Candiduria in Urine Samples from Critically Ill Patients and Candidemia

Introduction: In this study, we aimed to investigate risk factors and candidemia development rate of the intensive care unit patients with candiduria. Patients and Methods: Mersin University Medical Faculty in the intensive care unit in January 2004-November 2008 between the dates of follow-up review of the patients were retrospectively. After 72 hours in intensive care addmition in the urine culture examination of at least 103 colonies of Candida spp. isolated were identified as candiduria. Patients with candiduria, concurrent and subsequent blood cultures and clinical outcome were retrospectively reviewed the patient records. Blood culture examination, Candida spp. isolated in pure culture was defined as the candidemia. SPSS 11.5 for statistical analysis (Chicago, IL) was used. Result: In the study period, 928 patients were followed in intensive care unit. Candiduria were detected 215 of this patients. Average age of the patients 58.5 ± 18.3 (1-90) years and 109 (50.7%) male, 106 (49.3%) female gender. Total 223 Candida spp. were obtained from this patients urine samples and respectivelly 31.4% C. albicans, 68.6% non-albicans Candida. C. tropicalis was the most frequently isolated species of all Candida species. Candemia rate was 4.7% among candiduria patients. Conclusion: In conclusion, we found a low frequency of candidemia in patients with candiduria from intensive care unit. Hovewer, candidemia are important nosocomial infections in critically ill patients and are associated with substantial mortality and prolonged hospitalization in the intensive care unit. Therefore, especially in intensive care unit patients, candiduria should be taken into consideration. If there is an appropriate indication appropriate for candidemia, early start of antifungal treatment is very important in this patients

Ortodontik Malokluzyonların Orta Anadolu Bölgesinde Yaşayan Bireylerdeki Prevelanslarının ve Karakteristiklerinin İncelenmesi

Bu çalışmanın amacı, ortodontik tedavi talep eden hastalarda, ortodontik malokluzyonların dağılımlarının incelenmesi ve farklı tip malokluzyonlardaki dişsel ve iskeletsel faktörlerin tanımlayıcı özelliklerinin cinsiyetler arasında ve genel olarak değerlendirilmesidir.&nbsp;Çalışmamıza ortodontik tedavi öncesi teşhis kayıtları değerlendirilen 495 iskeletsel Sınıf I (ortalama yaş: 16.11 ± 3.1), 379 iskeletsel Sınıf II (ortalama yaş: 16.14 ± 2.84) ve 188 iskeletsel Sınıf III (ortalama yaş: 16.94 ± 3.27) ilişkiye sahip toplam 1062 hasta (yaş aralığı: 12.0 – 39.0 yıl) dahil edilmiştir. Lateral sefalometrik radyografiler üzerinde maksilla ve mandibula arasındaki ilişkinin belirlenmesinde, ANB açısı kullanılmıştır (Sınıf I: ANB° = 0 ° ila 4 °; Sınıf II: ANB ° &gt; 4 °; Sınıf III: ANB ° &lt;0 °). Toplamda 21 doğrusal, 12 açısal ölçüm gerçekleştirilmiştir.&nbsp;Tüm iskeletsel malokluzyon tiplerinde kadınların efektif maksilla ve mandibula uzunlukları ve alt yüz yükseklikleri anlamlı şekilde daha kısa bulunmuştur. Genel olarak, erkekler ve kadınlar arasında overjet miktarında, istirahat keser görünümünde, alt çene diastemasında ve üst çene çapraşıklığında farklılıklar görülmüştür.&nbsp;İskeletsel malokluzyon görülme sıklığı Sınıf I (%46.6)&gt;Sınıf II (%35.7)&gt;Sınıf III (%17.7)’dir. Ayrıca bu çalışma, Anadolu popülasyonundaki iskeletsel Sınıf I, II ve III malokluzyonlara sahip erkek ve kadın hastaların sefalometrik teşhisi için referans değerlerini ve genel olarak tanımlayıcı bilgileri de sağlamaktadır.The aim of this study is to examine the distribution of orthodontic malocclusions in patients who require orthodontic treatment and to evaluate the descriptive characteristics of dental and skeletal factors in different types of malocclusions between genders and in general. A total of 1062 patients (age range: 12.0 - 39.0 years) with 495 skeletal Class I (mean age: 16.11 ± 3.21), 379 skeletal Class II (mean age: 16.14 ± 2.84) and 188 skeletal Class III (mean age: 16.94 ± 3.27) relationships, whose diagnosis records were evaluated before orthodontic treatment, were included in our study. The ANB angle was used to determine the relationship between maxilla and mandible on lateral cephalometric radiographs (Class I: ANB ° = 0 ° to 4 °; Class II: ANB °&gt; 4 °; Class III: ANB ° &lt;0 °). In total, 21 linear and 12 angular measurements were performed. The effective maxilla and mandible lengths and lower face heights of women were significantly shorter in all types of skeletal malocclusion. In general, differences were observed between men and women in the amount of overjet, the incisor exposure in relaxed lip posture, the diastema of the mandible and the crowding of the maxilla. The incidence of skeletal malocclusion is Class I (46.6%)&gt;Class II (35.7%)&gt;Class III (17.7%). In addition, this study provides reference values ​​and general descriptive information for the cephalometric diagnosis of men and women patients with skeletal Class I, II and III malocclusions in the Anatolian population.</div

