-PET based dose painted treatment plan to a lung tumour. Furthermore, we estimate the uncertainties of the dose painted treatment compared to conventional RT plans. An anthropomorphic thorax phantom of polystyrene and polyurethane was constructed based on CT images of a lung cancer patient...

UNLABELLED: The essence of Dupuytryen's contracture is progressive process of fibrous overgrow of the subfascial sturctures of hand volar's surface. This is the reason of impaired range of the finger movement's and subsequent limitations of their function. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study group consist of 95 patients treated because of Dupuytryen contracture in the 2nd Chair of Surgery, Medical College of JagielIonian University between 2006-2011. The subjective evalution of increase of hand's function quality was based on DASH (Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand) questionnaire...

INTRODUCTION: Although chronic respiratory disorders are important causes of morbidity and mortality, health care workers, patients and caretakers are not well informed about these disorders. Therefore these problems are underdiagnosed and undertreated; also preventive measures are not widely taken. Our aim was to evaluate the knowledge of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Turkey. This study was designed and performed as a Global Alliance Against Respiratory Disorders (GARD) project...

Hypertension and Chronic kidney disease (CKD) are common in Nepal. Control of blood pressure (BP) in general hypertensive patients is poor. Evaluation of adequacy of BP control in CKD patients with hypertension is rare. All consecutive indoor patients (52) with CKD and hypertension, attending echo-lab of Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital during prospective study of 3 years period from 16th April 2008 to 15th April 2011, were evaluted. Mean age was 45.3 +/- 16.7 years. Male female ratio was 8:5. Brahman and Chhetri (22, 42...

INTRODUCTION: The German Cancer Aid funded 12 regional projects which developed different models of palliative home care. The realization of the projects were concurrently monitored and evaluated. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The funded projects were asked to document all patients who were cared for beginning in January 2009 using HOPE (Hospice and palliative survey), MIDOS (Minimal documentation system for palliative patients) and the Barthel index. Documentation was mandatory at the beginning and the end of care as well as when patients changed settings, for example when patients were transferred from a palliative care unit to a palliative home care service...

AIM: Subarachnoid anaesthesia has been demonstrated to be safe and effective in elderly patients. Isobaric Ropivacaine 0.5% has been recently introduced for subarachnoid anaesthesia: aim of our trial is to compare this drug with 0.5 Levobupivacaine in elderly patients scheduled for endoscopic urological surgery. METHODS: Premedication: Atropine 0.5 mg + Fenotiazine 50 mg im. Lumbar intrathecal anaesthesia, Group L (n=25) receiving Levobupivacaine 15 mg, Group R (n=25) receiving Ropivacaine 18...

OBJECTIVE: Sepsis remains a major cause of mortality in ICU patients, despite advances in therapy. Drotrecogin alpha (Drot AA), a recombinant human activated protein C with anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant properties, has proven to be successful in patients with at least one organ failure. Our goal was to evaluate the data in patients with sepsis and at least two organ dysfunctions in a large university hospital in Belgium. SETTING: The study was conducted at the medical and surgical intensive care units of the 1850-bed university hospital of Leuven, Belgium...

BACKGROUND: Research in homeopathy has traditionally addressed itself to defining the effectiveness of homeopathic potencies in comparison to placebo medication. There is now increasing awareness that the homeopathic consultation is in itself a therapeutic intervention working independently or synergistically with the prescribed remedy. Our objective was to identify and evalute potential "active ingredients" of the homeopathic approach as a whole, in a prospective formal case series, which draws on actual consultation data, and is based on the MRC framework for the evaluation of complex interventions...