BACKGROUND To analyze the association of health care costs with predisposing, enabling, and need factors, as defined by Andersen's behavioral model of health care utilization, in the German elderly population. METHODS Using a cross-sectional design, cost data of 3,124 participants aged 57-84 years in the 8-year-follow-up of the ESTHER cohort study were analyzed. Health care utilization in a 3...

BACKGROUND Liver transplant recipients frequently develop acute kidney injury (AKI), but the predisposing factors and long-term consequences of AKI are not well understood. The aims of this study were to identify predisposing factors for early post-transplant AKI and the impact of AKI on patient and graft survival and to construct a model to predict AKI using clinical variables. METHODS In th...

OBJECTIVE To study the clinical and microbiological characteristics of pediatric microbial keratitis in Taiwan. METHODS The medical records of 81 eyes with microbial keratitis in 78 children aged 16 years or younger who were diagnosed and treated at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, from July 1, 1998, through December 31, 2002, were retrospectively reviewed. Predisposing factors, ...

Venous intestinal ischemia is a relatively rare disease, which has some predisposing factor up to 80 % of cases. These factors may be temporary or permanent. Cancer, immobilization, trauma, intraabdominal infections, or oral contraceptives are temporary factors. Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and hypercoagulability states as factor V Leiden, G20210A mutation in prothrombin gene, C677T meth...

Background information The role of leg length discrepancy (LLD) has been implicated in certain types of scoliosis [1]. Scoliotic LLD has been suggested as a result of rotation of the innominate bones [2]. However, the role of innominate vertical lengths (IVLs) as a predisposing factor for scoliosis is not clear. The reliability of radiographic measurements may reveal whether IVL can be used as ...

Background and Aim. The predisposing factors for prolonged cecal intubation time (CIT) during colonoscopy have been well identified. However, the factors influencing CIT during retrograde SBE have not been addressed. The aim of this study was to determine the factors influencing CIT during retrograde SBE. Methods. We investigated patients who underwent retrograde SBE at a medical center from Ja...

In the process of genetically mapping a complex disease, the question may arise whether a certain polymorphism is the only causal variant in a region. A number of methods can answer this question, but unfortunately these methods are optimal for bi-allelic loci only. We wanted to develop a method that is more suited for multi-allelic loci, such as microsatellite markers. We propose the Additiona...

The development of gastroenteritis caused by non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) is mediated the action effectors that belong to Type three secretory systems (T3SS) enterica. These are expressed pathogenicity islands 1 and 2 located in genome. T3SS-1 provide invasion salmonella into host cell, take part inflammatory diarrhea some may act as a predisposing factor oncogenesis leading colorectal cancer...