336 research outputs found
Screening of young competitive athletes for the prevention of sudden cardiac death with a wireless electrocardiographic transmission device: a pilot study
Low specificity of determine HIV1/2 RDT using whole blood in south west Tanzania
Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of two rapid detection tests (RDTs) for HIV 1/2 in plasma and in whole blood samples.
Methods:
More than 15,000 study subjects above the age of two years participated in two rounds of a cohort study to determine the prevalence of HIV. HIV testing was performed using the Determine HIV 1/2 test (Abbott) in the first (2006/2007) and the HIV 1/2 STAT-PAK Dipstick Assay (Chembio) in the second round (2007/2008) of the survey. Positive results were classified into faint and strong bands depending on the visual appearance of the test strip and confirmed by ELISA and Western blot.
Results:
The sensitivity and specificity of the Determine RDT were 100% (95% confidence interval = 86.8 to 100%) and 96.8% (95.9 to 97.6%) in whole blood and 100% (99.7 to 100%) and 97.9% (97.6 to 98.1%) in plasma respectively. Specificity was highly dependent on the tested sample type: when using whole blood, 67.1% of positive results were false positive, as opposed to 17.4% in plasma. Test strips with only faint positive bands were more often false positive than strips showing strong bands and were more common in whole blood than in plasma. Evaluation of the STAT-PAK RDT in plasma during the second year resulted in a sensitivity of 99.7% (99.1 to 99.9%) and a specificity of 99.3% (99.1 to 99.4%) with 6.9% of the positive results being false.
Conclusions:
Our study shows that the Determine HIV 1/2 strip test with its high sensitivity is an excellent tool to screen for HIV infection, but that – at least in our setting – it can not be recommended as a confirmatory test in VCT campaigns where whole blood is used
The East Greenland Coastal Current : structure, variability, and forcing
Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V. , 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Progress In Oceanography 78 (2008): 58-77, doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2007.09.006.The subtidal circulation of the southeast Greenland shelf is described using a set
of high-resolution hydrographic and velocity transects occupied in summer 2004. The
main feature is the East Greenland Coastal Current (EGCC), a low-salinity, high-velocity
jet with a wedge-shaped hydrographic structure characteristic of other surface buoyancydriven
currents. The EGCC was observed along the entire Greenland shelf south of
Denmark Strait, while the transect north of the strait showed only a weak shelf flow. This
observation, in conjunction with water mass considerations and other supporting
evidence, suggests that the EGCC is an inner branch of the East Greenland Current
(EGC) that forms south of Denmark Strait. It is argued that bathymetric steering is the
most likely reason why the EGC apparently bifurcates at this location. Repeat sections
occupied at Cape Farewell between 1997 and 2004 show that the alongshelf wind stress
can have a strong influence on the structure and strength of the EGCC and EGC on
timescales of 2-3 days. Accounting for the wind-induced effects, the volume transport of
the combined EGCC/EGC system is roughly constant (~2 Sv) over the study domain,
from 68°N to Cape Farewell near 60°N. The corresponding freshwater transport increases
by roughly 60% over this distance (59 to 96 mSv, referenced to a salinity of 34.8). This
trend is consistent with a simple freshwater budget of the EGCC/EGC system that
accounts for meltwater runoff, melting sea-ice and icebergs, and net precipitation minus
evaporation.This work was funded by the National Science Foundation grant OCE-0450658. DS was also partially supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Academic Programs Office
Silver hake tracks changes in Northwest Atlantic circulation
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 2 (2011): 412, doi:10.1038/ncomms1420.Recent studies documenting shifts in spatial distribution of many organisms in response
to a warming climate highlight the need to understand the mechanisms underlying species
distribution at large spatial scales. Here we present one noteworthy example of remote
oceanographic processes governing the spatial distribution of adult silver hake, Merluccius
bilinearis, a commercially important fish in the Northeast US shelf region. Changes in spatial
distribution of silver hake over the last 40 years are highly correlated with the position of the
Gulf Stream (GS). These changes in distribution are in direct response to local changes in
bottom temperature on the continental shelf that are responding to the same large scale
circulation change affecting the GS path, namely changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning
Circulation (AMOC). If AMOC weakens as is suggested by global climate models, silver hake
distribution will remain in a poleward position, the extent to which could be forecast at both
decadal and multidecadal scales.J.A.N. was supported by the NOAA
Fisheries and the Environment program (FATE). T.M.J. and Y.O.K. were supported by the
WHOI Ocean Climate Change Institute and Ocean Life Institute
Pleural fluid soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 as a marker of bacterial infection: a meta-analysis
