BACKGROUND The purpose was to evaluate the significance of panoramic radiomorphometric indices (mandibular cortical index [MCI], mental index [MI] and panoramic mandibular index [PMI]) as useful tools for identifying osteoporosis. METHODS One hundred healthy women aged ≥ 30 years were included. Digital panoramic images and bone mineral density (BMD) of the lumbar spines were recorded. Radiomo...

Cristae are mitochondrial inner-membrane structures that concentrate respiratory chain complexes and hence regulate ATP production. Mechanisms controlling crista morphogenesis are poorly understood and few crista determinants have been identified. Among them are the Mitofilins that are required to establish crista junctions and ATP-synthase subunits that bend the membrane at the tips of the cri...

AIMS During heart failure (HF), the left ventricle (LV) releases B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), possibly contributing to adverse cardiovascular events including ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) and LV remodelling. We investigated the cardiac effects of chronic BNP elevation in healthy mice and compared the results with a model of HF after myocardial infarction (PMI mice). METHODS AND RESULTS ...

We studied the effects of dronedarone (SR 33589) on the action potentials, membrane ionic currents, and arrhythmic activity in control rats and in rats after myocardial infarction, a model known to develop anomalous electrical activity. Dronedarone increased action potential duration in normal hearts. It had little effect on the action potentials that were already prolonged in the postmyocardia...

PURPOSE After death, a series of changes occur naturally in the human body in a fairly regular pattern. These postmortem changes are detectable on postmortem CT scans (PMCT) and may be useful in estimating the postmortem interval (PMI). The purpose of our study is to correlate the PMCT radiodensities of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and vitreous humor (VH) to the PMI. METHODS Three patient gr...

Two recent measures incorporate the notion of statistical significance in basic PMI formulation. In some tasks, we find that the new measures perform worse than the PMI. Our analysis shows that while the basic ideas in incorporating statistical significance in PMI are reasonable, they have been applied slightly inappropriately. By fixing this, we get new measures that improve performance over n...

OBJECTIVES The purposes of this study were to examine the status of children and adolescents with regard to enrollment in private medical insurance (PMI) and to investigate its influence on their utilization of medical services. METHODS The present study assessed 2973 subjects younger than 19 years of age who participated in five consecutive Korea Health Panel surveys from 2009 to 2012. RES...

BACKGROUND Diagnosis of pectoralis major tears early in the acute phase is important for optimizing surgical repair and outcomes. However, physical examination of pectoralis major injuries can be misleading, often resulting in a potentially detrimental delay in surgical treatment. PURPOSE To establish and validate a quantifiable clinical diagnostic test for structurally significant pectoralis...

BACKGROUND The optimal surgical procedures in functional mitral regurgitation remain controversial. We applied papillary muscle imbrication (PMI) combined with undersized mitral annuloplasty (UMAP). Multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) provides images of different phases of the cardiac cycle, allowing an assessment of the geometry. In the present study, we evaluated the mitral valve configu...