BACKGROUND To determine the role played by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) based on an interventional immunology theory. METHODS Eyes with PCV were divided in a masked fashion into those with choroidal hyperpermeability (HP group) and those with normal choroidal permeability (NP group) based on the indocyanine green angiograms. The inter-ra...

BRCA1 mutation carriers face a high lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. Physical activity induces broad transcriptional changes, and multiple studies have documented its beneficial effects across cancers. Because haploinsufficiency predisposes to breast cancer in these women, factors that increase BRCA1 levels may mitigate the effect of the mutation. Whether physical activity modulates B...

AIM To explain the variability in the behavioral response after spinal nerve ligation by investigating the relation between the development of neuropathic pain and the expression of inflammatory indicators, in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) and the spinal nerve. METHODS Ninety-six male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to the modified spinal nerve ligation, sham, and control group. Testin...

To decide upon the need for partitioning, Students t test or Mann-Whitney^ U test are usually applied to compare the reference samples under study. But these tests may be too sensitive for this purpose: if the sizes of the two subgroups compared are large enough, small differences between subgroups without clinical importance may become statistically significant. For this reason, Harris & Boyd ...

Methods Prospective, observational, multicenter study conducted in 148 Spanish ICUs. Individuals with A(H1N1) confirmed using RT-PCR during the 2009 to 2014 influenza seasons were included and compared with those patients with SpCoI. Patients ́ demographic, clinical, radiologic features, laboratory values, ICU and hospital length of stay (LOS) and outcomes were recorded. Discrete variables are e...

Carotid endarterectomy may be performed by using cervical plexus blockade with local anesthetic supplementation by the surgeon during surgery. Most practitioners use either a superficial cervical plexus block or a combined (superficial and deep) block, but it is unclear which offers the best operative conditions or greatest patient satisfaction. We compared the two techniques in patients underg...

Objectives Zirconia restorations have been suggested as a more durable and more appealing alternative to metal restorations. However, their mechanical properties may be negatively affected by fatigue due to superficial stresses or low temperature degradation. This study aimed to assess the fatigue fracture strength of three-unit implant-supported full contour zirconia and pre-sintered cobalt-ch...

BACKGROUND The care demands of children with chronic diseases can affect caregivers' health by imposing caregiving burden to them. The health status of caregivers plays a vital role in the quality of care provided to such children and in their quality of life. OBJECTIVE To determine caregiving burden in caregivers and to identify relevant influential factors. METHODS In this cross-sectional...

This study aimed to examine the effect of chronic restraint stress (RS) on the severity of experimental periodontal disease in rats. A total of 32 male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were divided into four groups: i) Rats receiving two treatment regimens, chronic stress induced by movement restriction in acrylic cylinders for 1-1.5 h daily and induction of experimental periodontal disease, using a ny...

Cytogenetic investigation of stable-type aberrations (translocations) was carried out with our improved methods on 28 elderly individuals in a high-background radiation area (HBRA) in China, and on 24 elderly individuals in a control area (CA). The level of radiation in HBRA is 3 to 5 times higher than in CA. The mean frequencies of translocations per 1,000 cells in HBRA and CA were 12.4 +/- 5....