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pleural infection is a common clinical problem. Its successful treatment depends on rapid diagnosis and early initiation of antibiotics. The measurement of soluble triggering receptor expressed in myeloid cells-1 (sTREM-1) level in pleural effusions has proven to be a valuable diagnostic tool for differentiating bacterial effusions from effusions of other etiologies. Herein, we performed a meta-analysis to assess the accuracy of pleural fluid sTREM-1 in the diagnosis of bacterial infection.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We searched Web of Knowledge and Medline from 1990 through March 2011 for studies reporting diagnostic accuracy data regarding the use of sTREM-1 in the diagnosis of bacterial pleural effusions. Pooled sensitivity and specificity and summary measures of accuracy and Q* were calculated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overall, the sensitivity of sTREM-1was 78% (95% CI: 72%-83%); the specificity was 84% (95% CI: 80%-87%); the positive likelihood ratio was 6.0 (95% CI: 3.3-10.7); and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.22 (95% CI: 0.12-0.40). The area under the SROC curve for sTREM-1 was 0.92. Statistical heterogeneity and inconsistency were found for sensitivity (p = 0.015, χ<sup>2 </sup>= 15.73, I<sup>2 </sup>= 61.9%), specificity (p = 0.000, χ<sup>2 </sup>= 29.90, I<sup>2 </sup>= 79.9%), positive likelihood ratio (p = 0.000, χ<sup>2 </sup>= 33.09, I<sup>2 </sup>= 81.9%), negative likelihood ratio (p = 0.008, χ<sup>2 </sup>= 17.25, I<sup>2 </sup>= 65.2%), and diagnostic odds ratio (p = 0.000, χ<sup>2 </sup>= 28.49, I<sup>2 </sup>= 78.9%). A meta-regression analysis performed showed that the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies score (p = 0.3245; RDOR, 4.34; 95% CI, 0.11 to 164.01), the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy score (p = 0.3331; RDOR, 1.70; 95% CI, 0.44 to 6.52), lack of blinding (p = 0.7439; RDOR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.01 to 33.80), and whether the studies were prospective or retrospective studies (p = 0.2068; RDOR, 7.44; 95% CI, 0.18 to 301.17) did not affect the test accuracy. A funnel plot for publication bias suggested a remarkable trend of publication bias.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings suggest that sTREM-1 has a good diagnostic accuracy and may provide a useful adjunctive tool for the diagnosis of bacterial pleural effusions. However, further studies are needed in order to identify any differences in the diagnostic performance of sTREM-1 of parapneumonic effusions and empyemas.</p
Inadequacy of Existing Clinical Prediction Models for Predicting Mortality after Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation
Background: The performance of emerging transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) clinical prediction models (CPMs) in national TAVI cohorts distinct from those where they have been derived is unknown. This study aimed to investigate the performance of the German Aortic Valve, FRANCE-2, OBSERVANT and American College of Cardiology (ACC) TAVI CPMs compared with the performance of historic cardiac CPMs such as the EuroSCORE and STS-PROM, in a large national TAVI registry. Methods: The calibration and discrimination of each CPM were analyzed in 6676 patients from the UK TAVI registry, as a whole cohort and across several subgroups. Strata included gender, diabetes status, access route, and valve type. Furthermore, the amount of agreement in risk classification between each of the considered CPMs was analyzed at an individual patient level. Results: The observed 30-day mortality rate was 5.4%. In the whole cohort, the majority of CPMs over-estimated the risk of 30-day mortality, although the mean ACC score (5.2%) approximately matched the observed mortality rate. The areas under ROC curve were between 0.57 for OBSERVANT and 0.64 for ACC. Risk classification agreement was low across all models, with Fleiss's kappa values between 0.17 and 0.50. Conclusions: Although the FRANCE-2 and ACC models outperformed all other CPMs, the performance of current TAVI-CPMs was low when applied to an independent cohort of TAVI patients. Hence, TAVI specific CPMs need to be derived outside populations previously used for model derivation, either by adapting existing CPMs or developing new risk scores in large national registries
Meta-Analysis of the Prognostic Impact of Anemia in Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
This study was funded by an award from the North Staffordshire Medical Institute, Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom.Peer reviewedPostprin
Heart Protection by Combination Therapy with Esmolol and Milrinone at Late-Ischemia and Early Reperfusion
Short- and long-term outcomes of single bare metal stent versus drug eluting stent in nondiabetic patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>This study was aimed to investigate the short- and long-term outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) between single bare metal stent (BMS) and single drug eluting stent (DES) in nondiabetic patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two hundred and thirty-five consecutive patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel were treated with BMS or DES in our hospital from Apr. 2004 to Dec. 2004.</p> <p>The inclusion criteria: a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel, stent diameter ≥ 3.0 mm, stent length ≤ 18 mm, the exclusion criteria: diabetes mellitus, left main trunk disease and left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 30%. Of them, there were 150 patients in BMS group and 85 patients in DES group, and the rates of lost to follow up were 6.7% and 1.2% respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>BMS group had lower hypercholesteremia rate (22.0% vs 38.8%) and higher proportion of TIMI grade 0 (12% vs 1.2%) than DES group (all P < 0.05), but both groups had similar stent length (16.16 ± 2.81 mm vs 16.06 ± 2.46 mm) and stent diameter (3.85 ± 3.07 mm vs 3.19 ± 0.24 mm) after procedure, in-segment restenosis rate (0% vs 1.2%) and target lesion revascularization (TLR, 2.0% vs 2.4%) at 6-month follow-up (all P > 0.05). No difference was found in TLR (1.3% vs 1.2%, P = 1.00) and recurrent myocardial infarction (Re-MI) (0% vs 1.2%, P = 0.36), cardiac death (0.7% vs 1.2%, P = 1.00) between 1- and 3-year. So were TLR (6.0% vs 5.9%, P = 0.97), Re-MI (0% vs 2.4%, P = 0.06), cardiac death (2.0% vs 3.5%, P = 0.48) and major adverse cardiac events (MACE, 8.7% vs 10.6%, P = 0.63), cardiac death-free cumulative survival (98.7% vs 97.7%, P = 0.56), TLR-free cumulative survival (94.0% vs 94.1%, P = 0.98) and Re-MI-free cumulative survival (100% vs 97.7%, P = 0.06) at 3-year follow-up.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The single BMS has similar efficacy and safety to single DES in nondiabetic patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel at short- and long-term follow-up.</p
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