Gender Difference in Apnea and Hypopnea Component in Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Introduction We aimed to analyze the apnea and hypopnea structure separately with demographic parameters and sleep architecture in men and women with sleep apnea. Materials and Methods Patients referred for snoring, witnessed apnea and/or day time sleepiness to Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Research and Educational Hospital Sleep Center and gone under polysomnography (PSG) between December 2010 and June 2012 were taken in order. PSG reports were analyzed retrospectively. The patients with sleep efficiency less than 40% were excluded. The BMI, neck circumference (NC), abdominal circumference (AC) and PSG values were recorded. Results Totally 406 patients (250 male, 156 female patients) were studied. NC was found more in males whereas AC and BMI were found significantly more in females. Mean age, apne-hypopnea index (AHI), oxygen desaturation index (ODI) for 3% were similar in two genders. Percentage of total light sleep (Stage 1+2) was significantly more in males while Stage 3 (slow wave sleep: SWS) was more in females. Total apneas were significantly more in males and hypopneas were significantly more in females. The factors associated with AHI were NC and BMI in males and AC and BMI in females. Discussion We found that, females are more hypopneic and men are more apneic, in a study group of similar apne-hypopnea indexed patients. The different distribution of fat in genders seems to effect the apnea/hypopnea predominance. The clinical significance of the apnea and hypopnea indexes separately can be related with SWS percentage. Prospective studies are needed to evaluate the effect of apneas and hypopneas on morbidity and mortality in both genders

Over restrictive elimination of foods in children with foodallergy

Background. Previous studies demonstrated critical deficits in diagnosis and management of childhood foodallergy (FA), and recent developments in FA research support adopting a proactive approach in FA management.Our objective was to describe FA knowledge and management patterns of pediatricians.Method. We applied a 24-item survey to 170 general pediatricians, pediatric allergists and pediatricgastroenterologists practicing in Turkey.Results. Some IgE-mediated symptoms of FA such as cough, urticaria, wheezing and anaphylaxis were falselyrecognized as symptoms of non-IgE-mediated FA by 30%, 29%, 25% and 19% of the participants, respectively.By contrast, 50% of the participants falsely recognized bloody stool, a finding of IgE-mediated FA. Mostfrequently and least frequently used diagnostic tools were specific IgE (30.5%) and oral food challenge test(1.7%), respectively. Maternal diet restrictions and infant diet restrictions were advised by 82% and 82%,respectively. Percentages of physicians eliminating only 1 food were 21%, 19%; 2 foods were 15%, 11%; 3 foodswere 7%, 8%; 4-5 foods were 8%, 11%; 5 to 10 foods were 21%, 26%; and >10 foods were 28%, 25% from thematernal and infant diet, respectively. Cow’s milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt, baked milk products and hen’s eggwere the most commonly restricted items.Conclusion. Overall, FA knowledge of pediatricians was fair. Pediatricians utilize an overly restrictive approachwhen advising diet eliminations in FA. Recent developments favor a more proactive approach to induce immunetolerance and need to be encouraged in pediatric clinical practice. Future educational efforts should focus onemphasizing the deleterious effects of injudicious and extensive eliminations

Prevalence of sleep disorders in the Turkish adult population epidemiology of sleep study

Sleep disorders constitute an important public health problem. Prevalence of sleep disorders in Turkish adult population was investigated in a nationwide representative sample of 5021 Turkish adults (2598 women and 2423 men, response rate: 91%) by an interviewer‐administered questionnaire. Insomnia was defined by the DSM‐IV criteria, habitual snoring and risk for sleep‐related breathing disorders (SDB) by the Berlin questionnaire, excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) by the Epworth sleepiness scale score, and restless legs syndrome (RLS) by the complaints according to the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group criteria. Mean age of the participants was 40.7 ± 15.1 (range 18 to 90) years. Prevalence rates (men/women) were insomnia 15.3% (10.5%/20.2%; P < 0.001), high probability of SDB 13.7% (11.1%/20.2%; P < 0.001), EDS 5.4% (5.0%/5.7%; P: 0.09), RLS 5.2% (3.0%/7.3%; P < 0.001). Aging and female gender were associated with higher prevalence of sleep disorders except for habitual snoring. Prevalence rates of the sleep disorders among Turkish adults based on the widely used questionnaires were close to the lower end of the previous estimates reported from different parts of the world. These findings would help for the assessment of the health burden of sleep disorders and addressing the risk groups for planning and implementation of health care

