1,720,956 research outputs found
Homocysteine and risk of wet age‐related macular degeneration: a meta‐analysis
No full textPurpose: Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an important cause of vision loss. We performed a meta-analysis review of the literature to assess the role of plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) concentration a as risk factor for wet AMD.
Methods: Data sources included PubMed searches and searching reference lists of relevant articles and reviews. The literature review was performed according to the guidelines of Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE). Case-control studies were eligible for inclusion. Meta-analysis summary estimates were obtained using a random-effects model to account for between-study heterogeneity.
Results: 9 case-control studies were identified, for a total of 422 cases and 467 controls. The mean tHcy was on average 1.18 μmol/L (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.03–1.33) greater in the wet AMD cases compared with the controls (P < 0.001), but patients’ and controls’ ages showed a high degree of between-study heterogeneity. After exclusion of the two studies with higher age heterogeneity, there were 243 cases and 277 controls and the mean tHcy was on average 0.7 μmol/L (95% CI = 0.52–0.88) greater in the wet AMD patients compared to the controls (P = 0.03).
Conclusions: There is some weak evidence that elevated tHcy might be associated with wet AMD; however, this result should be interpreted cautiously because of a marked heterogeneity between the study estimates and the possible effect of publication bias on the tHcy findings
Postoperative care in finger replantation. Our case-load and review of the literature
Full text linkOBJECTIVE:
Technical success of a finger replantation depends on several factors such as surgical procedure, type of injury, number of segments amputated, amputation level and individual patient factors. Among early complications that can occur in this type of surgery the onset of venous or arterial thrombosis is the most dreaded. Local irrigating solutions, oral and intravenous anticoagulants, thrombolytic agents, plasma expanders, vasodilating, and antiaggregant drugs are routinely used in patients undergoing microvascular procedures, but currently there is only a non-standardized practice based on anecdotal personal experience.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
The aim of our study is to review selected literature relating to perioperative therapy in microsurgical digital replantation. We also report our case-load of 16 patients with finger avulsion describing our particular protocol for postoperative anticoagulation and restoration of fluid and electrolyte balance.
RESULTS:
Following our daily pharmacological protocol, the postoperative course of the replanted fingers was uneventful. The survival rate for finger replantations performed was 100% (n = 16) with no need for surgical revisions.
CONCLUSIONS:
The association Dextran-40/Heparin/fluids in the proposed standardized pro-weight pharmacological protocol is an optimal postoperative prophylactic/therapeutic plan to reduce the incidence of endovascular thrombosis after replantation, so ensuring high rate of success in microvascular surgery
Multiple melanoma arising on a burn scar and extensive sunburn: A case report and a review of the literature
No full textMelanoma arising in a burn scar is very uncommon. We report a recent case of a female patient in whom two different melanomas arose on a wide back burn scar at different times, focusing attention on three different potential risk factors for melanoma the patient had: sunburns, laser therapy on back and burn scar. © 2009 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
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
Postoperative care in finger replantation: our case-load and review of the literature
Full text linkOBJECTIVE:
Technical success of a finger replantation depends on several factors such as surgical procedure, type of injury, number of segments amputated, amputation level and individual patient factors. Among early complications that can occur in this type of surgery the onset of venous or arterial thrombosis is the most dreaded. Local irrigating solutions, oral and intravenous anticoagulants, thrombolytic agents, plasma expanders, vasodilating, and antiaggregant drugs are routinely used in patients undergoing microvascular procedures, but currently there is only a non-standardized practice based on anecdotal personal experience.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
The aim of our study is to review selected literature relating to perioperative therapy in microsurgical digital replantation. We also report our case-load of 16 patients with finger avulsion describing our particular protocol for postoperative anticoagulation and restoration of fluid and electrolyte balance.
RESULTS:
Following our daily pharmacological protocol, the postoperative course of the replanted fingers was uneventful. The survival rate for finger replantations performed was 100% (n = 16) with no need for surgical revisions.
CONCLUSIONS:
The association Dextran-40/Heparin/fluids in the proposed standardized pro-weight pharmacological protocol is an optimal postoperative prophylactic/therapeutic plan to reduce the incidence of endovascular thrombosis after replantation, so ensuring high rate of success in microvascular surgery
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
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