The Ventrescreen (Ventrex) rapid enzyme immunoassay test for detecting group A streptococcal antigen directly from a throat swab was compared with conventional blood agar throat culture in the diagnosis of beta haemolytic streptococcal infection among 311 patients with a sore throat attending a large suburban Jerusalem primary care clinic. Using the throat culture as the 'gold standard' the Ven...

Bright coloration and complex visual displays are frequent and well described in many lizard families. Reflectance spectrometry which extends into the ultraviolet (UV) allows measurement of such coloration independent of our visual system. We examined the role of colour in signalling and mate choice in the agamid lizard Ctenophorus ornatus. We found that throat reflectance strongly contrasted a...

INTRODUCTION This study is aimed at determining the pattern of ear, nose and throat diseases and their relationship with socio-demographic factors with auditing intent in a tertiary hospital in South-western Nigeria. METHODS Medical records of patients managed at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria from 2006 to 2010 were reviewed for all essenti...

BACKGROUND OBJECTIVE To evaluate the usefulness of a clinical scorecard in managing sore throat in general practice. DESIGN Validation study of scorecard for sore throat with a throat swab culture used as the 'gold standard'. SETTING A solo family practice in rural New South Wales, AustraliaParticipants: Patients attending with sore throat. METHODS Patients from the age of 5 years and ...

BACKGROUND Sore throat is a common complaint in general practice. However, management strategies are not very clear. A better diagnostic procedure is needed to prevent the overuse of antibiotics. AIM To assess the diagnostic value of a rapid streptococcal antigen detection test in addition to four clinical features in patients with sore throat, using throat culture and antibody titres as refe...

Background: Pharyngitis is caused principally by primary viral infection: virus growth causes lysis of throat mucosa cells, leading to inflammation, secondary bacterial infection, accumulation of contaminants on the throat, and clinical signs of sore throat infection. Currently available drugs only provide partial therapeutic action or relief. Since pharyngitis is a multifactorial condition, a ...

Antibiotic Prescribing to AdultsWith Sore Throat in the United States, 1997-2010 Amongadults seeking carewith sore throat, theprevalenceof groupAStreptococcus (GAS) infection—theonlycommoncause of sore throat requiring antibiotics—is about 10%.1 Penicillin remains the antibiotic of choice. Penicillin is narrowspectrum, well-tolerated, and inexpensive, and GAS is universally susceptible to penic...

This research was carried out on enhancing throat microphone speech for noise-robust speech keyword spotting. The enhancement was performed by mapping the log-energy in the Mel-frequency bands of throat microphone speech to those of the corresponding close-talk microphone speech. An analytic equation detection system, Eureqa, which can infer nonlinear relations directly from observed data, was ...

The nozzle shape was investigated in order to develop a high performance nozzle for pulsed Nd:YAG laser cutting, and its effect on fine cutting of thin metal plate was also discussed. In the case of 0.5mm throat diameter Laval throat nozzle with an initial expansion zone, the pressure on workpiece increased, and the straightness of gas flow was improved compared to a traditional straight throat...

Eagle’s syndrome is a rare cause of chronic cervical and throat pain connected with styloid process elongation. The etiology of this disorder remains unclear. The authors presented four cases of symptomatic, one-sided and both-sided elongation of the styloid process. Moreover, the study presented aspects of diagnosis and treatment of Eagle’s syndrome. The Authors especially focused on surgical ...