Purpose- To evaluate whether spontaneous breathing trials (SBTs) are necessary when extubating critical care patients. Methods- A prospective, randomized, double-blind study was performed in adult patients supported by mechanical ventilation for at least 48 hours in the general intensive care unit of a teaching hospital. Patients ready for weaning were randomly assigned to either the SBT group ...

Treatment of chronic respiratory failure with noninvasive ventilation (NIV) is standard pediatric practice, and NIV systems are commonly used in the home setting. Although practice guidelines on the perioperative management of children supported with home NIV systems have yet to be published, increasingly these patients are referred for consultation regarding perioperative management. Just as k...

Noninvasive ventilation has been available for over 100 years. In the past 25 years, relatively lightweight, portable ventilators and comfortable interfaces have become available that have allowed for full-time noninvasive ventilation. In motivated individuals who have access to centers with expertise in nocturnal and diurnal ventilation, continuous noninvasive ventilation is quite feasible. Th...

BACKGROUND Knowledge of thyroid gland volume plays a key role in the treatment of thyroid diseases by radioactive iodine 131I. Radioiodine therapy is a routine procedure of treatment hyperthyroidism for over 50 years. MATERIAL/METHODS Today modern diagnostic has a number of medical diagnostics instruments whose using to estimate of thyroid volume. Undoubtedly these method we can include a ult...

OBJECT In this study the authors evaluated the sensitivity and selectivity of a noninvasive language mapping procedure based on magnetoencephalography (MEG), for determining hemispheric dominance for language functions. METHODS Magnetic activation profiles of the brain were obtained from 100 surgical candidates (age range 8-56 years) with medically intractable seizure disorder by using a whol...

To the Editor Morris and Tobian 1 note that parents are granted wide latitude in authorizing surgical procedures for their children. But that latitude is not unlimited and is fiduciary in nature. Fundamentally, male circumcision is a religious and cultural cosmetic procedure, not a valid medical procedure. Almost 70 years ago, writing in a much less child-protective era than the present, in Pri...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate a simulated acupuncture technique for use in randomized controlled trials assessing the efficacy of acupuncture for low-back pain. SETTING The clinic of an accredited acupuncture college in Seattle, Washington. SUBJECTS Acupuncture-naïve enrollees of Group Health Cooperative who had visited their primary care provider with a complaint of back pain that persisted for at...

The Breast Cancer Detection and Demonstration Projects (BCDDP) that were carried out by the American Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute (USA) between 1973 and 1981 evaluated breast thermography as a diagnostic procedure for breast cancer. From the results of the BCDDP study the American Radiology Society concluded that thermography was ineffective as a diagnostic procedure in breast c...