The optical density of human macular pigment was measured for 50 observers ranging in age from 10 to 90 years. The psychophysical method required adjusting the radiance of a 1 degree, monochromatic light (400-550 nm) to minimize flicker (15 Hz) when presented in counterphase with a 460 nm standard. This test stimulus was presented superimposed on a broad-band, short-wave background. Macular pig...

BACKGROUND Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an important cause of visual impairment in elderly people. AMD is a multifactorial disease in which both environmental and genetic factors have been implicated. Various single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been found to be associated with AMD. AIM This study was aimed to investigate the association of polymorphisms in VEGF genes with...

BACKGROUND Dialysis patients suffer from a high burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Partly this is due to progressive deterioration of calcium-phosphate homeostasis. Previous studies suggested that besides FGF-23, low levels of Klotho, a protein linked to aging, might constitute a key factor in this detrimental relationship. The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship...

Horne S , Nutbeam T . You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: time to start again with MCI triage. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2016;31(4):459-460.

Mind: " By convention colour, by convention cold, by convention bitter: in reality atoms and void. " Senses: " Poor mind, do you take your evidence from us and then try to overthrow us? Our overthrow is your fall. " Democritus (460-370 BC)

A total of 460 Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates from patients seen at three clinics in Dakar, Sénégal, 1982-1986, have been investigated. In this period a significant change in antimicrobial susceptibility was observed: the percentage of strains susceptible to penicillin (MIC less than or equal to 0.08 micrograms/ml) fell from 61 to 18 (p less than 0.0001) and the percentage of resistant strains ...

Diabetic retinopathy and nephropathy cause significant morbidity in patients with diabetes. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent angiogenic and vascular permeability factor and is implicated in both of these diabetes complications. We previously reported transfection studies showing the VEGF -460 and VEGF +405 polymorphisms to increase basal VEGF promoter activity by 71% compar...

Background & objectives: The present investigation was designed to evaluate the post-treatment properties of the hydroalcoholic fruit extract of cassia fistula (golden shower tree) in male Albino mice. Materials & Methods: Biomarkers and histological liver and kidney alterations, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), γ-glutamyl transferase...

SETTING A Mycobacteriology Reference Laboratory in Johannesburg, South Africa. OBJECTIVE To determine the ability of FASTPlaqueTB-RIF, a rapid bacteriophage-based test, to correctly identify rifampicin susceptibility in clinical strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis after growth in the Bactec 460 semi-automated liquid culture system. DESIGN A comparative study of FASTPlaqueTB-RIF and conven...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE The diagnostic contribution of cervical tissue fluorescence spectra acquired in vivo at 380 and 460 nm excitation were analyzed using a general multivariate statistical algorithm. MATERIALS AND METHODS The primary steps of the algorithm are to: (1) preprocess data to reduce interpatient and intrapatient variation of tissue spectra from the same diagnostic category, wi...