BACKGROUND The convergence of rising health care costs and physician shortages have made health care transformation a priority in many countries resulting in the emergence of new models of care that often involve the extension of the scope of practice for allied health professionals. Physiotherapists in advanced practice/extended scope roles have emerged as key providers in such new models, esp...

This review assessed the most up-to-date literature on the accuracy of detecting vertical root fractures (VRFs] using the currently available diagnostic imaging methods. In addition, an overview of the biological and clinical aspects of VRFs will also be discussed. A systematic review of the literature was initiated in December of 2015 and then updated in May of 2016. The electronic databases s...

background motion artifacts that degrade image quality of coronary ct angiography (ccta) in patients with high heart rates may be reduced with specific automatic motion correction algorithms (amc). conclusions ccta image quality improves significantly with amc in patients with high heart rates and reduces the proportion of non-diagnostic examinations. results mean heart rate during ccta was 61 ...

Decisions in healthcare should be based on information obtained according to the principles of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM). An increasing number of systematic reviews are published which summarize the results of prevalence studies. Interpretation of the results of these reviews should be accompanied by an appraisal of the methodological quality of the included data and studies. The critical a...

BACKGROUND Dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) is an accepted test for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD), despite its wide diagnostic accuracy. AIM Which factors cause test variability of DSE for the diagnosis of CAD. METHODS In a retrospective analysis of 46 studies in 5,353 patients, the potential causes of diagnostic variability were systematically analyzed, including p...

We carried out a critical appraisal and synthesis of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses of remote monitoring for heart failure. A comprehensive literature search identified 65 relevant publications from 3333 citations. Seventeen studies fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Seven (41%) systematic reviews pooled results for meta-analysis. Eight (47%) considered all non-invasive r...

OBJECTIVES The aims of this review were to calculate the diagnostic accuracy statistics of risk scales following self-harm and consider which might be the most useful scales in clinical practice. DESIGN Systematic review. METHODS We based our search terms on those used in the systematic reviews carried out for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence self-harm guidelines (2012)...

Non-invasive tests for the detection of peripheral artery disease (PAD) among individuals with diabetes mellitus are important to estimate the risk of amputation, ulceration, wound healing and the presence of cardiovascular disease, yet there are no consensus recommendations to support a particular diagnostic modality over another and to evaluate the performance of index non-invasive diagnostic...

To the Editor: I wish to comment on several methodological issues in a recent systematic review and meta-analysis on the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound-guided core-needle biopsy for head and neck lesions. This study suffers from several problems that are commonly seen in meta-analyses of diagnostic accuracy studies. First, meta-analysis requires specialized statistical methods to synthesize ...