BACKGROUND Fluid balance is a fundamental management of patients with sepsis, and this study aimed to investigate the impact of cumulative fluid balance on critically ill patients with influenza admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS This multicenter retrospective cohort study was conducted by the Taiwan Severe Influenza Research Consortium (TSIRC) which includes eight medical cent...

OBJECT Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common astrocytic brain tumor and carries a dire prognosis. Despite current therapeutic options--surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy--survival varies from 11.3 to 14.6 months. A group of drugs known as histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDIs) has demonstrated a potentially beneficial role in cancer treatment, particularly in combination with oth...

Background: Chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is a treatment standard in limited disease (LD) small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Currently, the timing of thoracic radiation therapy (TRT) remains the subject of randomised trials and meta-analyses. To investigate a correlation between CRT schedule parameters and overall survival (OS) in a real-life patient cohort, a temporal analysis was performed. Methods: 18...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of Jianpi Ligan decoction (JLD) as an adjuvant therapy for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated by transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). METHODS From March 2007 to March 2013, 103 patients with unresectable HCC who underwent TACE in our center were included in this retrospective study. Among the 103 patients...

OBJECTIVE To identify predictors for the safe use of antibiotic treatment without reoperation in patients with prosthetic valve endocarditis. SETTING Retrospective study in a tertiary care centre. SUBJECTS AND DESIGN All 49 episodes of definite prosthetic valve endocarditis (Duke criteria) diagnosed at one institution between 1980 to 1997 were analysed. Ten episodes (20%) were treated with ...

Non-parametric tests that deal with two samples include scores tests (such as the Wilcoxon rank sum test, normal scores test, log istic scores test, Cauchy scores test, etc.) and Fisher’s randomization test. B ecause the non-parametric tests generally require a large amount of computational work, there are few studies on small-sample properties, although asymptotic properties with regard to var...

Previous methods proposed for the detection of cancer driver mutations have been based on the estimation of background mutation rate, impact on protein function, or network influence. In this paper, we instead focus on those factors influencing patient survival. To this end, an approximation of the log-rank test has been systematically applied, even though it assumes a large and similar number ...

Letting ) (i S be the i-th largest city in a country, it is often observed that i S i log log 1 0 ) ( α α + ≈ for some 0 0 > α and 0 1 < α . It is called rank size rule when 1 1 − = α . This relationship has been examined by means of ordinary least squares estimation and t test in the literature. However, since ) (i S is heteroskedastic and autocorrelated, t statistics do not have standard dist...

Abstract Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) may progress over time, leading to greater AF burden. Data suggest that patients receiving rhythm control drugs are less likely more severe forms of vs those a rate strategy only. ATHENA (NCT00174785) demonstrated dronedarone significantly decreased cardiovascular (CV) hospitalization and death [1], but it is unclear whether affects progression atria...