INTRODUCTION Intra-operative complications like mechanical damages to the leads, infections and hematomas during generator replacements of implantable pacemakers and defibrillators contribute to additional costs for hospitals. The aim of this study was to evaluate operation room use, costs and budget impact of generator replacements using either a traditional surgical intervention (TSI) with sc...

BACKGROUND Exposure to ozone has been associated with adverse health effects, including premature mortality and cardiopulmonary and respiratory morbidity. In 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lowered the primary (health-based) National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone to 75 ppb, expressed as the fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hr average over a 24-hr period. Base...

Most humans have detectable body burdens of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), and p,p'-dichlorophenyldichloroethylene p,p'-DDE), a metabolite of p,p'-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). Native American communities may be at increased risk of exposure through subsistence-based diets and greater physical contact with contaminated soil and water. In this article we desc...

Fescue foot, summer syndrome, reproductive problems, and ryegrass staggers are all diseases of livestock related to endophyte toxins in pasture grasses. Range finding experiments and case studies of fescue foot relative to ergovaline toxin found in endophyte infected tall fescue and lolitrem B present in endophyte infected perennial ryegrass were conducted. Within 42 d of initiating a feeding t...

The purpose of this study was to observe the effects of low doses of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) on responses to common vaccines and levels of serum cations in broilers. Male broilers at 7 d of age were fed control (no AFB1), a 75 µg of AFB1/kg (75 ppb of AFB1) diet, or a 750 µg of AFB1/kg (750 ppb of AFB1) diet. The 750 ppb of AFB1 diet resulted in a temporary increase in ELISA titers against Newcastl...

BACKGROUND Measurement of nitric oxide (NO) in exhaled air shows promise as a non-invasive method of detecting lung inflammation. However, variable concentrations of NO are measured in environmental air. The aim of this study was to verify a possible relationship between exhaled NO and atmospheric NO values during high atmospheric NO days. METHOD Exhaled air from 78 healthy non-smokers of mea...

Nitric oxide (NO) is known to be an important inflammatory mediator with a potential role in gastrointestinal diseases. We prospectively studied the luminal NO levels in 51 patients with infectious gastroenteritis, 35 patients with nonenteric bacterial infections, and 11 healthy control subjects. The levels of proinflammatory cytokines were simultaneously measured in the stools of patients with...

Rapid separation and determination of mixtures of L-ascorbic acid, nitrite, sulfite, oxalate, iodide and thiosulfate by conventional ion chromatography is often difficult due to incomplete separation of L-ascorbic acid and nitrite from the water peak when using eluents giving short elution times for iodide and thiosulfate. Separation of the six species within about 15 min has been achieved by i...