The benefit/cost (B/C) ratio method is utilized in many government and public work projects to determine if the expected benefits provide an acceptable return on the estimated investment and costs. Many authors have studied probabilistic cash flows in recent years. They introduced some analytical methods which determine the probability distribution function of the net present value and internal...

Institutional review boards (IRB) normally require of a morally defensible clinical trial that any trial participant will benefit from the inquiry, or at least not be exposed to a significant risk of having their prospects worsened by participating. Stage 1 HIV cure trials tend not to meet this requirement. Does that show them to be morally indefensible? Utilitarian thinking about this question...

considering the risk associated with general anesthesia in especially ill neonates (under 30 days of age), performing regional anesthesia in this group of patients would be of great benefit for the patients and the anaesthesiologists, simultaneously. in this investigation, we performed caudal anesthesia in a 25 day neonate who had electrolyte imbalance and nutritional deficits, after informing ...

This study examined speech intelligibility and preferences for omnidirectional and directional microphone hearing aid processing across a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). A primary motivation for the study was to determine whether SNR might be used to represent distance between talker and listener in automatic directionality algorithms based on scene analysis. Participants were current h...

INTRODUCTION Antiretroviral therapy (ART) does not cure HIV infection due to the persistence of HIV reservoirs in long-lived memory CD4 T cells present in the blood, lymph nodes, intestinal tract, and other tissues. Interest grows in obtaining gut-tissue samples for HIV persistence studies, which poses an ethical challenge to provide study volunteers with adequate information on risks and benef...

Breastfeeding is the optimal method for feeding a newborn. However, some mothers may have difficulties lactating. Domperidone is widely used as a galactagogue but to the best of our knowledge has not been approved by any health authority. The objective of this review was to assess the benefit-risk ratio of domperidone for stimulating lactation. The benefit-risk ratio of domperidone as a galacta...

Specimen extraction is one of the most challenging steps during minimally invasive procedures. Theoretically, any surgical specimens have to be considered potentially malignant and therefore they have to be removed without contamination of the operative field [1]. However, solid and large masses (e.g., uterine myomas) cannot be removed easily, from the small abdominal incisions used for minimal...

Pharmacovigilance is a critical component for determining the benefit to risk ratio of treatment. The potential for drug toxicity is determined throughout the lifetime of use of a drug or biological agent, including the development cycle. This includes both the preclinical as well as clinical data. Preclinical data are rarely extensive for biological therapies because it is difficult to study t...

AIM A prospective cross-sectional study was performed on 170 patients with various glomerular diseases to study the accuracy of predicting 24-hour proteinuria from the spot urine protein-creatinine ratio (Up/Uc). A cost-benefit analysis was performed for the New Zealand health economic system to obtain the best cut-off values for proteinuria. SUBJECTS, METHODS AND RESULTS Two spot urine sampl...

INTRODUCTION Gln-1062 (Memogain) is a pharmacologically inactive prodrug of galantamine. Owing to its lipophilic nature, it preferentially enters the brain, where it is cleaved into active galantamine. Gln-1062 is expected to have fewer peripheral side effects than other cholinesterase inhibitors, with improved effectiveness. METHODS This was a double-blind, comparator and placebo-controlled,...