OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to evaluate the plethysmographic signal-derived oxygen desaturation index (ODI) as an inpatient screening strategy to identify sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). BACKGROUND SDB is highly prevalent among patients hospitalized with CHF but is widely underdiagnosed. We evaluated overnight photoplethysmography...

BACKGROUND Preference weights for EQ-5D-3L based on visual analogue scale (VAS) has recently been developed in Iran. The aim of the current study was to compare performance of this value set against the UK VAS-based value set. METHODS The mean scores for all possible 243 health states were compared using Student t test. Absolute agreement and consistency were investigated using concordance co...

INTRODUCTION Clinical databases have become important tools in intensive care. Disease severity and organ dysfunction scoring systems are registered in the databases, including the Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (SAPS II) and the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of a clinical database on intensive care...

BACKGROUND Temporal artery (TA) thermometry has come as one of the new methods for temperature measurement, especially in children in whom accurate temperature monitoring can save lives. The device which is convenient and simple to use is yet to gain popularity in several parts of the world, as there are conflicting reports of its accuracy. This study compares the accuracy of the TA thermometry...

BACKGROUND Although various acceptable and easy-to-use devices have been used for saliva collection, cotton swabs are among the most common ones. Previous studies reported that cotton swabs yield a lower level of melatonin detection. However, this statistical method is not adequate for detecting an agreement between cotton saliva collection and passive saliva collection, and a test for bias is ...

BACKGROUND Radiographs are used to monitor thoracic kyphosis in individuals with certain pathologies (e.g. osteoporosis), exposing patients to potentially harmful radiation. Thus, other measures for monitoring the progression of thoracic kyphosis are desirable. The gravity-dependent inclinometer has been shown to be reliable but its validity as a measure of thoracic kyphosis has not been invest...

BACKGROUND Despite advances in survival in patients with thalassemia major (TM) the most common cause of death is cardiac disease. Regular cardiac follow-up is imperative in order to identify and reverse pathology. Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) and Echocardiography (US) are applied in parallel to TM patients for cardiac evaluation and ongoing monitoring. A comparison between mutual features ...

The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility to determine fetal blood oxygen saturation (sO(2)) with T(2)-weighted MR sequences using a fetal sheep model. T(2) measurements were performed on a 1.5-T scanner using a T(2) preparation pulse in combination with a three-dimensional balanced steady-state free precession sequence repeated at different echo times. Eight sheep fetuses were ex...