No abstract available.
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation* ; Thrombosis*

BACKGROUND: Serological tests detecting antibodies specific to antigens of Treponema pallidum are useful tools for diagnosis and screening of syphilis. Nevertheless, conventional non-treponemal tests, which are commonly being used thanks to their low cost, have limited consistency in procedures and interpretations because of lack of automation. Moreover, they have innate lower sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, clinical use of non-treponemal tests has been significantly substituted by more reliable treponemal antibody assays. Considering such trend, diagnostic sensitivity of a recently introduced automatic chemiluminescent immunoassay, ARCHITECT Syphilis TP (Abbott Japan, Tokyo, Japan), was evaluated with comparison to existing methods to validate its clinical sensitivity. METHODS: Fifty stored sera with reactive results on a non-treponemal syphilis test done by requests from the attending physicians were collected consecutively. Diagnosis of syphilis was confirmed when two or more positive results were obtained among 3 treponemal antibody tests, a hemagglutination, an automated latex turbidimetry and ARCHITECT Syphilis TP. RESULTS: All 50 sera were confirmed as syphilis-infected. Diagnostic sensitivity of ARCHITECT Syphilis TP was estimated to 100%, whilst that of the hemagglutination and the latex turbidimetry was 94% and 98%, respectively. Correlation coefficient between S/COs of ARCHITECT Syphilis TP and quantitative results on the latex turbidimetry was caculated as 0.865. Compared to the hemagglutination titers, better quantitative correlation was observed with S/COs of ARCHITECT Syphilis TP. CONCLUSIONS: ARCHITECT Syphilis was thought to be a reliable test with good sensitivity and its automated feature was thought to be additionally beneficial. Although it is being used for a qualitative purpose, it seemed possible to expand its utility into quantitative use considering its acceptable quantitative correlation with the hemagglutination assay as well as the automated latex turbidimetric assay.
Antibodies ; Automation ; Hemagglutination ; Immunoassay ; Japan ; Latex ; Luminescence ; Mass Screening ; Nephelometry and Turbidimetry ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Serologic Tests ; Syphilis ; Tokyo ; Treponema pallidum

BACKGROUND: Serological tests detecting antibodies specific to antigens of Treponema pallidum are useful tools for diagnosis and screening of syphilis. Nevertheless, conventional non-treponemal tests, which are commonly being used thanks to their low cost, have limited consistency in procedures and interpretations because of lack of automation. Moreover, they have innate lower sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, clinical use of non-treponemal tests has been significantly substituted by more reliable treponemal antibody assays. Considering such trend, diagnostic sensitivity of a recently introduced automatic chemiluminescent immunoassay, ARCHITECT Syphilis TP (Abbott Japan, Tokyo, Japan), was evaluated with comparison to existing methods to validate its clinical sensitivity. METHODS: Fifty stored sera with reactive results on a non-treponemal syphilis test done by requests from the attending physicians were collected consecutively. Diagnosis of syphilis was confirmed when two or more positive results were obtained among 3 treponemal antibody tests, a hemagglutination, an automated latex turbidimetry and ARCHITECT Syphilis TP. RESULTS: All 50 sera were confirmed as syphilis-infected. Diagnostic sensitivity of ARCHITECT Syphilis TP was estimated to 100%, whilst that of the hemagglutination and the latex turbidimetry was 94% and 98%, respectively. Correlation coefficient between S/COs of ARCHITECT Syphilis TP and quantitative results on the latex turbidimetry was caculated as 0.865. Compared to the hemagglutination titers, better quantitative correlation was observed with S/COs of ARCHITECT Syphilis TP. CONCLUSIONS: ARCHITECT Syphilis was thought to be a reliable test with good sensitivity and its automated feature was thought to be additionally beneficial. Although it is being used for a qualitative purpose, it seemed possible to expand its utility into quantitative use considering its acceptable quantitative correlation with the hemagglutination assay as well as the automated latex turbidimetric assay.
Antibodies ; Automation ; Hemagglutination ; Immunoassay ; Japan ; Latex ; Luminescence ; Mass Screening ; Nephelometry and Turbidimetry ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Serologic Tests ; Syphilis ; Tokyo ; Treponema pallidum

Cleft Lip ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Humans ; Palate ; Rhinoplasty

It is difficult to determine the pathoanatomical correlates of dystonia because of its complex pathophysiology, and most cases with secondary dystonia are associated with basal ganglia lesions. Moreover, it is a challenging issue that patients with abnormal postures accompanied by other neurological findings in the affected body part (e.g., sensory loss) can be diagnosed with true dystonia or pseudodystonia. Here, we report a case of abnormal postures with loss of proprioception in the left extremities after right dorsal pontine hemorrhage.

