M e t h o d s Data sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE/ Excerpta Medica, BIOSIS Previews, Science Citation Index, NTIS Database, LILACS, SIGLE, Dissertation Abstracts Online, Inside Conferences, Pascal (to April 2005); Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (issue 3, 2005); journals on imaging and vascular disease; and bibliographies of relevant studies. Study selection and assessment: Cohort or case–con...

BACKGROUND Laparoscopic surgery is increasingly replacing the open procedure because of its many patient-related benefits that are well aligned with policies and programs that seek to optimize health system performance. However, widespread adoption of laparoscopic surgery has been slow, in part, because of the complexity of laparoscopic suturing. The objective of this study was to review the cl...

Abstract Background Testing a hypothesis for ‘factors-outcome effect’ is common quest, but standard statistical regression analysis tools are rendered ineffective by data contaminated with too many noisy variables. Expert Systems (ES) can provide an alternative methodology in analysing to identify variables the highest correlation outcome. By applying their effective machine learning (ML) abili...

BACKGROUND Body size, nutrition and socioeconomic position (SEP) in early life have been associated with a range of later life health outcomes. Epigenetic regulation is one mechanism through which these early life factors may impact later life health. The aim of this review protocol is to outline procedures to document the influence of body size, nutrition and SEP in early life on the epigenome...

The misconception that infertility is typically associated with the female is commonly faced in the management of infertile men. It is uncommon for a patient to present for an infertility evaluation with an abnormal semen analysis report before an extensive female partner workup has been performed. Additionally, a man is usually considered fertile based only on seminal parameters without a phys...

UNLABELLED The knowledge of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of new opioid drugs is necessary so that anaesthesiologists can choose which one to use, considering the patient's pathophysiology, the surgical procedure, and the dose required to obtain the desired effect. Aim of this review was to evaluate relevant trials on perioperative sufentanil in order to design an optimal strategy for a...

INTRODUCTION Recently, several reviews have been published on the effects of medications on bone physiology and the clinical side effects in orthodontics. However, the effects of medications on the rate of orthodontic tooth movement have not been evaluated. METHODS A systematic literature review on the effects of medications and dietary supplements on the rate of experimental tooth movement w...

OBJECTIVE To reassess the prevalence of aspirin induced asthma and other issues related to the syndrome. DATA SOURCES Biosis, SciSearch (1990 to March 2002), Embase (1974 to March 2002), Medline (1966 to March 2002), Toxline, Derwent Drug File (1964 to March 2002), Conference Papers Index and Inside Conferences, Int'l Pharmaceutical Abstracts, Pharma-Online (1978 to March 2002). SELECTION C...

BACKGROUND The aim of the present meta-analysis was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of treating pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) with inhaled iloprost, oral bosentan and sildenafil. METHODS AND RESULTS The randomized controlled trials on the 3 drugs and placebo were retrieved from the databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, BIOSIS Previews and CNKI up to August 2009. In total 11 studies and 1,391...

BACKGROUND Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders. Acupuncture is a popular complementary and alternative medicine intervention suggested in the treatment of depression, but its effectiveness is uncertain. This updated meta-analysis was conducted to more precisely assess the beneficial effect of acupuncture in depression therapy. METHODS The following databases were sear...