1,720,965 research outputs found
Role of percutaneous cholecystostomy before laparoscopic cholecystectomy in severe acute cholecystitis.
No full textIntroduction: The aim of the study was to investigate the role of percutaneous cholecystostomy before laparoscopic cholecystectomy in gangrenous and phlegmonous cholecystitis. Patients and Methods: Medical records of 100 patients submitted to cholecystectomy with a definitive diagnosis of severe acute cholecystitis were reviewed. The surgical outcomes of 40 patients submitted to cholecystostomy (PC + Cholecystectomy Group) prior to cholecystectomy were compared to those of 60 patients submitted directly to cholecystectomy (Cholecystectomy Group). Results: No differences were found in the rate of first intention laparoscopic cholecystectomy, conversion rate of laparoscopy, the duration of cholecystectomy, post-operative complications, in-hospital mortality and post-operative stay. A higher rate of pre-operative adverse events, longer time lapses since admission to cholecystectomy and longer overall post-operative stays were observed in the PC + cholecystectomy group. Significant failure of cholecystostomy in resolving the acute clinical picture was found in cases of gangrenous cholecystitis. Cholecystostomy allowed resolution of acute phase in phlegmonous cholecystitis but no benefits of pre-operative cholecystostomy were observed in these cases. Conclusion: Percutaneous pre-operative cholecystostomy appears to be of limited utility in patients with severe acute cholecystitis candidate for cholecystectomy
Predictive factors for the diagnosis of severe acute cholecystitis in an emergency setting.
No full textBackground: The aim of this study was to assess predictive factors for the diagnosis of severe acute cholecystitis. Methods: The medical records of 295 patients with pathologically confirmed acute cholecystitis were reviewed. Patients were divided, based on pathology findings, into a group with nonsevere acute cholecystitis and a group with severe acute cholecystitis. Preoperative data were compared by univariate and multivariate analyses. Therefore, diagnostic values were assessed based on the statistically significant predictive factors. The same approach was attempted for differential diagnosis between gangrenous and phlegmonous cholecystitis. Results: Among ten variables found to be significantly different at univariate analysis, four were found to be independent predictive factors of severe acute cholecystitis: fever, distension of the gallbladder, wall edema, and preoperative adverse events. Common bile duct stones were confirmed as a protective factor. Leukocyte count, cardiovascular diseases, age, gender, and diabetes were not found to be significant predictive factors of severe acute cholecystitis. No differences were found in any of the preoperative data by comparing phlegmonous and gangrenous cholecystitis. Conclusion: Severe acute cholecystitis may be differentiated preoperatively from nonsevere acute cholecystitis based on clinical and US data, and predictive diagnostic values may be estimated according to the number of observed predictive factors. No differences were found when comparing phlegmonous and gangrenous cholecystitis
Perianal Paget's disease: presentation of six cases and literature review.
No full textPURPOSE:Extramammary Paget's disease (EMPD) is frequently associated with adnexal or visceral synchronous or metachronous malignancies. Our purpose was to evaluate, retrospectively, the results obtained in six cases of EMPD and to review the literature.METHODS:Six patients with the perianal Paget's disease had been treated in our division between March 1996 and December 2006. In three cases, the disease was confined in the epidermis; in one case, there was a microinvasion of the dermis, while in another one the dermis was infiltrated. The last case was associated to a low rectal adenocarcinoma. All patients underwent wide perianal excision and reconstruction with skin graft. We performed a transanal resection of the rectal adenocarcinoma. A review of the literature from 1990 to 2008 revealed 193 cases of perianal EMPD, 112 were intraepithelial/intradermal while 81 were associated with malignancies. Anorectal adenocarcinoma was already existing in two cases, synchronous in 48, and subsequent to diagnosis in 11.RESULTS:In three cases, the disease recurred locally, but no patient developed metastatic spread. Five patients survived and are free of disease. The review of the literature allows a clear identification of the primitive EMPD and the form associated to anorectal adenocarcinoma and little information about cases associated with synchronous adnexal adenocarcinoma. The Paget's disease can relapse after radical surgery and has a capacity of metastatic spread.CONCLUSIONS:Up to now, no clear guidelines have been established for the diagnosis of EMPD. The association with synchronous or metachronous carcinomas imposes a long-term follow-up with frequent clinical, radiological, and endoscopical controls
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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