Editor: I read with great interest the article by Dr Megibow and colleagues (1) in the January 2006 issue of Radiology. I have some concerns about the Materials and Methods and Results sections of this article. In the Materials and Methods section, under the subtitle “Statistical Analysis,” the authors state that the two groups included in their study were compared with respect to the mean valu...

Nonparametric or distribution-free charts can be useful in statistical process control when there is limited knowledge about the underlying process. In this paper a Shewhart-type chart is considered for the location, based on the Mann-Whitney statistic. The control limit calculations use Lugannani-Rice saddlepoint, Edgeworth and other approximation methods along with Monte Carlo estimation and ...

PURPOSE To evaluate morphologic changes in meibomian glands (MGs) and the status of periglandular inflammation in patients with primary and secondary Sjögren's Syndrome (SS) using in vivo confocal laser microscopy (LSCM). METHODS Twenty patients with primary SS (SSI), 25 with secondary SS (SSII), 20 with MG dysfunction (MGD), and 25 age- and gender-matched control subjects were enrolled conse...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate serum concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in patients with vulvar cancer and healthy female controls with respect to correlation of VEGF with clinicopathological parameters and impact on the patients' prognosis. Serum concentrations of VEGF were measured using a commercially available ELISA. Results were correlated to clinical...

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Methods Study was conducted in ART centre, IMS, BHU. Patients who failed on first line ART (NACO criteria) were included in the study after consent. Virological, immunological and clinical response was assessed at 24 weeks. Independent t-test /Mann-Whitney U test was used for making comparison among the independent groups. Chi-square test was used to test the association between categorical var...

Vitamin D3 shows tumoristatic and anticancer effects by acting through the vitamin D receptor (VDR), while hydroxylation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 at position 1α by CYP27B1 is an essential step in its activation. The expression of both the VDR and CYP27B1 has been found in many normal and cancer tissues, but there is a lack of information about its expression in human bladder cancers. The aim of ...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with the combined analysis of alpha-l-fucosidase (AFU), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and thymidine kinase 1 (TK1). Serum levels of AFU, AFP and TK1 were measured in: 116 patients with HCC, 109 patients with benign hepatic diseases, and 104 normal subjects. The diagnostic value was analyzed using th...