BACKGROUND Stroke is a serious complication of sickle cell disease (SCD) in children. Transcranic Doppler (TCD) is a well-established predictor of future cerebrovascular symptoms: a blood flow velocity >200 cm/sec in the Middle Cerebral Artery (MCA) correlates with a high risk of stroke in cohorts of African-american HbS/HbS patients. In North-East Italy the recent increase in SCD patients is m...

We propose the HBS (Hash Block Stealing) mode of operation. This is the first single-key mode that provably achieves the goal of providing deterministic authenticated encryption. The authentication part of HBS utilizes a newly-developed, vector-input polynomial hash function. The encryption part uses a blockcipher-based, counter-like mode. These two parts are combined in such a way as the numbe...

A patient with homozygous sickle cell disease showed a reduced incidence of painful crises as a result of regular exchange transfusion, but on three occasions when transfusion treatment was interrupted, a painful crisis occurred. Onset of painful crisis was associated with raised packed cell volume (PCV) or percentage of haemoglobin S (HbS%), or both. Measurement of whole blood viscosity using ...

The gene frequencies of haemoglobin A (HbA), HbS and HbC were studied in Burkina-Faso (BF) and in a neighbouring region of Niger, Ayorou. The frequency of HbS was higher in the Sahel region, (northern part of BF and Ayorou) than in the Savanna region. The reverse was true for the HbC gene. The major findings of this study are: (a) confirmation of a peak of HbC gene frequency in the central regi...

A study was made of latent hepatic diseases in university students. 1.4% to 1.6% of the students were positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), and 10.3% for anti-HBs. Of 28 students with HBs-antigenemia, 2 had chronic persistent hepatitis, and 3 minimal hepatitis, 23 being healthy carriers. Hepatitis B e-antigen (HBeAg) was detected in 44% of the students with HBsAg, and anti-HBe in 13...

To evaluate the immune response to hepatitis B vaccination in stable hemodialysis (HD) patients, a retro-prospective investigation was conducted on 68 HD patients. Participants were vaccinated against hepatitis B virus with an intramuscular hepatitis B vaccination schedule, 40 micrograms at 0, 1, and 6 months. The serum antibody level against hepatitis B surface antigen (HBs) in HD patients was...

This review describes the application of 2 nuclear imaging techniques for assessment of hepatic function in the setting of liver surgery and transplantation. The biochemical and technical background, as well as the clinical applications, of (99m)Tc-labeled diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid galactosyl human serum albumin (GSA) scintigraphy and hepatobiliary scintigraphy (HBS) with (99m)Tc-label...

introduction: vaccination with the major surface antigen of hepatitis b virus (hbsag) induces anti-hbs antibody production and level of 10 iu/l is considered protective. it has been shown that the level of anti-hbs antibody does wane after vaccination. the aim of this study was to evaluate the persistence of anti-hbs antibodies in healthy iranian children 10 years after primary vaccination. met...