OBJECTIVE To assess the usefulness of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in differentiating malignant from benign gallbladder (GB) diseases. METHODS This study had institutional review board approval. 192 patients with GB diseases from 9 university hospitals were studied. After intravenous bonus injection of a phospholipid-stabilized shell microbubble contrast agent, lesions were scanned wit...

Dear Editor, Phlebotomists wear gloves for their own protection and for patient safety; they wash hands (or apply alcohol disinfectants when pressed for time) and change gloves between patients [13]. Blood collection is delayed when gloves are changed after washing and drying hands. Moreover, latex glove disposal might increase environmental pollution. Cleansing gloved hands to prolong the use ...

BACKGROUND The enzyme hyaluronidase from bovine origin is commonly used for oocyte-cumulus cell removal in ICSI. A recombinant human hyaluronidase (rHuPH20) has been introduced as a quality-controlled and safe alternative. METHODS In order to validate its effectiveness, a non-inferiority trial was started on sibling cumulus-oocyte complexes (135 ICSI patients). Oocyte denudation involved enzy...

Retention of intact plant cells to the end of the small intestine leads to transport of entrapped macronutrients such as starch and protein for colonic microbial fermentation, and is a promising mechanism to increase the content of resistant starch in diets. However, the effect of gastro-intestinal bio-mechanical processing on the intactness of plant cells and the subsequent resistance to enzym...

INTRODUCTION Intrauterine fetal bone retention is a rare complication and the bony fragments probably work like an intrauterine contraceptive device resulting in secondary infertility. Among the scarcely reported cases in the literature, there was no report described the retention of a large number of fetal bones with nearly intact morphology. CASE PRESENTATION The present report described an...

The inactivation of bacteriophage HP1c1 by X rays in a complex medium was found to be exponential, with a D0 (the X-ray exposure necessary to reduce the survival of the phage to 37%) of approximately 90 kR. Analysis of results of sucrose sedimentation of DNA from X-irradiated whole phage showed that the D0 for intactness of single strands was about 105kR, and for intactness of double strands, i...

Isolated pea chloroplasts undergo both cyclic and non-cyclic electron flow. Both processes are coupled to photophosphorylation. During non-cyclic flow the rate of oxygen production showed ADP-governed 'photosynthetic control' analogous to respiratory control of isolated mitochondria. Measurements ofADP/O and photosynthetic control ratios yielded values of 1-1-3 and 2-5-7 respectively. 'Photosyn...