Growing evidence indicates that inflammation plays an important role in cancer progression and prognosis; however, the prognostic role of platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in colorectal cancer (CRC) is unknown. A cohort of 1845 CRC patients from the Department of Surgical Oncology at The First Hospital of China Medical University (CMU-SO) was retrospectively analyzed. Harrell's concordance ind...

BACKGROUND Various studies have assessed the diagnostic accuracy of EGFR mutation-specific antibodies in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We performed a meta-analysis of existing data to investigate the diagnostic value of mutation-specific antibodies for detection of EGFR mutations in NSCLC. METHODS We systematically retrieved relevant studies from PubMed, Web of Knowledge, and Google Sch...

BACKGROUND The relationship between diabetic nephropathy, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and inflammation has been shown. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) are simple, inexpensive, and useful markers to determine inflammation. However, to date, in the literature, there have been no studies demonstrating the relationship between epicardial adipose ti...

PURPOSE To differentiate rod-cone-mediated pupil light reflexes (PLRs) from intrinsic melanopsin-mediated pupil light reflexes by comparing pupil responses with red and blue light stimuli of differing intensities in normal dog eyes and in those with sudden acquired retinal degeneration syndrome (SARDS) exhibiting a nonrecordable electroretinogram. METHODS The PLR was evaluated in 14 healthy d...

In this paper we consider the connection between the packet loss ratio (PLR) in a switch with a finite buffer of size L and the tail distribution of the corresponding infinite buffer queue Q. In the literature the PLR is often approximated with the tail probability P(Q > L), and in practice the latter is often a good conservative estimate on the PLR. Therefore, efforts have mainly focused on fi...

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is thought to flexibly regulate sensorimotor responses, perhaps through modulating activity in other circuits. However, the scope of that control remains unknown: it remains unclear whether the PFC can modulate basic reflexes. One canonical example of a central reflex is the pupil light reflex (PLR): the automatic constriction of the pupil in response to luminance in...

OBJECTIVE In this study, we aimed to investigate the relation of platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in saphenous vein graft disease (SVGD) in patients with stable angina pectoris after coronary artery bypass graft surgery. METHODS A total of 455 patients were included in the study. There were 210 patients with SVGD and 245 patients without SVGD. The effects of different variables on SVGD were...

BACKGROUND Pulse palpation has been recommended as the first step of screening to detect atrial fibrillation. We aimed to determine and compare the accuracy of different methods for detecting pulse irregularities caused by atrial fibrillation. METHODS We systematically searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and LILACS until 16 March 2015. Two reviewers identified eligible studies, extracted data an...

This paper examines the origin of the Public Lending Right and the UK Public Lending Right Act 1979. It analyses whether the public lending right (PLR) that exists in some European countries, Canada and Australia may form the basis of establishing a PLR in South Africa's public libraries following a debate by the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors' Association of South Africa (ANFASA) as to wheth...