PURPOSE: Skeletal metastases affect up to 85% of breast cancer patients by the time of their death. This prospective in vivo study evaluated the diagnostic performance of computed tomography-based structural rigidity analysis (CTRA) to predict vertebral fracture risk in breast cancer patients with skeletal metastasis and in comparison with the current standard of care. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Tors...

In order to prevent the occurrence of gastric cancer, it is very important to find early gastric cancer and precancerous lesions timely. This research discussed diagnostic value of methylene blue staining under white light endoscopy, light blue crest (LBC) and white opaque substance (WOS) under NBI-ME on chronic gastritis with intestinal metaplasia. 227 patients who accepted gastroscopy in our ...

The axonal (bouton) distributions of a layer 4 clutch cell (CC), two layer 3 medium-sized basket cells (MBC), and a layer 3 large basket cell (LBC) to orientation, direction, and ocular dominance maps were studied quantitatively. 1) The CC provided exclusively local projections (<380 microm from the soma) and contacted a narrow "niche" of functional representations. 2) The two MBCs emitted loca...

Thalidomide produces numerous birth defects, the most notable being phocomelia. Mechanisms behind thalidomide-induced malformations have not been fully elucidated, although recent evidence suggests a role for reactive oxygen species. A thalidomide-resistant (rat) and -sensitive (rabbit) species were used to compare potential inherent differences related to oxidative stress that may provide a mo...

BACKGROUND Urine cytology is an important test in the screening of urothlelial neoplasms. The conventional smear (CS) method of testing urine samples has a low sensitivity, approximately 50% result accuracy for detecting urothelial carcinomas, while liquid-based cytology (LBC) has much improved diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. The aim of this study was to compare the morpholog...

OBJECTIVE To assess the clinical and economic impacts of the use of liquid based cytology (LBC) in the Australian average risk population from the perspective of the public health care budget. BACKGROUND Concerns over the evaluation of medical technologies in Australia, which are assessed by the Medicare Services Advisory Committee (MSAC), have been raised recently. We report on the evaluatio...

OBJECTIVES Fine-needle aspiration biopsy is regarded as the most important diagnostic tool for thyroid lesions because of its simplicity, safety, and cost-effectiveness. However, its pivotal role in the correct characterization of the majority of nodules is impaired by the difficulties in discriminating benign from malignant follicular-patterned lesions. STUDY DESIGN Liquid-based cytology (LB...

Among methods to study protein-protein interaction inside cells, Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) is relatively simple and sensitive. BiFC is based on the production of fluorescence using two non-fluorescent fragments of a fluorescent protein (Venus, a Yellow Fluorescent Protein variant, is used here). Non-fluorescent Venus fragments (VN and VC) are fused to two interacting prote...