Investigative ophthalmology & visual science
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Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. · Apr 2013
Comparative Study Clinical TrialComparative analysis of repeatability of manual and automated choroidal thickness measurements in nonneovascular age-related macular degeneration.
We compared the reproducibility and mutual agreement of the subfoveal choroidal thickness measurements by expert raters and an automated algorithm in enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) images of eyes with nonneovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). ⋯ The automated algorithm generally yielded smaller choroidal thickness than the raters with a moderate level of agreement. However, its repeat scan measurement repeatability was comparable to that of the manual measurements. The mean difference between the raters indicated possible biases in different raters and rating sessions. The correlation of the automated measurements with the drusen area was comparable to that of the manual measurements. Automated subfoveal choroidal thickness measurement has potential use in clinical practice and clinical trials, with possibility for reduced time and labor cost.
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Berberine (BBR) has been shown to exert immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory effects in several autoimmune diseases. This study was designed to investigate the possible effect of BBR on Th17 and dendritic cell (DC) responses. ⋯ These findings suggest that the inhibitory effect of BBR on the Th17 response was mediated by a direct action on T cells as well as an indirect effect via DCs. This study provides new evidence that the natural compound BBR is of great value in the search for novel therapeutic agents in the treatment of T-cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.