OBJECTIVES The purpose of this paper was to assess the link between left atrial (LA) volume at diagnosis and outcome of patients with mitral regurgitation (MR). BACKGROUND Left atrial enlargement is a consequence of organic MR, but its association with clinical outcome independently of MR severity is uncertain. METHODS We prospectively enrolled 492 patients (age 63 +/- 15 years, 60% men) in...

introduction: the berlin questionnaire (bq) is a common tool to screen for obstructive sleep apnea (osa) in the general population, but its application in the clinical sleep setting is still challenging. the aim of this study was to determine the specificity and sensitivity of the bq compared to the apnea-hypopnea index obtained from polysomnography recordings obtained from a sleep clinic in ir...

BACKGROUND Sjogren's syndrome is the leading cause for aqueous tear-deficiency dry eye. Little is known regarding the relationship between Sjogren's syndrome dry eye (SSDE) and patients' medical expenditure, clinical severity and psychological status changes. METHODS Thirty-four SSDE patients and thirty non-Sjogren's syndrome dry eye (non-SSDE) subjects were enrolled. They were required to co...

BACKGROUND Fibromyalgia (FM) is characterized by chronic, widespread pain, fatigue, and other symptoms; yet few studies have comprehensively assessed its humanistic burden. This observational study evaluates the impact of FM severity on patients' symptoms, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and productivity in the United States. METHODS 203 FM subjects were recruited from 20 physician of...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is defined by persistent airflow limitation that is usually progressive [1], and its severity has long been classified using forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) % predicted. Although levels of FEV1 were often reported to predict mortality, the observation that other pulmonary and extrapulmonary variables also predicted mortality led to the develop...

OBJECTIVE Elevated values of body mass index (BMI) have been associated with higher prevalence of asthma in adults. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the association between obesity and asthma severity. METHODS Medical records of two hundred patients older than 20 years of age were evaluated retrospectively. Asthma severity was established after the evaluation of the medical history...