Patients with an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and non-specific symptoms often pose a diagnostic dilemma. PET/CT visualises infection, inflammation and malignancy, all of which may cause elevated ESR. The objective of this study was to determine the contribution of 18F-fluorodeoxglucose positron emission tomography (PET/CT) in the diagnostic work-up of referred patients with an ...

due to increasing worldwide water pollution, fish might be a source of excessive zinc, mercury, arsenic or  manganese  intake. the  aim  of  this  study  was  to  evaluate if  fish atopy/sensitization and fish consumption behavior are associated with eczema severity and blood levels of the 4 heavy metals. one-hundred and nineteen patients with eczema and 43 patients with miscellaneous non-eczem...

Prothrombin, both by a one- and a two-stage method, and progressive antithrombin were determined on the same plasma samples from 47 patients with cirrhosis and 27 patients with acute hepatitis. In the first group prothrombin estimated by the two-stage method was significantly higher than by the one-stage method. The values were often within the normal range and were not correlated with the indi...

BACKGROUND We aimed to evaluate the predictive utility of common fasting insulin sensitivity indices, and non-laboratory surrogates [BMI, waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR)] in sub-Saharan Africans without diabetes. METHODS We measured fasting glucose and insulin, and glucose uptake during 80/mU/m2/min euglycemic clamp in 87 Cameroonians (51 men) aged (SD) 34.6 (11.4) y...

Temporal aggregation is an intuitively appealing approach to deal with demand uncertainty. There are two types of temporal aggregation: non-overlapping and overlapping. Most the supply chain forecasting literature has focused so far on former there no research that analyses latter for auto-correlated demands. In addition, most analytical to-date assumes infinite series’ lengths whereas, in prac...

background: lead is a toxic element which causes acute, subacute or chronic poisoning through environmental and occupational exposure. the aim of this study was to investigate clinical and laboratory abnormalities of chronic lead poisoning among workers of a car battery industry. methods: questionnaires and forms were designed and used to record demographic data, past medical histories and clin...

OBJECTIVES Manganese exposure leads to diffuse cerebral metal deposition with the highest concentration in the globus pallidus associated with increased T1-weighted MRI signal. T1 signal intensity in extra-pallidal basal ganglia (caudate and putamen) has not been studied in occupationally exposed workers. Diffusion weighted imaging is a non-invasive measure of neuronal damage and may provide a ...