OBJECTIVES THE PRESENT STUDY WAS CONDUCTED IN A VOCATIONAL INTEGRATION SERVICE OF A NORTHERN ITALIAN TOWN WITH TWO MAJOR AIMS: to assess vocational integration programs undertaken from 1(st) January 2004 to 1(st) January 2007; and to identify job tenure-associated predictors. METHODS This is a retrospective study; we collected data such as gender, age, duration, type and outcome of the vocati...

BACKGROUND Hypertension is a health problem in Iran. Given the importance of this subject, we reviewed the factors affecting the blood pressure in this survey. METHODS This retrospective cohort study was performed on 3961 male workers employed at Isfahan Polyacryl Corporation (Iran) in health and safety executive between 1996 until 2008. In this study, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (S...

BACKGROUND A complete, correct and timely discharge letter can communicate important information from the hospital to the general practitioner. The adequacy of the letter may vary with the patient and admission characteristics of the patient. Insight in the association between these characteristics and the presence and quality of the discharge letter will give rise to improvement activities for...

Introduction Intracardiac flow patterns can be visualized by particle traces obtained from three-dimensional phase contrast MRI. Good results have been shown for stationary [1] and time-resolved data [2]. New off-line retrospective gated 3D phase contrast techniques, providing high resolution time-resolved 3D velocity data, have improved the accuracy of the calculated particle traces [3]. While...

Background: Hyperglycemia is one of the most complications of corticosteroid and asparaginase during induction phase of chemotherapy in children suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This study was carried out to evaluate the incidence of hyperglycemia and associated risk factors during chemotherapy induction phase at Amirkola Children's Hospital. Materials and Methods: In this c...

In this series we present the results of a retrospective analysis of 66 vasovasostomy procedures performed between 1983 and 1991. Obstructive intervals and serum antisperm antibodies were correlated with pregnancy and patency rates. With obstructive intervals of less than 5 years a patency rate of 100% (31/31) was obtained. Even more than 10 years after reversal, pregnancy occurred in 25% (2/8)...

BACKGROUND Omalizumab is approved in the UK as add-on treatment for chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) in patients with inadequate response to H1-antihistamines. Ciclosporin is an established but unlicensed 3rd line option for CSU. Two parallel retrospective observational studies were conducted to describe outcomes of treatment and adverse events with omalizumab or ciclosporin for CSU treatmen...

Objective To compare posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) with transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) for spinal fusion in patients previously treated by discectomy. Methods This retrospective study evaluated pre- and postoperative neurological status via Japan Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score. Surgical outcome was based on recovery rate percentage (RR%). Adverse event data were r...