Medicine
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Comparative Study
Comparison of corneal thickness measurements using ultrasound pachymetry, noncontact tonopachy, Pentacam HR, and Fourier-domain OCT.
We retrospectively compared the central corneal thickness (CCT) obtained by ultrasound pachymetry (USP; SP-3000, Tomey Corp., Nagoya, Japan), non-contact tonopachy (TP) (NT-530P, Nidek Co., Ltd., Gamagori, Japan), Pentacam HR (OCULUS Inc., Wetzlar, Germany), and RTVue optical coherence tomography (OCT) (Optovue Inc., Fremont, CA, USA) in 78 eyes of 78 healthy subjects with myopia. Agreement between the measurement methods was evaluated using 95% confidence intervals for the limits of agreement (LoA). The mean CCT values were 546.9 ± 34.7, 548.1 ± 33.5, 559.2 ± 34.0, and 547.2 ± 34.8 μm for USP, non-contact TP, Pentacam, and RTVue, respectively. ⋯ Plots of the differences against the means showed the best agreement between USP and RTVue (LoA, 10.14-10.70 μm), while the largest discrepancy was observed between RTVue and Pentacam systems (LoA, -25.47-1.44 μm). Our data showed that CCT measurements using these 4 instruments were well correlated. However, the results from Pentacam differed significantly from those of the other instruments.
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Case Reports
Hysteroscopic morcellation for removal of persistent placental remnants in the uterine cornu: Two case reports.
Hysteroscopic morcellation is an alternative approach for the removal of placental remnants, given its advantages of safety, efficiency and good reproductive outcomes. This superiority can be even more obvious for removing persistent placental remnants in the lateral angle of the uterine cavity after repeated dilation and curettage (D&C) of an angular pregnancy, which is rarely reported. ⋯ Hysteroscopic morcellation is a good alternative approach for the removal of placental remnants and should be considered in cases in which there might be a high risk of incomplete evacuation or a high risk of uterine perforation, especially in cases of angular pregnancy.
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The disease progression of gouty arthritis (GA) is relatively clear, with the 4 stages of hyperuricemia (HUA), acute gouty arthritis (AGA), gouty arthritis during the intermittent period (GIP), and chronic gouty arthritis (CGA). This paper attempts to construct a clinical diagnostic model based on blood routine test data, in order to avoid the need for bursa fluid examination and other tedious steps, and at the same time to predict the development direction of GA. Serum samples from 579 subjects were collected within 3 years in this study and were divided into a training set (n = 379) and validation set (n = 200). ⋯ The kappa coefficient of the clinical diagnostic model was 0.80. This clinical diagnostic model could be applied clinically and in research to improve the accuracy of the identification of the different stages of GA. Meanwhile, the serum biochemical profile revealed by this study could be used to assist the clinical diagnosis and prediction of GA.
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The objective of this paper is to determine the temporal trend of the association of 66 comorbidities with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection status among Medicare beneficiaries from 2000 through 2016. We harvested patient level encounter claims from a 17-year long 100% sample of Medicare records. We used the chronic conditions warehouse comorbidity flags to determine HIV infection status and presence of comorbidities. ⋯ Three comorbidities changed association from HIV+ to HIV- and 9 comorbidities changed association from HIV- to HIV+. The prevalence of comorbidities associated with HIV infection changed over time due to clinical, social, and epidemiological reasons. Comorbidity surveillance can provide important insights into the understanding and management of HIV infection and its consequences.
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To evaluate the clinical and imaging findings of papillary breast neoplasm and review the pathologic correlation at a tertiary center. Retrospective study of patients diagnosed with benign and malignant papillary lesions between 2008 to 2018. 147 patients were identified with histology diagnosis of papillary lesions. The clinical, imaging, and pathological characteristics were reviewed. ⋯ The most common sonographic features for all 3 groups were the presence of a mass and irregular shape. Among all the sonographic features assessed, larger size, presence of vascularity and absence of dilated ducts were significantly associated (P < .05) with malignancy. Feature pattern recognition of the variety of benign, atypical and malignant papillary neoplasm on ultrasound and mammogram, with emphasis on size, presence of vascularity and dilated ducts on ultrasound and presence of mass, and architectural distortion on mammogram, is important in the assessment of patients with suspected ductal lesions to facilitate optimal treatment and surgical care.