BACKGROUND Few studies have assessed the utility of chest ultrasonography in the diagnosis of pneumothorax in India. METHODS Chest ultrasonography was undertaken in 126 haemodynamically stable patients, followed by a chest radiograph within 30 minutes. If pneumothorax was not seen on the chest radiograph, a non-contrast computed tomography of the thorax was performed within 3 hours. The time ...

Most midlife women have hot flashes. The conventional criterion (≥2 μmho rise/30 s) for classifying hot flashes physiologically has shown poor performance. We improved this performance in the laboratory with Support Vector Machines (SVMs), a pattern classification method. We aimed to compare conventional to SVM methods to classify hot flashes in the ambulatory setting. Thirty-one women with hot...

We investigated the validity of self-reporting of genital symptoms amongst rural women attending primary health care clinics in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Random samples of 226 women were interviewed to measure self-reporting (unprompted), prompted and pelvic examination findings of genital symptoms. Against the presence of any STI self-reporting (unprompted) of symptoms had a sensitivity of 46.1%, s...

We performed a prospective study of patients with suspected ureteral colic to evaluate the test characteristics of bedside renal ultrasonography (US) performed by emergency physicians (EPs) for detecting hydronephrosis, and to evaluate how US can be used to predict the likelihood of nephrolithiasis. Thirteen EPs performed US, recorded the presence of hydronephrosis, and made an assessment of th...

OBJECTIVE To assess the accuracy in the prediction of both early and late preeclampsia by flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery (FMD), a biophysical marker for endothelial dysfunction. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 91 patients, considered at high risk for development of preeclampsia were submitted to brachial artery FMD between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation. RESULTS Nineteen out o...

Background: The diagnosis of herpes simplex virus may requirevirological confirmation. Tzanck smear is an old, rapid, costeffective but nonspecific method that has been recently re-evaluatedas a method for the diagnosis of herpes virus infection. This studywas conducted to compare Tzanck smear and viral culture in thediagnosis of herpes simplex virus infection in patients clinicallysuspected to...

INTRODUCTION Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a major cause of mortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Screening guidelines for PAH recommend multiple investigations, including annual echocardiography, which together have low specificity and may not be cost-effective. We sought to evaluate the predictive accuracy of serum N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in combinatio...

INTRODUCTION There is no large population size study on school screening for scoliosis in Malaysia. This study is aimed to determine the prevalence rate and positive predictive value (PPV) of screening programme for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 8966 voluntary school students aged 13-15 years old were recruited for scoliosis screening. Screening was done by...

OBJECTIVE The rapid, simple and non-invasive diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is important in implementing chemotherapy in appropriate manner, and in assessing persistent H. pylori infection after eradication therapy. The ImmunoCard STAT! HpSA kit (Meridian Bioscience, Europe) is a lateral flow chromatography test which utilizes a monoclonal anti-H. pylori antibody. In thi...

UNLABELLED Diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM) remains a challenge. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of T-SPOT.TB test on cerebrospinal fluid mononuclear cells (CSFMCs) for suspected TBM patients. 43 consecutive patients with suspected TBM were enrolled in the study from June 2011 to September 2014. T-SPOT.TB was performed on both CSFMCs and peripheral blood mononuclear cells ...