OBJECTIVE This study evaluated social inequalities in adult oral health across several low- and middle-income countries. METHODS We used data from 40 countries that participated in the World Health Surveys. Participants' socio-economic position was assessed using the wealth index. Oral health was assessed using two perceived measures, namely total tooth loss and whether they had any problems ...

PURPOSE We developed a novel systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) based on lymphocyte, neutrophil, and platelet counts and explored its prognostic value in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN The SII was developed based on a retrospective study of 133 patients with HCC undergoing resection between 2005 and 2006, and validated in a prospective study of 123 patients enrolled...

Purpose: We developed a novel systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) based on lymphocyte, neutrophil, and platelet counts and explored its prognostic value in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Experimental Design: The SII was developed based on a retrospective study of 133 patients with HCC undergoing resection between 2005 and 2006, and validated in a prospective study of 123 patients enrolled...

BACKGROUND To evaluate the reproducibility of signal intensity index (SII) measurements with MRI systems from different vendors and with different field strengths, and to test the effectiveness of flip angle. METHODS Thirty-two healthy volunteers (mean age 35.3 ± 9.3 years) were enrolled in this ethics committee-approved study. Chemical shift MR imaging was performed on 1.5- and 3.0-T MR syst...

Systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), based on peripheral lymphocyte, neutrophil, and platelet counts, was recently investigated as a prognostic marker in several tumors. However, SII has not been reported in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We evaluated the prognostic value of the SII in 327 patients with NPC. Univariate and multivariate analyses were calculated by the Cox proportional haza...

In the somatosensory system, it is well known that the bilateral secondary somatosensory cortex (SII) receives projections from the unilateral primary somatosensory cortex (SI), and the SII, in turn, sends feedback projections to SI. Most neuroimaging studies have clearly shown bilateral SII activation using only unilateral stimulation for both anatomical and functional connectivity across SII ...

BACKGROUND Inflammation-based indexes have been used to predict survival and recurrence in cancer patients. Systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) was reported to be associated with prognosis in some malignant tumors. In the present study, we aimed to explore the association between SII and the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed data from 444 gast...

Systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), based on lymphocyte (L), neutrophil (N), and platelet (P) counts, was recently developed and reflects comprehensively the balance of host inflammatory and immune status. We explored its prognostic value in localized gastric cancer (GC) after R0 resection and the potential associations with Thymidine phosphorylase (TYMP), which was reported to increase t...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to determine whether surface irregularities measured from ultrasound images of carotid artery plaques and quantified using a novel method, correlate with the presence of ipsilateral hemispheric cerebrovascular symptoms. METHODS A plaque surface irregularity index (SII) was measured in 47 carotid artery plaques (32 subjects, stenosis range 10% -95%, 49%...

The speech intelligibility index (SII) (ANSI S3.5-1997) provides a means for estimating speech intelligibility under conditions of additive stationary noise or bandwidth reduction. The SII concept for estimating intelligibility is extended in this paper to include broadband peak-clipping and center-clipping distortion, with the coherence between the input and output signals used to estimate the...