Oral food challenge (OFC) is still considered the gold standard for diagnosis of food allergy (FA). Skin prick test (SPT) and specific IgE (sIgE) tests are very useful but limited in their predictive accuracy. End point test (EPT) has been recently considered to determine the starting dose to induce oral desensitization. Allergometric tests combined may discriminate children at higher risk of r...

Enzyme prodrug therapy (EPT) enables localized conversion of inert prodrugs to active drugs by enzymes. Performance of EPT necessitates that the enzyme remains active throughout the time frame of the envisioned therapeutic application. β-glucuronidase is an enzyme with historically validated performance in EPT, however it retains its activity in biomaterials for an insufficiently long period of...

An international multidisciplinary panel of experts in the management of the menopause met at the 4th Amsterdam Menopause Symposium in October 2004 to determine the specific place of tibolone, a synthetic steroid with a unique clinical profile, within the wide range of currently available postmenopausal therapy options. The consensus was that tibolone is a valuable treatment option for women wi...

PURPOSE To compare the effect of different fragmentation softening grids in femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery on effective phacoemulsification time (EPT). SETTING Ruhr University Eye Clinic, Bochum, Germany. DESIGN Prospective randomized clinical trial. METHODS The study evaluated the feasibility of using a femtosecond laser (Catalys Precision Laser System) to perform capsulotom...

OBJECTIVE To assess whether progesterone (P4) or osteoblast P4 receptor-acting progestin (P) contributed to estrogen (E) therapy-related increased areal bone mineral density (BMD) in randomized controlled trials (RCT) with direct randomization to estrogen (ET) or estrogen-progestin (EPT) therapy. METHODS Systematic literature searches in biomedical databases identified RCT with direct randomi...

BACKGROUND The long term outcome of endoscopic papillotomy (EPT) is not well known. The aims of this study were to clarify the clinical course of post-EPT patients and to detect predictors for bile duct stone recurrence. METHODS A total of 1042 consecutive patients who underwent EPT for bile duct stones from December 1975 to September 1998 were prospectively followed up. Patients were divided...

Abstract Applied as a bedside test of gross dorsal column function, the testing of light touch (LT) sensation is of high clinical value in the diagnosis of human spinal cord injury (SCI). However, the assessment of overall dorsal column deficit by testing only LT may be limited, because the dorsal column pathway conveys several large diameter afferent modalities (e.g., sensation of touch, two-p...

We compare pollution permits and green taxes in a unified overlapping generations model with endogenous longevity. The model identifies pollution permits as a potential source of multiple equilibria. One nontrivial equilibrium is an environmental poverty trap (EPT) with low capital and a high stock of pollution. An economy operating around the equilibrium will gravitate toward this equilibrium ...