OBJECTIVES This study analyzed the effect of the beta(1)-selective beta-blocker metoprolol succinate controlled release/extended release (CR/XL) once daily on mortality, hospitalizations and tolerability in patients with severe heart failure. BACKGROUND There continues to be resistance to the incorporation of beta-blockers into clinical care, largely due to concerns about their benefit in pat...

We evaluated the effectiveness of high dose rate (HDR) endobronchial irradiation for palliation of malignant airway obstruction. Between May 1989 and February 1992, 39 patients were treated in our department. Thirty-two patients (82 percent) had primary lung neoplasms and 7 (18 percent) had metastatic disease. Thirty-three patients (85 percent) had prior external irradiation (either alone or in...

We report on the absolute calibration of amicro channel plate (MCP) detector, installed asdetector in a Thomson parabola spectrometer. Thecalibration delivers the relation between a registeredcount numbers in the CCD camera (on which the MCPphosphor screen is imaged) as a result of the impact ofan ion beam onto the MCP. The particle response ofthe whole detection...

BACKGROUND Endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) is the gold standard method for the diagnosis of cellular rejection (CR) after heart transplantation (HT). OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) could detect CR > 3A and add diagnostic information compared to conventional Doppler. METHODS Fifty-four HT patients underwent 129 EMB and a TDI echocardiographic study within 24 h...

Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCL) have suboptimal outcomes using conventional CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone) chemotherapy. The anti-folate pralatrexate, the first drug approved for patients with relapsed/refractory PTCL, provided a rationale to incorporate it into the front-line setting. This phase 2 study evaluated a novel front-line combination whereby cyclopho...

BACKGROUND Control of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) is an important step towards tuberculosis elimination. Preventive treatment will prevent the development of disease in most cases diagnosed with LTBI. However, low initiation and completion rates affect the effectiveness of preventive treatment. The objective was to systematically review data on initiation rates and completion rates for...

There are several methods of measuring radon concentrations but nuclear track detector cylindrical dosimeters are widely employed. In this investigation, the consequence of effective volumes of the dosimeters on the registration of alpha tracks in a CR-39 detector was studied. In a series of experiments an optimum radius for a CR-39-based open cylindrical radon dosimeter was found to be about 3...

Introduction: In this study, we investigated contaminants in sediments of reverse osmosis water systems in Iraqi households. These filters are imported from the US and Taiwan and are available in the Iraqi market. The rate of environmental pollutions in residues of the water filters was examined by measuring alpha particles emission rates and the concentration of heavy metals. Material and Met...

The aim of this paper is to determine the maximum values of the track length (Lmax) of alpha particles in Nuclear Track Detector (type CR-39) using a new method by taking the relation between the etching time and the diameter square of alpha particle with different energies at constant bulk etch rate VB (1.45 μm/hr) by using TRACK_TEST program from Brun et al. function and Yu et al. function. U...

Within the framework of the grant of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education entitled Seasonal changes of indoor radon (222Rn) concentrations of Poland (N506 1127 33) radon laboratories united in the Radon Center – the Non-governmental International Scientific Network – perform measurements of radon concentration in houses located in various areas of Poland. These laboratories belon...