BACKGROUND Central venous access devices are used for chemotherapy and other medication administration, blood product administration, parenteral nutrition, and for obtaining blood samples in patients where the vasculature is difficult to access. Patients may need additional blood samples prior to invasive procedures and when clinical situations arise during cancer care. In addition, monitoring ...

on penicillin treatment of early syphilis in your issue of October 1947 (p. 588) that the correct designation for ? Wassermann reaction is doubtful and not weakly positive as I had stated. In this connection I would refer you to :? 1. The League of Nations' report of the laboratory conference on the serodiagnosis of syphilis held at Montevideo in 1930. It is stated in the explanatory note on bl...

Since the ancient discovery of the 'sweet odor' in human breath gas, pursuits of the breath analysis-based disease diagnostics have never stopped. Actually, the 'smell' of the breath, as one of three key disease diagnostic techniques, has been used in Eastern-Medicine for more than three thousand years. With advancement of measuring technologies in sensitivity and selectivity, more specific bre...

In the UK clinical psychology is in demand. Training courses are being commissioned to provide more places each year. Currently (2001), 30 courses exist and train over 400 people per year, almost exclusively on 3 year doctoral degrees, which require supervised practice, academic ability and research skills. "Clinical psychology aims to reduce psychological distress and to enhance and promote ps...

Effective pre-operative assessment of patients awaiting elective surgery should entail appropriate use of scarce NHS resources, as well as underpin patient safety. The pre-operative admissions service in district general hospitals is often junior doctor led, with a new cohort of clinicians taking over its running every four months. Lack of familiarity on the part of these clinicians with the in...

A new serological technique of diagnosing human hydatid disease, employing polystyrene latex particles coated with hydatid cyst fluid, and a modified technique using bentonite particles are described. Comparison of the latex test with the complement-fixation test performed on 102 sera has shown a total agreement of 98% and an agreement of 93.1% in the positive specimens. The bentonite test and ...

Hypersensitivity to suture anchor is extremely rare. Herein, we present a case in which hypersensitivity to suture anchor was strongly suspected. The right rotator cuff of a 50-year-old woman was repaired with a metal suture anchor. Three weeks after the surgery, she developed erythema around her face, trunk, and hands, accompanied by itching. Infection was unlikely because no abnormalities wer...

The aim of the present study was to compare the clinical effectiveness of an iodine-eluting stent with a conventional stent in patients with advanced esophageal cancer. Patients with malignant esophageal cancer were randomly assigned to receive a conventional stent (group A) or an iodine-eluting stent (group B). Following implantation, the relief from dysphagia, survival time, routine blood tes...

BACKGROUND The patterns, performance characteristics, and yield of diagnostic tests ordered for the evaluation of acute kidney injury (AKI) have not been rigorously evaluated. METHODS We characterized the frequency of AKI diagnostic testing for urine, blood, radiology, and pathology tests in all adult inpatients who were admitted with or developed AKI (N = 4903 patients with 5731 AKI episodes...

PURPOSE To date, more than thirty nine genetic loci have been associated with congenital cataracts. Despite this progress, current diagnostic techniques are insufficient for unraveling the underlying genetic defect in sporadic patients and small families. In the present manuscript we demonstrate the contribution of routine laboratory tests in the search for genetic defects of childhood cataract...