conclusions pivka-ii was as efficient as afp when used as a single marker for hcc screening and the combination of two biomarkers gave a better performance. results the sensitivity and specificity of pivka-ii were 74.6% and 67.8% at a cutoff of 40 mau/ml and 64.2% and 89.7% at a cutoff of 200 mau/ml. the sensitivity and specificity of afp were 76.7% and 65.0% at a cutoff of 20 ng/ml and 60.4% a...

The high-resolution melting curve analysis (HRMA) might be a good alternative method for rapid detection of BRAF mutations. However, the accuracy of HRMA in detection of BRAF mutations has not been systematically evaluated. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis involving 1324 samples from 14 separate studies. The overall sensitivity of HRMA was 0.99 (95% confidence interval (CI) = ...

A new chitinase inhibitor, CI-4, was isolated from the culture broth of a marine bacterium Pseudomonas sp. IZ208. The structure of CI-4 was determined to be cyclo(L-Arg-D-Pro) by spectral studies and comparison with a synthetic sample. CI-4 showed inhibitory activity against chitinase.

Background: The use of biomarkers for diagnosis of Preeclampsia (PE), a life-threatening pregnancy disorder, could reduce serious complications of this disease. In this study, we investigated dysregulation of endoglin (Eng) expression and diagnostic accuracy of soluble endoglin (sEng) in PE patients. Methods: For this case-control study, 26 mild and 15 severe preeclamptic women along with 20 no...

BACKGROUND Magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (ME-NBI) is a novel, image-enhanced endoscopic technique for differentiating gastrointestinal neoplasms and potentially enabling pathological diagnosis. OBJECTIVES The aim of this analysis was to assess the diagnostic performance of ME-NBI for gastric neoplasms. METHODS We performed a systematic search of the PubMed, EMbase, Web of Sc...

Background and purpose: In 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) has announced the fairness of financial contribution to health care costs, as one of the three goals of health systems. However, conducted studies in Iran reflect the dire situation in the context of health equity in terms of financing health care costs. The aim of the present study is to determine the disparities in health expendi...

The pharmacokinetics of the anthrapyrazole CI-941 has been investigated in conjunction with the Phase I evaluation of the drug with the intent of applying a pharmacokinetically guided dose escalation strategy. A starting dose of 5 mg/m2 was chosen, based on one-tenth the 10% lethal dose in mice. Due to the steep dose lethality relationship and nonlinear pharmacokinetics in mice, a target area u...