Late-onset epilepsy (LOE) first occurs after 60 years of age and may be due to occult cerebrovascular disease (CVD) which confers an increased risk of stroke. However, patients with late-onset epilepsy are not currently consistently investigated or treated for cerebrovascular risk factors. We discuss how abnormalities of neurovascular unit function, namely, changes in regional cerebral blood fl...

Oral endotracheal intubation and extubation are two routine procedures performed by anesthesia providers which could lead to breaches of mucosal integrity and slight or moderate bleeding, thereby providing a vector for transmission of a blood-borne disease. This study was designed to determine the incidence of occult or overt blood in the oral and pharyngeal areas during the intubation and extu...

Stool specimens of 1238 workers in western region of Saudi Arabia were examined for infection with intestinal parasites and for fecal occult blood (FOB) to investigate the possibility that enteroparasites correlate to occult intestinal bleeding. Direct smears and formal ether techniques were used for detection of diagnostic stages of intestinal parasites. A commercially available guaiac test wa...

Background Croatia implemented individual donation (ID)-NAT testing of blood donors in 2013 for three viruses HBV, HCV, and HIV-1 as a mandatory test for all blood donors. This study assessed the impact of NAT screening 3 years after its implementation. Methods A total of 545,463 donations were collected and screened for HBV, HCV, and HIV-1 using the Procleix Ultrio Plus Assay. All initially ...

An immunochromatographic 1-step test for the detection of fecal occult blood was evaluated for applicability for the forensic identification of human blood in stained material. The following experiments were conducted: 1) determination of the sensitivity and specificity of the assay; 2) evaluation of different extraction media for bloodstains (sterile water, Tris buffer pH 7.5 provided in the t...

BACKGROUND Although tests for occult blood in the feces are widely used to screen for colorectal cancers, there is no conclusive evidence that they reduce mortality from this cause. We evaluated a fecal occult-blood test in a randomized trial and documented its effectiveness. METHODS We randomly assigned 46,551 participants 50 to 80 years of age to screening for colorectal cancer once a year,...