Masticatory efficiency and muscular activity in removable partial dental prostheses with different cusp angles

Statement of problem

The loss of posterior teeth has a negative effect on the masticatory efficiency and activity of mastication muscles. How these muscles are affected by partial removable dental prostheses (PRDPs) with different cusp angles is unknown.

An Ensemble Method for Classifying Regional Disease Patterns of Diffuse Interstitial Lung Disease Using HRCT Images from Different Vendors

We propose the use of ensemble classifiers to overcome inter-scanner variations in the differentiation of regional disease patterns in high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) images of diffuse interstitial lung disease patients obtained from different scanners. A total of 600 rectangular 20 × 20-pixel regions of interest (ROIs) on HRCT images obtained from two different scanners (GE and Siemens) and the whole lung area of 92 HRCT images were classified as one of six regional pulmonary disease patterns by two expert radiologists. Textual and shape features were extracted from each ROI and the whole lung parenchyma. For automatic classification, individual and ensemble classifiers were trained and tested with the ROI dataset. We designed the following three experimental sets: an intra-scanner study in which the training and test sets were from the same scanner, an integrated scanner study in which the data from the two scanners were merged, and an inter-scanner study in which the training and test sets were acquired from different scanners. In the ROI-based classification, the ensemble classifiers showed better (p < 0.001) accuracy (89.73%, SD = 0.43) than the individual classifiers (88.38%, SD = 0.31) in the integrated scanner test. The ensemble classifiers also showed partial improvements in the intra- and inter-scanner tests. In the whole lung classification experiment, the quantification accuracies of the ensemble classifiers with integrated training (49.57%) were higher (p < 0.001) than the individual classifiers (48.19%). Furthermore, the ensemble classifiers also showed better performance in both the intra- and inter-scanner experiments. We concluded that the ensemble classifiers provide better performance when using integrated scanner images.     

Reduced pro-inflammatory responses to <Emphasis Type="Italic">Staphylococcus aureus</Emphasis> bloodstream infection and low prevalence of enterotoxin genes in isolates from patients on haemodialysis

Patients with end-stage renal failure undergo regular haemodialysis (HD) and often develop episodes of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection (BSI), which can re-occur. However, clinically, patients on HD, with S. aureus BSI, respond well to treatment, rarely developing overt signs of sepsis. We investigated the contributions of bacterial virulence and cytokine responses to the clinical course of S. aureus BSI in HD and non-HD patients. Seventy patients were recruited, including 27 (38.6 %) patients on HD. Isolates were spa-typed and virulence and antimicrobial resistance gene carriage was investigated using DNA microarray analysis. Four inflammatory cytokines, IL-6, RANTES, GROγ and leptin, were measured in patient plasma on the day of diagnosis and after 7 days. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of genotypes or antimicrobial resistance genes in S. aureus isolates from HD compared to non-HD patients. The enterotoxin gene cluster (containing staphylococcal enterotoxins seg, sei, sem, sen, seo and seu) was significantly less prevalent among BSI isolates from HD patients compared to non-HD patients. Comparing inflammatory cytokine response to S. aureus BSI in HD patients to non-HD patients, IL-6 and GROγ were significantly lower (p?=?0.021 and p?=?0.001, respectively) in HD patients compared to other patients on the day of diagnosis and RANTES levels were significantly lower (p?=?0.025) in HD patients on day 7 following diagnosis. Lowered cytokine responses in HD patients and a reduced potential for super-antigen production by infecting isolates may partly explain the favourable clinical responses to episodes of S. aureus BSI in HD patients that we noted clinically.     

Nifedipine and propranolol: A beneficial drug interaction

The antianginal effects of two active drugs, nifedipine and propranolol, alone and in combination, were compared with those of placebo in a double-blind clinical trial that included 16 patients with chronic stable angina triggered by exertion. A low dose and a high dose of the active drugs were used (nifedipine, 30 and 60 mg/day; propranolol, 240 and 280 mg/day). Precordial exercise mapping and continuous electrocardiographic recordings were used to assess objective response to therapy, and the patients were asked to keep a diary of episodes of chest pain and consumption of nitroglycerin tablets for subjective appraisal. Both frequency of chest pain and nitroglycerin consumption were significantly reduced by each of the active drugs when compared with placebo, and the combination of nifedipine and propranolol added significantly to the effectiveness. Reductions in area of ischemia and number of episodes of ST segment depression on 48-hour ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring corroborated the efficacy of each active treatment with respect to placebo. Nearly 60 percent of all episodes of ST segment depression were painless and responded to the active treatment in the same manner as did the episodes associated with chest pain. Side effects were mild and all treatments were well tolerated. The objective methods used allowed for clear-cut differentiation of treatment effects with the various regimens. Although the two drugs alone were significantly more effective than placebo, their combination provided an even greater improvement (p < 0.005), and therefore it appears to be a safe and effective form of treatment for chronic stable angina.