The purpose was to examine changes in overall and gestational age-specific proportions and rates of fetal death, first day death (<24 h), and combined fetal-first day death from 1990-1991 to 2001-2002. Changes were considered by race/ethnicity. Deliveries to U.S. white, black, and Hispanic mothers were selected from the NCHS linked live ...

The volume and clearance rate of blood in the basal cisterns and ventricles are important predictors of complications following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Thus, there is a strong rationale for interventions aimed at accelerating the clearance of blood. We systematically searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane databases, references of review articles and ...

STUDY DESIGN.: A basic science study monitoring changes in the curvature of hand contoured commercially pure titanium (CPTi), titanium-aluminum-vanadium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V), and stainless steel (SS) rods maintained at different temperature conditions. OBJECTIVE.: To quantify changes in rod-shape at temperatures representative of those used in clinical practice. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA.: ...

STUDY DESIGN.: Retrospective analysis, survey. OBJECTIVE.: To describe a cohort of individuals with achondroplasia undergoing thoracolumbar laminectomy and to examine if shorter time to surgery was related to improvement in long-term functional outcome. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA.: Data on the long-term benefits of laminectomy are mixed for such patients. Earlier ...

Previous research has reported that transgender women are likely to be exposed to HIV through unprotected sex with a male primary partner. We examined prevalence and correlates of unprotected sex with a primary male partner in a sample of n = 174 transgender women. Participants completed surveys on demographic characteristics, relationship dynamics ...

Summary.  Our study examined the association between GB virus C (GBV-C) and (i) hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection status, (ii) biomedical indicators of liver disease (alanine and aspartate aminotransferases) and (iii) HCV RNA level among young injection drug users (IDUs) recruited using street outreach and respondent-driven methods. Cross-sectional and longitudinal ...

The arylamine N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) slow acetylation phenotype is an established risk factor for urinary bladder cancer. We reported earlier on this risk association using NAT2 phenotypic categories inferred from NAT2 haplotypes based on seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a study in Spain. In a subsequent genome-wide scan, we ...

Background:  The second derivative of the photoplethysmogram (SDPTG) has been verified as a useful method for analyzing pulse wave form in adults; however, there have been few studies on the SDPTG in children. Methods:  We examined age-related alteration of SDPTG (study 1) and the SDPTG response to a vasodilator (study ...

The objective of this study was to find very early viral kinetic markers to predict nonresponse to hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy in a group of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/HCV-coinfected patients. Twenty-six patients (15 HCV genotype-1 and 11 genotype-3) were treated with a 48-week regimen of peginterferon-alfa-2a (PEG-IFN) (180 μg/week) ...

Nevus sebaceus (NS) is a congenital skin hamartoma that presents in childhood. Tumors may arise within these lesions over time. Mutations in the PTCH gene have been associated with both NS and some of the developing tumors. Only nine documented cases of basal cell carcinoma arising in nevus sebaceus in ...

Ice therapy has long been used as first line treatment of supraventricular tachycardia in neonates. We report a case of cold panniculitis developing in a 12-day-old neonate after ice therapy for cardiac arrhythmia. This is the first biopsy-proved case of cold panniculitis following ice therapy for supraventricular tachycardia in a ...

Albright hereditary osteodystrophy with pseudohypoparathyroidism is due to maternal loss-of-function mutations in the GNAS gene. Its typical clinical features encompass obesity, a round face and a short neck, osteoma of the skin, endocrinological abnormalities, and psychomotoric retardation. Here we present a 10-month-old Tunisian boy with a classical course of this ...

Recent studies have suggested that protease-activated receptor-2 (PAR-2) activity correlates with cell proliferation and tumor growth, and its activation induces expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). However, no previous reports have investigated PAR-2 signaling pathways in bile duct cancer. The aim of this study was to determine whether PAR-2 activation can regulate ...

Only a few studies have documented the characteristics of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) associated with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). We aimed to clarify the clinical and histopathological characteristics of IBD associated with PSC (PSC-IBD). Twenty-nine patients with PSC and 60 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) but without complicating PSC were ...

Subepidermal calcified nodule (SCN) is a rare form of calcinosis cutis that presents as a solitary verrucous nodule on the face. Here, we report an unusual case of SCN. A healthy 2-year-old boy presented with multiple, round, hard, yellow-white to erythematous lesions on his right thigh. Histopathologic examination of a ...

Propranolol is a new and promising treatment for hemangiomas of infancy. We report of a patient in whom steroid maintenance therapy is successfully tapered after introduction of propranolol. This patient, however, developed symptomatic hypoglycemic events presumably because of a concurrent deficiency of epinephrine and cortisol as a direct result of ...

