391,922 papers found

Manipulative therapy has been one of the most intensively studied approaches to back pain management. This paper reviews 20 years of randomized clinical trials of manipulative therapy, and addresses the following issues: for what condition were these patients treated? What was the population studied, and were workers i…

As radiotherapy following surgery for early breast cancer carries morbidity, financial cost, and potential mortality we have sought to select characteristics that will allow these risks to be minimised. The causes of increased mortality shown in the overview of mature trials of radiotherapy have been studied in a singl…

PURPOSE: World Health Statistic Annuals between 1973 and 1982 show that mortality from cardiovascular and coronary heart disease fell significantly during this period. Against this background, the present review analyses results from trials of antihypertensive therapy in elderly hypertensives. STUDY SELECTION: The rev…

Because preliminary data suggested a relation between risk of spontaneous abortion and tapwater consumption during pregnancy, the California Department of Health Services included questions on prenatal water consumption in all reproductive studies conducted between 1982 and 1988. Results from four of these five retrosp…

To assess the attitudes of nurses toward computerization, Stronge and Brodt's questionnaire, Assessment of Nurses' Attitudes Toward Computerization was used to survey head nurses, staff registered nurses, and licensed practical nurses in a 500-bed hospital. Nurses' attitudes were generally favorable toward computers an…

Until recently, a gap existed between the rapidly advancing knowledge about the pharmacology of aspirin and the management of patients who are threatened by stroke. In doses as low as 20 to 40 mg per day, aspirin can completely suppress the production of the aggregant agent thromboxane A2. The clinical evidence, howeve…

Hypertension intervention trials, which have involved mainly the use of diuretics and beta-blockers, have demonstrated a disappointing benefit in terms of reduction of coronary heart disease (CHD). Rather than suggesting that elevated blood pressure and CHD are not causally related, these data suggest that the antihype…

This article has attempted to question whether the more recently introduced methods of treating the patient with variceal hemorrhage have resulted in higher salvage rates and a better quality of life. Data concerning other types of central shunts, selective shunting, nonshunt operations, hepatic transplantation, sclero…

The usefulness of various bone mineral measurement techniques is a subject of current controversy. In order to explore whether disparate conclusions may have arisen from differences in analytic methodology, data from published reports of bone mass and nonviolent fractures have been reanalyzed in terms of fracture risk.…

European data on the polymorphic metabolism of debrisoquine, sparteine, dextromethorphan and mephenytoin have been collected. No significant difference in phenotype frequencies was found between the separate series for debrisoquine, sparteine and dextromethorphan, which supports the claim that these probe drugs reflect…

OBJECTIVES: Little is known about the integrity of randomization for randomized controlled trials (RCT) included in alteplase for stroke meta-analyses. If the RCTs were not properly randomized, the results could not be accepted at face value. The objective was to assess the integrity of randomization in individual pati…

Fifteen case-control studies on the relationship between smoking and lung cancers in China were analyzed and evaluated by the method of meta-analysis, using both the fixed-effect and the random-effect models. The cumulative cases and controls were 5703 and 5669, respectively. Calculations based on the fixed-effect mode…

This paper analysed the literature published in the last 15 years regarding the onset of pancreatic fistula after pancreaticoduodenectony carried out for tumours in the periampullary region, in the head of the pancreas and in the distal common bile duct. Out of 8370 pancreatic resections we were able to go by only 2684…

Previous work suggests that key factors for replicability, a necessary feature for theory building, include statistical power and appropriate research planning. These factors are examined by analyzing a collection of 12 standardized meta-analyses on language development between birth and 5 years. With a median eff…

Radiolabeled antibodies for cancer therapy are being investigated in clinical trials in more than 30 centers. 131Iodine-labeled antibody (Ab) therapy of solid tumors has produced few responses when given alone. When given in conjunction with chemotherapy and external beam therapy in hepatoma patients, objective respons…

Since 1952, 20 datasets have been generated through 17 studies in an attempt to describe the sources and importance and/or use of information about pharmaceuticals by physicians. The authors review the findings of the studies and subject them to three sequentially relevant, but different, meta-analytic procedures. The…

Left-handedness occurs in about 8% of the human population. It runs in families and an adoption study suggests a genetic rather than an environmental origin; however, monozygotic twins show substantial discordance. The only genetic models that successfully explain the family and twin data are those of McManus and Annet…

Sonography and CT were used pre-operatively for lymph node staging in patients with head and neck malignancies. The accuracy of the imaging methods surpassed that of palpation (palpation 85%, CT 85%, sonography 90%). Sensitivity was significantly increased from 74% (palpation) to 84% (CT) and 90% (sonography), ie. ther…

An overview of eight randomized controlled trials of tissue-type plasminogen activator (Alteplase or Duteplase) and 10 of anisoylated plasminogen streptokinase activator complex (Anistreplase) showed that the odds of early death were reduced by 29% by tissue-type plasminogen activator and 46% by anisoylated plasminogen…

A methodology is being developed to estimate the exposure of Americans to 131I originating from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests carried out at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) during the 1950s and early 1960s. Since very few direct environmental measurements of 131I were made at that time, the assessment must rely on estim…