Abstract Background Early diagnosis of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) plays a key role to prevent adverse cardiac events such as myocardial infarction and Left Ventricular (LV) dysfunction. Myocardial Work (MW) indices derived from echocardiographic speckle tracking data in combination with non-invasive blood pressure recordings are able predict CAD even the absence impairments standard paramete...

OBJECTIVES To conduct a meta-analysis and investigate the diagnostic value of 64-slice computed tomography (CT) angiography for diagnosing coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients. METHODS A comprehensive literature search from March 2005 to August 2014 was performed on the following databases: Cochrane Library; Medline; EmBase; PubMed; and BioMed Central database. As a reference standard, s...

BACKGROUND A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the diagnostic performance of computed tomography (CT) imaging features of ground-glass opacity (GGO) to predict invasiveness. METHODS Two reviewers independently searched PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, Cochrane Embase and CNKI for relevant studies. CT imaging signs of bubble lucency, speculation, lobulated margin, and pleural indentat...

Because acute bacterial gastroenteritis is often inflammatory, rapid stool assays that detect intestinal inflammation might be used to distinguish between bacterial and nonbacterial gastroenteritis. We performed meta-analyses to determine the discriminatory power, in developed and in resource-poor countries, of rapid stool assays that test for lactoferrin, fecal leukocytes, fecal erythrocytes, ...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To assess and compare the predictive validity of the modified Braden and Braden scales and to identify which of the modified Braden subscales are predictive in assessing pressure ulcer risk among orthopaedic patients in an acute care setting. BACKGROUND Although the Braden scale has better predictive validity, literature has suggested that it can be used in conjunction wit...

OBJECTIVE To study the diagnostic accuracy of sonographic measurements of the lower uterine segment (LUS) thickness near term in predicting uterine scar defects in women with prior Caesarean section (CS). DATA SOURCES PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library (1965-2009). METHODS OF STUDY SELECTION Studies of populations of women with previous low transverse CS who underwent third-trimester eval...

The aim of this study was to develop a modified Braden scale, to evaluate its predictive validity, and to identify a more valid pressure ulcer risk calculator for application in acute care hospitals in Mainland China among the modified Braden, Braden, and Norton scales. The initial modified Braden scale, with the addition of skin type and body build for height, was proposed in this study. Four ...

BACKGROUND Magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) has been proposed as a non-ionising alternative method to computed tomography enterography (CTE). Some studies have directly compared CTE and MRE in patients with small bowel Crohn's disease (CD) with variable results. AIM To compare the overall diagnostic accuracy in assessing the activity of small bowel and complications. METHODS MEDLINE, E...

Abnormal methylation of certain cancer related genes strongly predicts a diagnosis of head and neck cancer (HNC), while the predictive power of methylation of other DNA markers for HNC remains unclear. To systemically assess the diagnostic value of DNA methylation patterns for HNC and the effect of methylation platform techniques and sample types, we performed a PubMed search for studies of the...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the diagnostic performance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the preoperative prediction of the histological grade of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). MATERIALS AND METHODS A comprehensive literature search was performed in several authoritative databases to identify relevant articles. QUADAS-2 was used to assess the quality of included studies. Data were extracted t...