Irisin in idiopathic foetal growth restriction

KUMRU, Selahattin/0000-0001-6615-7666WOS: 000338541200003PubMed: 24789538Purpose The aim of the present study was to compare maternal serum and cord blood irisin levels in females whose pregnancies were or were not complicated by idiopathic foetal growth restriction. Methods A total of 30 subjects participated. The study group consisted of 15 female patients who were referred to our perinatology clinic for delivery because of foetal growth restriction developing in the third trimester. Fifteen females with uncomplicated singleton pregnancies constituted the control group. Irisin levels were assessed in maternal serum, as well as in serum from the umbilical vein and artery. Results The demographic features of the two groups were similar (p > 0.05). Gestational age at delivery and birth weight were higher in females with uncomplicated pregnancies (p = 0.001). Umbilical artery irisin levels were significantly lower in pregnancies complicated by foetal growth restriction compared to controls (p = 0.003). Umbilical artery irisin levels were positively correlated with foetal weight (p = 0.01) and foetal abdominal circumference (measured by ultrasonography) (p = 0.01). Maternal and umbilical vein irisin levels did not differ between the two groups (p > 0.05). Conclusions The data suggest that umbilical artery irisin levels were lower in pregnancies complicated by foetal growth restriction. Such lower irisin levels may contribute to the pathogenesis of this common condition, and metabolic syndrome may be a long-term consequence of idiopathic FGR

Differential evolution-based neural architecture search for brain vessel segmentation

Brain vasculature analysis is critical in developing novel treatment targets for neurodegenerative diseases. Such an accurate analysis cannot be performed manually but requires a semi-automated or fully-automated approach. Deep learning methods have recently proven indispensable for the automated segmentation and analysis of medical images. However, optimizing a deep learning network architecture is another challenge. Manually selecting deep learning network architectures and tuning their hyper-parameters requires a lot of expertise and effort. To solve this problem, neural architecture search (NAS) approaches that explore more efficient network architectures with high segmentation performance have been proposed in the literature. This study introduces differential evolution-based NAS approaches in which a novel search space is proposed for brain vessel segmentation. We select two architectures that are frequently used for medical image segmentation, i.e. U-Net and Attention U-Net, as baselines for NAS optimizations. The conventional differential evolution and the opposition-based differential evolution with novel search space are employed as search methods in NAS. Furthermore, we perform ablation studies and evaluate the effects of specific loss functions, model pruning, threshold selection and generalization performance on the proposed models. The experiments are conducted on two datasets providing 335 single-channel 8-bit gray-scale images. These datasets are a public volumetric cerebrovascular system dataset (vesseINN) and our own dataset called KUVESG. The proposed NAS approaches, namely UNAS-Net and Attention UNAS-Net architectures, yield better segmentation performance in terms of different segmentation metrics. More specifically, UNAS-Net with differential evolution reveals high dice score/sensitivity values of 79.57/81.48, respectively. Moreover, they provide shorter inference times by a factor of 9.15 than the baseline methods

The Outcomes of Direct-acting Antiviral Treatment in 177 Patients with Hepatitis C Virus: A Single-center Experience

Introduction: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an essential cause of hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatitis C virus is a global public health problem. “Field practice” in patients with HCV infection is significant for directly observing treatment responses with antiviral agents. Our study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) in Kayseri City Hospital. Materials and Methods: Our retrospective observational study, conducted at a single center, evaluated HCV-RNA-positive patients who were genotyped between January 2019 and April 2023. Demographic characteristics, laboratory values, treatment agents, and HCV genotypes of the patients were recorded using the hospital information system. The primary endpoint of the study was the sustained virological response 12 weeks after treatment. Results: In our five-year study involving 177 patients, the average age was 60.6, and 55.4% (n=98) of the participants were male. Genotype 1b was the most common at 51.8%, followed by genotype 4 at 19.2%. Additionally, six of 11 Syrian patients were identified as genotype 3. The glecaprevir/pibrentasvir combination was administered to 91.5% of the patients, while the sofosbuvir/velpatasvir/voxilaprevir combination was started in 8.5% (n=15). A total of 6.2% of the patients had prior treatment experience. At week 12, all patients exhibited negative HCV-RNA levels, resulting in a 100% treatment success rate. Conclusion: These two DAAs currently used in HCV infection were highly effective. The prevalence of genotype 4 in our region was higher than the national HCV genotype distribution