BACKGROUND National guidelines suggest the use of natriuretic peptides in suspected heart failure but there have been no studies comparing assays in primary care. AIM To test and compare the diagnostic accuracy and utility of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide (NT proBNP) in diagnosing heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction in patien...

OBJECTIVE To assess the validity of the International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes for identifying patients with dyslipidemia in electronic medical record (EMR) data. METHODS The EMRs of patients receiving primary care in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), Canada, were retrieved from the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network database. International Classificati...

STUDY OBJECTIVES Acute respiratory failure (ARF) can be treated with either invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) or noninvasive mechanical ventilation (NIMV), which can spare the complications of artificial airways. To evaluate the efficacy of an integrated approach using negative pressure ventilation (NPV) with iron lung and noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NPPV), we performed a pro...

Objectives: To define diagnostic performance of magnetic resonance cholangiography (MRC) at the Clinic Center (Hospital de Clínicas) and to compare it with data reported in international bibliography. Methods: A retrospective study was undertaken; 126 MRC examinations were done to 126 patients within the period December 2010-July 2013. The results were correlated with endoscopic retrograde chol...

Two of the most promising new remote sensing technologies for increasing accuracy and efficiency of forest inventory are tree-wise or stand-wise measurements of airborne laser scanner data or 2(2D) and 3-dimensional measurements (3D) of digital aerial photographs. The aim of the study was to compare 3D measurements of digital aerial photographs and laser scanning to 2D measurements of digital a...

AIM to get a recommendation on the best frailty syndrome diagnostic tools, that will be able to be practiced on a daily setting in Indonesia. METHODS this is a cross-sectional study with diagnostic test approach, conducted to patients in the Geriatric Outpatient Clinic of Cipto Mangunkusumo National Referral Hospital on May-June 2013. Each subject underwent a frailty evaluation using CHS, SOF...

OBJECTIVE To asses the value of second-look ultrasound (US) for identifying BIRADS 3 (Breast Imaging Reporting Data System) mammary lesions detected by breast Magnetic Resonance imaging (MRI). MATERIALS AND METHODS From April 2008 to May 2009 330 breast MRI were performed of which 60 patients are classified as BIRADS 3. 84 lesions underwent second-look US and percutaneous vacuum biopsy Vacora...

UTI is the most common hospital acquired infections, accounting for 35% in hospitalized patients. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of UTI in CKD patients is necessary to prevent grievous complications. The objective of this study is to determine diagnostic accuracy of multi dipstick tests for detecting UTI in CKD population and study spectrum of UTI in CKD. CKD patients attending Nephrology...

Validation of a PCR test to detect hilA gene sequences of Salmonella spp. was performed in blood and faeces samples from typhoid fever and salmonellosis patients. Sensitivity (S), specificity (SP), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the PCR in blood samples were performed by testing: 37 patients with clinical diagnosis of typhoid fever, 34 of them confirmed b...