BACKGROUND Determining the age-specific hospitalization burden associated with seasonal influenza and the (H1N1) 2009 pandemic is important for the development of effective vaccine strategies and clinical management. The aim of this study was to investigate age-specific differences in hospitalization rates during the pandemic and seasonal periods. METHODS Using the Taiwan National Health Insu...

Present-on-admission modifiers for International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) diagnosis codes are rapidly becoming a standard coding requirement. Inaccurate coding of these modifiers can distort analyses of risk-adjusted outcomes and determinations of hospital reimbursement. A set of 12 screens for the plausibility of present-on-admission designat...

OBJECTIVES Implementation of the International Statistical Classification of Disease and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision (ICD-10) coding system presents challenges for using administrative data. Recognizing this, we conducted a multistep process to develop ICD-10 coding algorithms to define Charlson and Elixhauser comorbidities in administrative data and assess the performance of the res...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of specific IgE (sIgE) concentrations for the diagnosis of immediate-type egg and cow's milk (CM) allergies in Korean children and to determine the optimal cutoff levels. METHODS In this prospective study, children ≥12 months of age with suspected egg or CM allergy were enrolled. Food allergy was diagnosed by an open oral food chal...

Age and growth of Mesopotamian barb, Capoeta damascina, were studied in the Zayandehrud River, in central Iran, from March 2007 to April 2008. Among the 689 specimens studied, age groups in males ranged from 1+ to 9+ and that in females ranged from 1+ to 10+. The sex ratio (1M:1.6F) was not significantly different from 1:1 ratio. Maximum fork length and weight was 39 cm and 1,115 g for males an...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of the interatrial sulcus opening regarding of left atrium gain when harvesting heart and lungs for transplantation. METHODS It was evaluated the left atrium dimension, from the right mediastinal side, after the interatrial sulcus dissection in fifty human cadaver. The interatrial sulcus gain was related with gender, age and ethnic group. RESULTS The gain ob...

Sub-Doppler excitation spectroscopy in a collimated cold supersonic beam of 5% NO seeded in argon has been performed with a spectral resolution down to 10 MHz for four vibronic bands within the perturbed B ?X A system of NO . The rotational temperature of about 15 K achieved by adiabatic cooling allows the separation of closely lying vibronic bands which overlap in absorption spectra ...

background: bisphosphonates (bps) are used extensively for managing the osteoporosis. there are some controversies on atypical fractures of femur that associated with increase in cortical thickness (ct) and bps' use. in this study, the effects of alendronate consumption were studied on femoral ct as a predictor for atypical fracture.   methods: forty nine post-menopausal women aged 50-70 years ...