Vitamin D3 shows tumoristatic and anticancer effects by acting through the vitamin D receptor (VDR), while hydroxylation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 at position 1α by CYP27B1 is an essential step in its activation. The expression of both the VDR and CYP27B1 has been found in many normal and cancer tissues, but there is a lack of information about its expression in human bladder cancers. The aim of ...

PURPOSE Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are widespread and affect a large portion of the human population. Cranberry juices and extracts have been used for UTI prevention due to their content of bioactive proanthocyanidins (PACs), particularly of the A type (PAC-A). Controversial clinical results obtained with cranberry are often due to a lack of precise determination and authentication of the ...

BACKGROUND Haemophilus influenzae is the most common colonizing bacteria of the bronchial tree in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and positive cultures for this potentially pathogenic microorganism (PPM) has been associated with local inflammation changes that may influence the relationships between H. influenzae and the bronchial mucosa. METHODS A cross-sectional analysis of st...

Methods Study was conducted in ART centre, IMS, BHU. Patients who failed on first line ART (NACO criteria) were included in the study after consent. Virological, immunological and clinical response was assessed at 24 weeks. Independent t-test /Mann-Whitney U test was used for making comparison among the independent groups. Chi-square test was used to test the association between categorical var...

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES Several statistical methods have been developed for analyzing multireader, multicase (MRMC) receiver operating characteristic (ROC) studies. The objective of this article is to increase awareness of these methods and determine if their results are concordant for published datasets. MATERIALS AND METHODS Data from three previously published studies were reanalyzed usin...

OBJECTIVE(S) The aim of this study was to investigate the association between HLA class I alleles (HLA-A*02, HLA-A*24, HLA-Cw*08, HLA-B5401) and proviral load in HTLV-I associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraperesis (HAM/TSP) patients in Iranian population. MATERIALS AND METHODS 20 new cases of HAM/TSP patients and 30 HTLV-I infected healthy carriers were recruited. Peripheral blood sampl...

Editor: I read with great interest the article by Dr Megibow and colleagues (1) in the January 2006 issue of Radiology. I have some concerns about the Materials and Methods and Results sections of this article. In the Materials and Methods section, under the subtitle “Statistical Analysis,” the authors state that the two groups included in their study were compared with respect to the mean valu...

BACKGROUND Scar tissue formation is the major cause of failure in peripheral nerve surgery. Use of a hyaluronic acid-carboxymethylcellulose (HA-CMC) membrane (Seprafilm) as a solid anti-adhesion barrier agent is one of the therapeutic approaches to reduce postoperative scar tissue formation. However, a solid membrane may not be suitable for repair of a weak peripheral nerve site. This study exa...

The awareness of benefits resulting from the use of the latest research findings in the professional practice of midwives is a prerequisite to ensuring safe midwifery care satisfying the highest standards. Thus, it is important to encourage midwifery students to expand their knowledge and to improve their research methodology and critical analysis of literature-related competence. Aim The aim o...

The nonparametric Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test is commonly used by experimental economists for detecting differences in central tendency between two samples. This test is only theoretically appropriate under certain assumptions concerning the population distributions from which the samples are drawn, and is often used in cases where it is unclear whether these assumptions hold, and even when they...