Diagnostic value of acustic radiation force impulse imaging in the assessment of salivary gland involvement in primary Sjogren's sydrome

Aims: The aim of this study is to investigate the diagnostic value of Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) imaging in the assessment of salivary gland involvement in primary Sjogren's syndrome (pSS). Material and methods: Twenty five patients with pSS and 25 healthy volunteers were included. First, echostructures and the thickness of the submandibular and parotid glands were evaluated by B-mode ultrasonography. Then, ARFI imaging with Virtual Touch Quantification (R) was performed. Ten independent shear wave velocity measurements were taken from each gland. Finally, the mean shear wave velocity (SWV) values were calculated, and used for further analysis. Results: The mean SWV values of parotid and submandibular glands were significantly higher in the pSS patients than in the healthy control group (p 0.005). Conclusions: Our findings indicate that ARFI imaging may provide a non-invasive, simple and fast means of assessment of glandular impairment as an alternative test when other salivary gland tests are inconclusive or cannot be performed. ARFI may be a valuable adjunct for the clinical diagnosis of pSS

Modelling the risk factors of occupational accidents in an underground coal mine in Turkey using regression analysis

Temporal and other factors contributing to the occurrence of occupational accidents at an underground coal mine in Turkey between 1992 and 2000 have been analyzed, The time period of the study spanned the transition from hand-worked mining methods (1992 to 1996) to hand-worked mining methods and mechanized mining methods (1997 to 2000)