The aim of this study was to assess interobserver agreement of ultrasound parameters for portal hypertension in hepatosplenic mansonic schistosomiasis. Spleen size, diameter of the portal, splenic and superior mesenteric veins and presence of thrombosis and cavernous transformation were determined by three radiologists in blinded and independent fashion in 30 patients. Interobserver agreement w...

BACKGROUND: In the era of novel antiviral drugs for treatment of chronic viral hepatitis C (HCV), the diagnosis of liver cirrhosis guides both the choice of the drug regimen, duration of treatment and subsequent follow up. Transient elastography (TE) (fibroscan) is a recent, non invasive and reliable method for the diagnosis of cirrhosis in patients with chronic HCV. We aimed at demonstrating t...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate interobserver reproducibility of a grading system proposed by Paner et al. for chromophobe renal cell carcinoma. MATERIAL AND METHODS After selecting 23 cases of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma from the Xeral-Cíes Hospital, Meixoeiro Hospital and POVISA Hospital from the last 15 years, an informative meeting on the Paner et al. grading system criteria was held. After, ...

The influence of operating variables [viz: temperature 55-85°C, process time 30-120 min, pH 9-11,peraceticacid concentration 0.5-3.5% oven dried pulp (o.d.p.)., and sodium perborate concentration 1-5% o.d.p.] on the bleached pulp characteristics [viz: viscosity (VI), brightness (BR), kappa number (KN)], and resulting paper sheets properties [viz: breaking length (BL), stretch (ST), tear (TI), a...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the usefulness of the following four comorbidity indices in gastric cancer patients who underwent surgery: Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), Cumulative Illness rating scale (CIRS), Index of Co-existent Disease (ICED), and Kaplan-Feinstein Scale (KFS). METHODS The study subjects were 614 adults who underwent surgery for gastric cancer...

BACKGROUND In the course of setting up the National Mesothelioma Surveillance Program (PNSM), established in France in 1998, the question arose as to the most suitable method of assessing occupational exposure. The aim of this study was to define the most suitable rating method for assessing occupational asbestos exposure in order to assess medico-social care. METHOD The study included 100 su...

A large number of accuracy measures for crisp supervised classification have been developed in supervised image classification literature. Overall accuracy, Kappa index, Kappa location, Kappa histo and user accuracy are some well-known examples. In this work, we will extend and analyze some of these measures in a fuzzy framework to be able to measure the goodness of a given classifier in a supe...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is a clinical assessment tool that is widely used in clinical trials and practice to evaluate stroke-related neurological deficits. The aim of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Korean version of the NIHSS (K-NIHSS) for evaluating Korean stroke patients. METHODS The K-NIHSS was translate...

PURPOSE To assess agreement between monoscopic and stereoscopic photography for research classification of the severity of diabetic retinopathy (DR). METHODS Monoscopic digital (MD) images were compared with stereo digital (SD) and film (SF) photographs from a 152-eye cohort with full-spectrum Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) severity levels for agreement on severity level, ...