BioMed research international
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Human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) is an available tumor biomarker mainly for detecting ovarian cancer. However, it is unknown whether it can be a novel indicator for diagnosis of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of serum HE4 as a novel biomarker for DKD in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). ⋯ Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that increased HE4 level was a significant, independent risk factor for DKD (OR, 95% CI, 57.7, 3.0-1112.9, P < 0.001) after adjusting for factors associated with HE4. Increased serum HE4 level is associated with decreased renal function and increased risks of DKD in patients with DM. It displays a good diagnostic value for DKD.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of Clinical Outcomes of Two-Level PELD and Foraminoplasty PELD for Highly Migrated Disc Herniations: A Comparative Study.
The aim of this study is to compare the clinical outcomes of two-level percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) and foraminoplasty PELD in treating highly migrated lumbar disc herniations. ⋯ Both two-level PELD and foraminoplasty PELD are safe and effective surgical procedures for the patients with highly migrated lumbar disc herniations. Moreover, the two-level PELD technique has merits in reducing the incidence of postoperative nucleus pulposus residue.
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Lung cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Although computed tomography (CT) examinations are frequently used for lung cancer diagnosis, it can be difficult to distinguish between benign and malignant pulmonary nodules on the basis of CT images alone. Therefore, a bronchoscopic biopsy may be conducted if malignancy is suspected following CT examinations. ⋯ The DCNN is trained using nodule images generated by the GAN and then fine-tuned using the actual nodule images to allow the DCNN to distinguish between benign and malignant nodules. This pretraining and fine-tuning process makes it possible to distinguish 66.7% of benign nodules and 93.9% of malignant nodules. These results indicate that the proposed method improves the classification accuracy by approximately 20% in comparison with training using only the original images.
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The endplate defects (EDs), Modic changes (MCs), disc degeneration (DD), facet orientation (FO), and facet tropism (FT) were demonstrated to be related to the low back pain (LBP). The aim of this study was to investigate possible correlations between them. ⋯ The relationship between weight, gender, and disc degeneration provided a mechanism by which increasing weight can predispose to DD. Different grades of EDs had different effects on patients with LBP. There was a significant correlation between EDs, MCs II, DD, FT, and FO.
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We present entry and exit screening outcomes on all persons passing through Freetown International Airport (FNA) in Sierra Leone during the period 1st September 2014 to 4th February 2016. A total of 166,242 persons underwent screening for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) at FNA. ⋯ No cases were identified through entry screening route. The public health value of airport screening for EVD is discussed.