IT adoption of clinical information systems in Austrian and German hospitals: results of a comparative survey with a focus on nursing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>IT adoption is a process that is influenced by different external and internal factors. This study aimed</p> <p indent="1">1. to identify similarities and differences in the prevalence of medical and nursing IT systems in Austrian and German hospitals, and</p> <p indent="1">2. to match these findings with characteristics of the two countries, in particular their healthcare system, and with features of the hospitals.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In 2007, all acute care hospitals in both countries received questionnaires with identical questions. 12.4% in Germany and 34.6% in Austria responded.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The surveys revealed a consistent higher usage of nearly all clinical IT systems, especially nursing systems, but also PACS and electronic archiving systems, in Austrian than in German hospitals. These findings correspond with a significantly wider use of standardised nursing terminologies and a higher number of PC workstations on the wards (average 2.1 PCs in Germany, 3.2 PCs in Austria). Despite these differences, Austrian and German hospitals both reported a similar IT budget of 2.6% in Austria and 2.0% in Germany (median).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Despite the many similarities of the Austrian and German healthcare system there are distinct differences which may have led to a wider use of IT systems in Austrian hospitals. In nursing, the specific legal requirement to document nursing diagnoses in Austria may have stimulated the use of standardised terminologies for nursing diagnoses and the implementation of electronic nursing documentation systems. Other factors which correspond with the wider use of clinical IT systems in Austria are: good infrastructure of medical-technical devices, rigorous organisational changes which had led to leaner processes and to a lower length of stay, and finally a more IT friendly climate. As country size is the most pronounced difference between Germany and Austria it could be that smaller countries, such as Austria, are more ready to translate innovation into practice.</p

Negative correlation between viral load and HBsAg levels in chronic HBV-infected patients

WOS: 000269878900008PubMed ID: 19672557The objective of this study is to reveal the relationship between viral load (as HBV DNA) and HBsAg levels. Ninety-two chronically HBV-infected patients were included in the study. The patients were divided in two different groups: the cirrhotic group (n = 32) and the non-cirrhotic group (n = 60). The correlation between study groups was also examined with regard to HBeAg status. Hepatitis B viral markers (HBsAg, HBeAg, Anti-HBs, anti-HBc and anti-HBe) and HBV viral load of the patients were measured. A significant negative correlation between HBV DNA and HBsAg levels was found in the non-cirrhotic group (p < 0.01). The anti-HBc level was higher in the non-cirrhotic group than in the cirrhotic group (p < 0.016). The viral load was significantly higher in HBeAg (+) patients in comparison with HBeAg (-) cases (p < 0.0001). The HBsAg level was low in HBeAg (+) patients, whereas it was higher in HBeAg (-) cases (p < 0.001). In conclusion, a significant negative correlation between viral load and HBsAg levels was detected in the non-cirrhotic chronically HBV-infected group. Therefore, concomitantly low HBsAg and HBV DNA levels may indicate a better prognosis compared to high HBsAg and low HBV DNA levels

Association between IL28B gene polymorphism (rs12979860) and sustained virological response in patients infected with hepatitis C virus Genotype 1

63rd Annual Meeting of the American-Association-for-the-Study-of-Liver-Diseases (AASLD) -- NOV 09-13, 2012 -- Boston, MAWOS: 000310955603435…Amer Assoc Study Liver Di

PrimePatNet87: Prime pattern and tunable q-factor wavelet transform techniques for automated accurate EEG emotion recognition

Nowadays, many deep models have been presented to recognize emotions using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. These deep models are computationally intensive, it takes a longer time to train the model. Also, it is difficult to achieve high classification performance using for emotion classification using machine learning techniques. To overcome these limitations, we present a hand-crafted conventional EEG emotion classification network. In this work, we have used novel prime pattern and tunable q-factor wavelet transform (TQWT) techniques to develop an automated model to classify human emotions. Our proposed cognitive model comprises feature extraction, feature selection, and classification steps. We have used TQWT on the EEG signals to obtain the sub-bands. The prime pattern and statistical feature generator are employed on the generated sub-bands and original signal to generate 798 features. 399 (half of them) out of 798 features are selected using minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR) selector, and misclassification rates of each signal are evaluated using support vector machine (SVM) classifier. The proposed network generated 87 feature vectors hence, this model is named PrimePatNet87. In the last step of the feature generation, the best 20 feature vectors which are selected based on the calculated misclassification rates, are concatenated. The generated feature vector is subjected to the feature selection and the most significant 1000 features are selected using the mRMR selector. These selected features are then classified using an SVM classifier. In the last phase, iterative majority voting has been used to generate a general result. We have used three publicly available datasets, namely DEAP, DREAMER, and GAMEEMO, to develop our proposed model. Our presented PrimePatNet87 model reached over 99% classification accuracy on whole datasets with leave one subject out (LOSO) validation. Our results demonstrate that the developed prime pattern network is accurate and ready for real-world applications