BACKGROUND Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) may present oral conditions that can compromise children's health even more. However, there is still no consensus on the association between SCD and dental caries. The aim of this study was to assess caries prevalence in children with sickle cell disease (SCD), and the association of dental caries with socioeconomic factors, disease severity, a...

BACKGROUND Sperm DNA integrity has been used as a new marker of sperm quality in the prediction of pregnancy. Nevertheless, no previous study has been performed by analysing the same samples that were employed in assisted reproduction. The main objective of this work was to correlate sperm chromatin dispersion (SCD), measured by the SCD test, with semen parameters and pregnancy outcome in intra...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have demonstrated that microvolt T-wave alternans (MTWA) testing is a robust predictor of ventricular tachyarrhythmias and sudden cardiac death (SCD) in at-risk patients. However, recent studies have suggested that MTWA testing is not as good a predictor of "appropriate" implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy as it is a predictor of SCD in patients with...

OBJECTIVE To compare the sperm chromatin dispersion (SCD) test and the terminal uridine nick-end labeling (TUNEL) assay for assessment of sperm DNA damage. DESIGN Prospective comparative experimental study. SETTING Andrology laboratory. PATIENT(S) Twenty subfertile men with unexplained infertility. INTERVENTION(S) Sperm DNA damage was determined in the same semen samples using the TUNEL...

BACKGROUND Recent MADIT II and SCD-HeFT trials have led to an expansion of indications for use of prophylactic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) in patients with severe left-ventricular impairment. This therapy has not been fully adopted in our health care system, mainly due to its high cost. OBJECTIVE To assess total mortality of SCD-HeFT-like patients from our daily practice who ...

Background Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is responsible for 11% of all deaths and 50% of all cardiovascular deaths. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common cause of SCD among the young patients. SCD is often the first manifestation of the disease. There are 5 major risk factors for SCD in patients with HCM. However, no single risk factor can be used as a screening test in assessment o...

BACKGROUND The majority of primary care patients referred for bowel endoscopy do not have significant colorectal disease (SCD), and are - in hindsight - unnecessarily exposed to a small but realistic risk of severe endoscopy-associated complications. We developed a diagnostic strategy to better exclude SCD in these patients and evaluated the value of adding a faecal calprotectin point-of-care (...

The high cost, complexity and reliance on electricity, specialized equipment and supplies associated with conventional diagnostic methods limit the scope and sustainability of newborn screening for sickle cell disease (SCD) in sub-Saharan Africa and other resource-limited areas worldwide. Here we describe the development of a simple, low-cost, rapid, equipment- and electricity-free paper-based ...

BACKGROUND Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) may indicate unhealthy cognitive changes, but no standardized SCD measurement exists. This pilot study aims to identify reliable SCD questions. METHODS 112 cognitively normal (NC, 76±8 years, 63% female), 43 mild cognitive impairment (MCI; 77±7 years, 51% female), and 33 diagnostically ambiguous participants (79±9 years, 58% female) were recruited...

BACKGROUND Our objectives were (1) to test the association between the report of subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and prospective objective cognitive performance in high age individuals and (2) to study the course of longitudinal cognitive performance before and after the first report of SCD. METHODS Cognitively normal elderly participants of the German Study on Ageing, Cognition, and Demen...