Human activities impact marine ecosystems at a global scale and all levels of complexity of life. Despite their importance as key players in ecosystem processes, the stress caused to microorganisms has been greatly neglected. This fact is aggravated by difficulties in the analysis of microbial communities and their high diversity, ...

Case of an 18-month-old child with congenital lymphedema subsequently diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis and Hirschsprung disease.

Since quinine was first isolated, animals, plants and microorganisms producing a wide variety of quinolone compounds have been discovered, several of which possess medicinally interesting properties ranging from antiallergenic and anticancer to antimicrobial activities. Over the years, these have served in the development of many synthetic drugs, including the successful ...

STUDY DESIGN.: Retrospective cohort analysis. OBJECTIVE.: To investigate health-related quality of life improvements in patients undergoing lumbar fusion to revise a previous lumbar spine surgery. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA.: Spinal fusion is often used as a surgical intervention in patients who have previously undergone lumbar surgery. Prior studies suggest results ...

Retrospective analysis of prospectively collected database. To analyze the rate of complications, including neurologic deficits, associated with operative treatment of pediatric isthmic and dysplastic spondylolisthesis. Pediatric isthmic and dysplastic spondylolisthesis are relatively uncommon dis-orders. Several prior studies have suggested a high rate of complication associated with operative intervention. How-ever, most ...

Notch1 genes encode receptors for a signaling pathway that regulates cell growth and differentiation in various contexts, but the role of Notch1 signaling in osteogenesis is not well defined. Notch1 controls osteoblast differentiation by affecting Runx2, but the question arises whether normal osteoblastic differentiation can occur regardless of the presence ...

Cohort study of incident bacterial vaginosis (BV) in Australian students. BV only occurred in vaginally sexually active women (BV incidence = 2.2 [95% confidence interval, 0.8-4.9]/100 woman-years), and no incident BV occurred in women who did not engage in vaginal sex during the cohort period (0 [95% confidence interval, 0-3.2]/100 ...

Farming and agricultural pesticide use has been associated with 2 autoimmune rheumatic diseases, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). However, risk associated with other residential or work place insecticide use is unknown. We analyzed data from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (n = 76,861 postmenopausal women, ages ...

Alcohol use has been linked to risky sexual practices among adolescents. However, limited research on alcohol use and risky sexual behavior has been conducted on African-American female adolescents. This study examined high quantity of alcohol as a longitudinal predictor of risky sexual behavior and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among African-American ...

The selective cathepsin K inhibitor odanacatib (ODN) progressively increased bone mineral density (BMD) and decreased bone-resorption markers during 2 years of treatment in postmenopausal women with low BMD. A 1-year extension study further assessed ODN efficacy and safety and the effects of discontinuing therapy. In the base study, postmenopausal women ...

Research has established a significant relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and pain; however, very little research has examined the differential role of PTSD symptom clusters on pain outcomes. (a) To confirm the most appropriate PTSD symptom factor structure for an orofacial pain population and (b) to test a ...

Recent research suggests that older listeners may have difficulty processing information related to the fundamental frequency (F0) of voiced speech. In this study, the focus was on the mechanisms that may underlie this reduced ability. We examined whether increased age resulted in decreased ability to perceive F0 using fine-structure cues ...

systematic review and meta-analysis. to assess how confidently low back pain (LBP) can be attributed to abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and thereby explore the potential value of MRI abnormalities in refining case definition for mechanical LBP in epidemiological research. most epidemiological studies of mechanical LBP have defined cases ...

The introduction of automated treponemal enzyme immunoassays and chemiluminescence assays (EIA/CA) tests has led some laboratories in the United States to use new syphilis screening algorithms that start with a treponemal test. We compared the economic and health outcomes of this new algorithm with the standard algorithm from the perspective ...

To assess the correlations between a patient's subjective perception of metamorphopsia and the clinical measurements of metamorphopsia by M-CHARTS and PreView PHP (PHP). The authors designed a 10-item questionnaire focusing on the symptoms of metamorphopsia and verified its validity with a Rasch analysis. M-CHARTS measured the minimum visual angle of ...

SOX2, a high-mobility group transcription factor, is expressed by retinal progenitors during development. It has been associated with the ability of progenitor cells to differentiate into retinal neurons and is highly expressed by human Müller stem cells (hMSCs) in culture. The authors investigated the role of this factor in the ...

Digital ulcers are a common complication of systemic sclerosis (SSc; scleroderma). Approximately half of SSc patients have had a digital ulcer, but information is lacking on whether digital ulcers are associated with patient demographics and clinical outcomes. We wanted to determine the associations between digital ulcers and other SSc vascular ...

Osteo-odonto keratoprosthesis is one of the most successful forms of keratoprosthesis surgery for end-stage corneal and ocular surface disease. There is a lack of detailed comparison studies on the biocompatibilities of different materials used in keratoprosthesis. The aim of this investigation was to compare synthetic bioinert materials used for keratoprosthesis ...

