Review of trigeminal neuralgia in a regional neurology clinic

published_or_final_versio

Perception of Cantonese Parkinsonian speech

Abstract no. 1pSC18published_or_final_versio

Think about cryptococcal meningitis

published_or_final_versio

MRI in vertebral artery dissection (multiple letters) [9]

published_or_final_versio

Predictive factors for extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy success in ureteric stones, does skin-stone distance and hounsfield unit matter?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the usefulness of measuring stone skin distance and stone attenuation values by non-contrast computed tomography for predicting treatment outcome of ureteric stones by extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL). PATIENT AND METHOD : Retrospective review of 66 patients who underwent ESWL for ureteric stones with pre-ESWL NCCT in 2010–2012. Subjects were stratified into 2 groups, successful ESWL and failed ESWL, with ESWL success defined as stone fragment less than 4 mm at 6 weeks after ESWL. Patient age, sex, stone size, stone location, laterality, shockwave energy, number of shockwave administered, Hounsfield unit (HU), skin to stone distance (SSD), presence of hydronephrosis, pre-ESWL JJ stent or PCN were studied as predictive factors. RESULTS : Patient demographics and stone characteristics were similar between the 2 groups. On univariate analysis, the mean stone size for successful ESWL was 7.9 mm compared with 10.2 mm in the failure group (P = 0.02). For the skin-stone distance, the mean distance for the successful group was 95 mm compared with 104 mm in the failure group (P = 0.04). Concerning the Hounsfield Unit, a mean of 1034 HU was found in the successful compared with 1129 HU in the failure group (P = 0.16) CONCLUSION : Skin to stone distance on non-contrast CT scan is a useful predictive factors for ESWL success for ureteric stones.postprin

Failure of phylogeny inferred from multilocus sequence typing to represent bacterial phylogeny

published_or_final_versio

An evaluative study on the effectiveness of a parent-child parallel group model

Objective; To examine the effectiveness of a parent-child parallel group model that attempted to reduce parent-adolescent conflict. Method: A single group research design with pretest, posttest, and follow-up assessments was employed. Results: Results showed that the level of mother-adolescent conflict at posttest was lower than the level at pretest. The findings, based on the target problem rating, indicated that after the group intervention, both the mothers and adolescents perceived that the problems they had identified in the mother-child relationship had become less severe. The findings, based on subjective outcome measures, were also positive. Conclusion: The present study provides some evidence to support the effectiveness of the parallel group intervention for social work practice.preprin

Genotypic analysis of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates in a Beijing hospital reveals high genetic diversity and clonal population structure of drug-resistant isolates.

Background The genetic diversity and the clinical relevance of the drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from hospital settings are largely unknown. We thus conducted this prospective study to analyze the molecular epidemiology of K. pneumoniae isolates from patients being treated in the 306 Hospital in Beijing, China for the period of November 1, 2010–October 31, 2011. Methodology/Principal Findings Antibiotic susceptibility testing, PCR amplification and sequencing of the drug resistance-associated genes, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were conducted. A total of 163 isolates were analyzed. The percentage of MDR, XDR and PDR isolates were 63.8% (104), 20.9 (34), and 1.8% (3), respectively. MLST results showed that 60 sequence types (STs) were identified, which were further separated by eBURST into 13 clonal complexes and 18 singletons. The most dominant ST was ST15 (10.4%). Seven new alleles and 24 new STs were first identified in this study. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that certain clinical characteristics were associated with those prevalent STs such as: from ICU, from medical ward, from community acquired infection, from patients without heart disease, from patients with treatment success, susceptible to extended spectrum cephalosporin, susceptible to cephamycins, susceptible to fluoroquinolones, and with MDR. Conclusions/Significance Our data indicate that certain drug-resistant K. pneumoniae clones are highly prevalent and are associated with certain clinical characteristics in hospital settings. Our study provides evidence demonstrating that intensive nosocomial infection control measures are urgently needed.published_or_final_versio

Implications of hydrocephalus upon presentation of tuberculous meningitis

Session - Neurosciencespublished_or_final_versio