OBJECTIVE To study the long-term recurrence rate and other complications after conventional and laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA Reliable long-term follow-up of patients with inguinal hernias treated by laparoscopic repair techniques is lacking. METHODS The authors performed a randomized, multicenter trial in which 487 patients with inguinal hernia were treated b...

BACKGROUND Controlled delivery of radiofrequency energy (SECCA procedure) as treatment for anal incontinence (AI) was introduced 15 years ago. Since then, several clinical studies have emerged. This article evaluates the clinical response and sustainability of SECCA for patients with AI. METHODS Only original clinical studies retrieved from PubMed and Medline were included. The outcome measur...

We examined clinical aspects of Benign Paroxysmal Vertigo (BPV) in infancy and its most frequent differential diagnosis, in particular analogies and differences with forms of "migrainous vertigo" (MV) of later onset. During a long-term follow-up of 7 cases of BPV, diagnosed according to the Basser criteria, 5 of 7 BPV cases spontaneously resolved and 6 of 7 patients later developed migraine and...

Recurrent event data occur in many clinical and observational studies, and in these situations, there may exist a terminal event such as death that is related to the recurrent event of interest. In addition, sometimes more than one type of recurrent events may occur, that is, one may encounter multivariate recurrent event data with some dependent terminal event. For the analysis of such data, o...

A 24-week randomized open-label study with Korean red ginseng (KRG) showed cognitive benefits in patients with Alzheimer's disease. To further determine long-term effect of KRG, the subjects were recruited to be followed up to 2 yr. Cognitive function was evaluated every 12 wk using the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS) and the Korean version of the Mini Mental Status Examination (K-M...

OBJECTIVES This study is designed to examine the immediate and short-term outcomes of patients who have undergone slow pathway ablation/modification for atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia. BACKGROUND Targeting the slow pathway has emerged as the superior form of treatment for atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia. This technique has been found effective and is associated with...

Executive functions are highly sensitive to the effects of aging and other conditions affecting frontal lobe function. Yet there are few validated interventions specifically designed to address executive functions, and, to our knowledge, none validated in a healthy aging sample. As part of a large-scale cognitive rehabilitation randomized trial in 49 healthy older adults, a modified Goal Manage...

OBJECTIVE To describe the relative effectiveness of a short versus long course of family-based therapy (FBT) for adolescent anorexia nervosa at long-term follow-up. METHOD This study used clinical and structured interviews to assess psychological and psychosocial outcomes of adolescents (ages 12-18 years at baseline) who were previously treated in a randomized clinical trial using family ther...

BACKGROUND Many years of bracing represent a burden to the patients. Early weaning may be the result of poor compliance, but may also be planned in patients with a long expected treatment time and a reduced stable primary curve during bracing. The aim of the present cohort study was to compare curve size, health related quality of life and surgical rates at long-term follow-up after ordinary br...

This study examined the effects of long-term lithium therapy on memory functions in 18 patients suffering from bipolar affective disorder. Patients were retested on the Wechsler Memory Scale, Benton Visual Retention Test, and Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale 6 years after initial testing. Mean memory test scores remained remarkably stable over the 6-year interval with only one of the 10 memory...