A 21 year old man presented with a right sided pleural effusion. Destruction of the 11th and 12th right ribs and adjacent vertebral bodies was noted on computed tomographic scanning. An open rib biopsy revealed the histopathological changes of Gorham's syndrome. In view of the progressive vertebral destruction and inevitable spinal cord compromise, he was treated with high dose radiotherapy. Th...

Results With a little simplification, the sample size calculations for the traditional power-based approach, for equivalence studies, and following the new proposal can be shown to be much the same. The single fundamental difference is that the new proposal does not include a multiplier to increase the statistical power beyond 50% (i.e. only a 50:50 chance of detecting a true treatment effect o...

OBJECTIVE To review the evidence of clinical course of pain and disability in patients with acute and persistent low-back pain, and to investigate whether pain and disability had similar courses. DATA SOURCES MEDLINE, CINAHL and Embase databases were searched from 1950 to November, 2011. This search was supplemented by searching of reference lists from eligible studies. STUDY SELECTION Ince...