BACKGROUND: The restoration of anterograde flow in the infarct-related artery(IRA) may improve electrophysiological consequences and survival. Patients with occluded IRA are more likely than those with patent IRA to have late potentials on signal-averaged electrocardiogram(SAEKG). The natural history of late potentials in the acute phase after AMI was reported to vary in recent studies and requires further investigation. Therefore, we investigated 1) whether parameters of SAEKG and incidence of late potentials are changed in 2 weeks after AMI, and 2) whether the status of IRA, ejection fraction, ventricular premature beats(VPB) on Holter and the use of thrombolytic agent can influence the developement of late potentials. METHOD: SAEKGs were performed in 40 patients with acute myocardial infarction(AMI, mean age : 56.6yr) and 20 normal controls(mean age : 53.0yr). SAEKGs were recorded first in 48 hours and then 2 weeks after AMI. Late potential were considered to be positive if two of the three following criteria were identified : 1) duration of filtered QRS complex>118ms, 2) duration of HFLA signal>40 ms, and 3) RMS voltage<20microV. RESULT: 1) The duration of filtered QRS complex and HFLA signal in patients with AMI in 48 hours and 2 weeks were longer than in the controls(p<0.01, p<0.05. respectively), and the RMS voltage in only 2 weeks was lower than in the controls(p<0.05). 2) There was no significant difference in the 3 parameters of SAEKG between 48 hours and 2 weeks after AMI, but the incidence of late potentials increased from 35%(14/40) to 42.5%(17/40). Of the 26 patients with a normal initial SAEKG, 3(11.5%) had late potentials in 2 weeks, whereas none of the patients with positive late potentials on initial SAEKG was normalized in 2 weeks. 3) The ejection fraction, the degree of VPB on the Holter EKG and the history of thrombolyic therapy in patients whose late potentials were positive were not different from those in patients with normal SAEKG. 4) In the 3 parameters of SAEKG, RMS voltage in patients with occluded IRA was significantly lower than in those with open IRA(p<0.05), and the incidence of late potentials were higher in the patients with occluded IRA(75%) than in those with open IRA(28.6%)(p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The incidence of late potentials on SAEKG after AMI was modestly increased in 2 weeks, but the development of late potentials was not influenced by the degree of frequently in patients with occluded IRA. These findings may indicate that the development of late potential after AMI tends to increase even in 2 weeks, and that the occlusion in IRA may unfavorably alter the electrophysiological state identified by SAEKG.
Arteries* ; Electrocardiography ; Humans ; Incidence ; Myocardial Infarction* ; Natural History ; Stroke Volume

No abstract available.
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation ; Thrombosis

Background: and Purpose To determine the imaging characteristics and cutoff value of18F-florapronol (FC119S) quantitative analysis for detecting β-amyloid positivity and Al- zheimer’s disease (AD), we compared the findings of FC119S and 18F-florbetaben (FBB) positron-emission tomography (PET) in patients with cognitive impairment. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 35 patients with cognitive impairment who underwent FBB-PET, FC119S-PET, and brain magnetic resonance imaging. We measured global and vertex-wise standardized uptake value ratios (SUVRs) using a surface-based method with the cerebellar gray matter as reference. Optimal global FC119S SUVR cutoffs were determined using receiver operating characteristic curves for β-amyloid positivity based on the global FBB SUVR of 1.478 and presence of AD, respectively. We evaluated the global and vertex-wise SUVR correlations between the two tracers. In addition, we performed correlation analysis for global or vertex-wise SUVR of each tracer with the vertex-wise cortical thicknesses. Results: The optimal global FC119S SUVR cutoff value was 1.385 both for detecting β-amyloid positivity and for detecting AD. Based on the global SUVR cutoff value of each tracer, 32 (91.4%) patients had concordant β-amyloid positivity. The SUVRs of FC119S and FBB had strong global (r=0.72) and vertex-wise (r>0.7) correlations in the overall cortices, except for the parietal and temporal cortices (0.4Conclusions Quantitative FC119S-PET analysis provided reliable information for detecting β-amyloid deposition and the presence of AD.

No abstract available.
Helicobacter pylori* ; Helicobacter* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction*

No abstract available.
Helicobacter pylori* ; Helicobacter* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction*