1,721,117 research outputs found
Salvage revision surgery after inappropriate approach for primary spine tumors: long term follow-up in 56 cases
No full textBackground: The mainstay treatment of primary malignant bone tumors is wide surgery in the spine. Unfortunately, most cases undergo the first approach in a nonspecialized center; this often means adopting an inappropriate approach with contamination, which consistently decreases the effectiveness of a second surgery. The aim of the present paper is to evaluate recurrence and survival rates after en-bloc resection.
Methods: All patients underwent wide resection by the senior author from January 1997 to December 2013 after the first inappropriate approach was reviewed. Fifty-six patients were included in the present evaluation. Epidemiologic and clinical characteristics, surgeries, early and late complications, and survival rate were reported.
Results: The margin obtained was wide, marginal, and intralesional in 9, 28, and 19 cases, respectively. The complication rates were 55.4% and 44.6% for early and late complications, respectively. Most (73.2%) of the patients had complications. The survival rate is 82.1% at 1 year and then decreases 10% each year until 42.1% at 5 years from surgeries. No statistically significant correlation was found between margin and local recurrence and survival.
Conclusion: In our series, the first inappropriate approach had already compromised patient prognosis, so in case of suspicious primary spine tumor, the patient had to be referred to a specialized center. The margin obtained during salvage surgery does not appear to influence recurrence and survival, probably because it is already compromised by the first surgery. More prospective studies are necessary to confirm our data and verify the impact of the margin obtained during salvage surgery on patients' survival
Co-infection HBV and malaria: a striking association
No full textBACKGROUND: Many geographical areas are highly endemic for infectious tropical diseases, although in disproportional fashion. Various infections often overlap in terms of presentation of various epidemiological and clinical manifestations that are linked to the mutual influence of pathogens. The epidemiological and clinical aspects of hepatitis B virus and malaria co-infection remain little known because there have not been many studies until recently.METHODS: We performed a systematic search of the epidemiology of HBV/malaria co-infection, in particular, their overlapping clinical and histological features and their reciprocal conditioning. We examined published data regarding HBV and malaria.RESULTS: The data we obtained varied substantially. The interaction between malarial parasites and HBV viruses, both in chronic HBV hepatitis patients and in carriers, did not vary or change the clinical evolution of either infection. The diversity of epidemiological and clinical results depended both on the geographical areas in which the studies were carried out and on the various stages of the infections at the time of the study.CONCLUSION: Strategies to improve currently available diagnostic techniques, and studies dealing with vector control procedures and other operational tools and approaches are needed for better understanding of this health problem
The role of architectural reconstruction in a post-war context: the case of Mosul
Full text linkThis work addresses the topic of architectural reconstruction in a post-war context, in this case in Mosul, Iraq. Heavily damaged during the war against ISIS, the city faces the immense task of cleaning, restructuring, and rebuilding. The damaged buildings are diverse, but the ancient monuments require specific care as they carry the memory and the heritage of a traumatized community. Both in the cases of partial or complete destruction, the architectural intervention needs to face both cultural and the preservation dimensions of reconstruction. This approach is based on interventions in strategic neuralgic points for the community life such as the market, a religious structure, and the baths. These symbolic spaces host the social, economic, and religious activities that gather the inhabitants. They are also the stages of the traditions and cultural life of Mosul. The reconstitution of the inhabitants' habits and sense of community is centred around these locations and planned to spread around the urban fabric following the redevelopment of the city. Our three different sites are the Souk, the Great Mosque and the Hammam. These projects address several challenges: the construction of a new building inspired by the existing urban fabric, the partial reconstruction of an ancient monument and the construction of a new building in dialogue with existing Ottoman ruins. The balance between tradition and modernization; memory and oblivion; reconstruction and restoration is the focus of the paper
Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma of the spine: results at seven years of average follow-up in a series of 10 cases surgically treated and a review of literature
No full textPurpose
To review a series of ten cases with epithelioid hemangioendothelioma of the spine, that have undergone surgery to describe clinical presentation, results and complications associated with surgical treatment; a review of literature reporting the main characteristics of the cases already published has been reported.
Methods
A review of patients affected by epithelioid hemangioendothelioma surgically treated by the senior author from 1995 to 2012 was carried out. Ten cases were identified and clinical and radiological characteristics, therapy, complications and survival were valued.
Results
Wide margin was achieved in two out of ten cases, marginal margin in seven and intralesional margin in one case. Average intraoperative blood loss was about 2,800 ml. Reported complications were one case of cord injury, one of dural tear, two cases of massive blood loss, a case of reconstruction failure, a wound dehiscence with deep infection, a pneumonia episode and a deep vein thrombosis with pulmonary embolism. Average follow-up was 84.4 months. Two local recurrences, after 32 and 37 months and two deaths for metastasis, after 14 and 36 months, were reported. Although several chemotherapy protocols are available for the treatment of EH of soft tissue, they are not relevant for the bone.
Conclusions
Wide surgery is probably associated with a better prognosis. Indeed most deaths and local recurrences reported in literature happened after intralesional surgery or chemotherapy/RT alone. The presenting study suggests that the best approach to achieve long-term local control and a major survival could be wide surgery, nevertheless more cases series are necessary to verify survival rate
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
Epidemiological multicentric Italian society of infectious and tropical diseases study on prevalence of tropical diseases in hospitalized immigrants in Italy during 2002
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