Background Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction is an important predictor of long-term outcome in heart failure patients undergoing surgical ventricular restoration (SVR). RV assessment is therefore a pivotal step in the selection of patient candidates for SVR and during follow up. While the impact of SVR on left ventricle (LV) is currently described in terms of both functional and morphological ...

BACKGROUND AND AIM Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major health problem worldwide. Genotype-4 is the most common genotype in Saudi Arabia. The response to treatment with pegylated interferon-α combined with ribavirin in chronic HCV infection varies. This study aimed at investigating the pre- and on-treatment predictors of sustained virologic response (SVR) in patients with chronic hepati...

BACKGROUND In chronic hepatitis C, higher ribavirin (RBV) concentrations are associated with sustained virological response (SVR); target concentration cutoffs have been proposed. As RBV displays interindividual variability, monitoring of RBV plasma levels appears relevant. The impact of RBV therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM(RBV)) on SVR has not been explored in current practice. Our study aimed...

Vascular function has been found to be impaired in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). The present study investigated the determinants of systemic vascular resistance in two main SCD syndromes in children: sickle cell anemia (SCA) and sickle cell-hemoglobin C disease (SCC). Nitric oxide metabolites (NOx), hematological, hemorheological, and hemodynamical parameters were investigated in 61 ...

The present work deals with the first application of Support Vector Regression (SVR) for the spatial data mapping. SVR is a recent development of the Statistical Learning Theory (VapnikChervonenkis theory). It is based on Structural Risk Minimisation and seems to be promising approach for the spatial data analysis and processing. There are several attractive properties of the SVR: robustness of...

Objective To investigate the relationship between abdominal adipose tissue distribution, β-cell function, and insulin sensitivity (IS) in a Chinese population. Methods One hundred and eighty-eight healthy subjects (healthy group), 239 with normal glucose, and 1~4 abnormal metabolic traits (metabolic dysfunction group, MD group) and 125 with hyperglycemia (hyperglycemia group) were studied. HO...

In urban management, it is important to precisely forecast the short-term demand for necessary resources, including water, electric power, and gas. Although a variety of prediction models have been proposed in literature, the underlying defects and limitations confine the effectiveness and forecasting precision of these models. In this paper, the shortterm prediction problem is modeled as a non...

Previous reports have shown that interferon (IFN)-based therapy decreases the risk of development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. However, it remains to be fully elucidated whether elimination of HCV by IFN-based therapy inhibits HCC recurrence after curative treatment, such as surgical resection and local ablation therapies. In this...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the changes in liver stiffness measurement (LSM) in patients infected by hepatitis C virus (HCV) under pegylated interferon (Peg-IFN) plus ribavirin therapy. METHODS One hundred and forty-three HCV-infected patients, of whom 97 (68%) were also carrying HIV, who started treatment with Peg-IFN/ribavirin were included in this prospective cohort study. The outcome variable ...

OBJECTIVE In treatment-resistant patients with genotype 2 chronic hepatitis C the suitable treatment duration is still unclear. The aims were to investigate extending combination therapy with peginterferon plus ribavirin for genotype 2. METHODS 7 patients infected with genotype 2 at a high viral load and who did not achieve a sustained virological response (SVR) with the first course of 24-we...