The aim of this study was to determine the antifungal activity of lawsone methyl ether mouthwash (LME) in comparison with chlorhexidine mouthwash (CHX) in vitro and in vivo. For in vitro study, each mouthwash preparation was added into the inoculum of Candida. The turbidity was recorded after incubation at 37°C ...

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common chronic pediatric rheumatic disease and can have long-term effects leading to disability in adulthood. Biologics are a new class of drugs increasingly used to treat JIA. The primary study objective was to determine the incremental costs of biologics per additional responder compared ...

Lymphatic dysfunctions are associated with many diseases, ranging from cancer metastasis to transplant rejection, for which there is little effective treatment. To date, there is no natural model with which to study lymphatic regression. This study was conducted to investigate whether murine cornea, an extensively exploited tissue for vascular studies, ...

J Oral Pathol Med (2011) 40: 103-110 Internal derangement (ID) of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is due to an abnormal relationship of the articular disc to the mandibular condyle, glenoid fossa and articular eminence. The two most common types of internal derangement are anterior disc displacement with (ADDwR) and without ...

Oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) is a model for human retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). In OIR mice, this study determined whether blockade of β-adrenergic receptors (β-ARs) with propranolol influences retinal levels of proangiogenic factors, retinal vascularization, and blood-retinal barrier (BRB) breakdown. Propranolol was administered subcutaneously and picropodophyllin (PPP) intraperitoneally. Intravitreal injections of ...

To investigate whether there is transsynaptic degeneration in the human optic tract in hemianopia. To consider how the degeneration varies with duration of hemianopia and location of insult. Seven patients with damage to the primary visual cortex (V1), the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), or the optic tract were scanned with ...

For the validation of complex diffusion imaging techniques like q-ball imaging that aim to resolve multiple fiber directions, appropriate phantoms are highly desirable. However, previous q-ball imaging phantoms had diffusion anisotropies well below those of in vivo white matter. In this work, fiber phantoms of well-defined geometry are presented. The ...

To identify whether static and dynamic aspects of accommodation other than accuracy are deficient in individuals with Down syndrome (DS) and whether poor accommodation is related to sensory or motor pathway deficits. Static aspects of accommodation (maximum accommodative response and lag) were measured with an autorefractor for both proximal and ...

The last 3 syphilis epidemics in the United States peaked after 5 to 6 years, but rates have now increased for 8 years. We questioned whether persons with multiple syphilis diagnoses (repeaters) are fueling the epidemic. The Florida Department of Health database of all syphilis cases reported between 2000 and ...

To investigate whether relative peripheral hyperopia is a risk factor for either the onset of myopia in children or the rate of myopic progression. The risk of myopia onset was assessed in 2043 nonmyopic third-grade children (mean age ± SD = 8.8 ± 0.52 years) participating in the Collaborative Longitudinal ...

There is an unmet need for the treatment of adult Still's disease (ASD), the pathogenesis of which may involve interleukin-6 (IL-6). We report the first series of patients with ASD treated with tocilizumab (TCZ), a humanized anti-IL-6 receptor antibody. All ASD patients treated with TCZ in France between July 2006 ...

Decellularization of animal corneas is a promising method for the development of artificial human corneas by tissue engineering. In this study, two different decellularization protocols were evaluated to determine which one is able to best preserve the histologic structure, composition, and optical behavior of decellularized porcine corneas. Then, these corneas ...

Terra firma-forme dermatosis (TFFD) is an idiopathic condition characterized by asymptomatic, dirtlike, thinly papillomatous, hyperpigmented plaques which cannot be removed with routine cleansing, but clear with firm wiping with 70% isopropyl or ethyl alcohol. Commonly involved sites include the neck, trunk, and umbilicus. Most reports have described adolescents or young ...

In current TNM stage system, T4 lesions represent a complex group and should be considered to further optimize the classification. This study evaluates the significance of adhesion pattern in T4 subclassification based on prognostic analysis of T4N0M0 colorectal cancer following en bloc multivisceral resection (MVR). Prospectively collected data (1992-2004) were ...

In this article, we present a 3D imaging technique, applying center-out RAdial Sampling with Off-Resonance reception, to accurately depict and localize small paramagnetic objects with high positive contrast while suppressing long T(2) (*) components. The center-out RAdial Sampling with Off-Resonance reception imaging technique is a fully frequency-encoded 3D ultrashort echo ...

To determine whether hypertonic stress promotes increases in inflammatory cytokine release through transient receptor potential vanilloid channel type 1 (TRPV1) signaling pathway activation in human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs). Hyperosmotic medium was prepared by supplementing isotonic Ringers solution with sucrose. Ca2+ signaling was measured in fura2-AM-loaded HCECs using a single-cell ...