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At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

The Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI) and the Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI): a review of their usefulness and validity in rheumatoid arthritis.

Composite indices or pooled indices are useful tools for the evaluation of disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). They allow the integration of various aspects of the disease into a single numerical value, and may therefore facilitate consistent patient care and improve patient compliance, which both can lead to improved outcomes. The Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI) and the Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) are two new tools for the evaluation of disease activity in RA. They have been developed to provide physicians and patients with simple and more comprehensible instruments. Moreover, the CDAI is the only composite index that does not incorporate an acute phase response and can therefore be used to conduct a disease activity evaluation essentially anytime and anywhere. These two new tools have not been developed to replace currently available instruments such as the DAS28, but rather to provide options for different environments. The comparative construct, content, and discriminant validity of all three indices--the DAS28, the SDAI, and the CDAI--allow physicians to base their choice of instrument on their infrastructure and their needs, and all of them can also be used in clinical trials.

Arthritis, Rheumatoid↗

[Serum insulin, leptin and growth hormone levels are associated with body mass index and obesity index in adolescents].

Leptin, insulin and growth hormone levels seem to regulate body composition, fat distribution and fat mass. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship among insulin, leptin and growth hormone levels in a group of adolescents. Ninety five adolescents (31 boys and 64 girls) between 13 and 18 y. of age were studied. A medical and nutritional history was made which included body mass index (BMI) and subcutaneous skinfolds measurements. Basal levels of glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL-C, LDL-C, VLDL-C, leptin, insulin and growth hormone were determined. The leptin and insulin levels were positively associated with body mass index (BMI) and obesity index (OBI). Insulin, leptin and obesity markers were negatively associated with growth hormone level. Fifty two percent of the adolescents with BMI = 21.09 kg/m2 were considered metabolically obese because they had elevated levels of insulin (18.68 +/- 1.52 vs. 10.08 +/- 0.38 microU/ml), HOMA IR (3.34 +/- 0.24 vs. 1.76 +/- 0.07), leptin (16.30 +/- 1.24 vs. 8.11 +/- 1.32 ng./dl) and triglycerides (78.56 +/- 4.38 vs. 64.39 +/- 5.48 mg/dl) and lower levels of HDL-C (39.09 +/- 1.27 vs. 43.30 +/- 2.38 mg/dl), compared with normal group. The same alterations were observed in the obese group, in which significative decrease in growth hormone level was added. We conclude that hyperinsulinemia, hyperleptinemia and low growth hormone levels, may be established as risk factors related to obesity markers, lipid alterations and insulin resistance that can lead to an early development of Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Adolescent↗

[Epidemiology of caries in Alicante preschoolers. 1. Prevalence, DF index and restoration index].

In the city of Alicante (non-flouridated area) an epidemiological study of dental caries of deciduous teeth has been carried out. From a total population 7,289 preschoolers aged between 4 and 6 years, a representative sample of 1,292 children was obtained by the sampling process of a stratified randomization. The overall prevalence of dental caries in the examined sample was 42.96%, increasing from 33.58% at 4 years of age to 49.73% at 5 years. The CO-t (tooth) index was 1.44 and the CO-s (surfaces of teeth) 2.18. The morbidity index was 1.40. Second molares were the primary teeth most frequently affected (60.89%). The restoration index of 0.03 was noticeably low, being untreated 97% of the affected teeth.

Child↗

Comparison of gingival index and sulcus bleeding index as indicators of periodontal status.

Although the gingival index and sulcus bleeding index have been widely used as indicators of periodontal status, there is some disagreement among investigators as to their meaning and significance. A clinical study was undertaken to monitor the occurrence of gingival bleeding, oedema, and change in colour in subjects with and without periodontal disease, and it was found that the combinations of these clinical symptoms often did not correspond exactly with an index score. It is therefore suggested that any study of periodontal disease should be based on fundamental criteria, such as bleeding or oedema, rather than on composite indices.

Adult↗

[The Early Rehabilitation Barthel Index--an early rehabilitation-oriented extension of the Barthel Index].

The Barthel Index has been shown to be a good measure of reduced activities of daily living which can be applied in routine clinical practice in a valid and reliable manner. However, patients with severe brain damage cannot be differentiated appropriately as floor effects show up with increasing severity of neurological impairment, e.g. in comatose and near- or post-comatose patients in early rehabilitation. Aspects of functional deficits relevant in early rehabilitation patients have been introduced to the Barthel Index in a separate section, the Early Reha Barthel Index (ERI). These aspects are: state requiring temporary intensive medical monitoring, tracheostoma requiring special treatment (suctioning), intermittent artificial respiration, confusional state requiring special care, behavioural disturbances requiring special care, swallowing disorders requiring special care, and severe communication deficits. Experience with the ERI gathered with 210 early rehabilitation patients and 312 patients with severe brain damage demonstrate that the extended scale permits differentiation of patients according to severity and to avoid floor effects. Patients can be allocated appropriately to different phases of rehabilitation, i.e., early rehabilitation of patients with very severe brain damage or rehabilitation of patients with severe brain damage. The ERI is quick, economical, and reliable. Given the high cost of early rehabilitation it is expected to be of special interest also to health care providers to ensure that the right patient is looked after in the right bed.

Activities of Daily Living↗

Octreotide reduces the kinetic index, proliferating cell nuclear antigen-maximum proliferative index, in patients with colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND: Somatostatin has been shown to inhibit in vitro and xenograft growth of human colon cancer. The kinetic index, proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), has previously been used to measure the effects of manipulation of growth of normal rectal epithelium. METHODS: Twenty-five patients with distal colorectal cancer were considered for entry in a presurgical study of Sandostatin (Sandoz, East Hanover, NJ) 1 mg every 8 hours. Biopsies were performed pretreatment, during treatment (14 days), and day of surgical resection (2 days off treatment). A control series of 16 patients underwent endoscopic and subsequent surgical biopsy. A kinetic index was created called PCNA-maximum proliferative index (PCNA-MPI), which was reproducible within one biopsy and between two separate biopsies. Multiple biopsies were taken from the growing edge of tumors, the most cellular and best-stained fields selected, and the highest 6 of 10 separate counted fields were used to produce PCNA-MPI. RESULTS: A significant decline in PCNA-MPI was observed in 6 of the 10 treated patients for whom all three biopsies were available, followed by a significant elevation on withdrawal of treatment. Changes in PCNA-MPI in the control group were less frequent and smaller. CONCLUSIONS: Sandostatin causes a reduction in PCNA-MPI in patients with human colorectal cancer.

Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal↗

Auriculocephalic index: a new anthropometric index for syndrome delineation.

We describe a new anthropometric index, the "auriculocephalic index." It results from the ratio between the length of auricle and the corresponding preauricular head height. The index is independent of sex and of age. Normally it ranges between 0.25 (-2s) and 0.33 (+2s). In syndrome delineation it may help to diagnose more precisely large or small auricles as phenogenetic variants.

Adolescent↗

Introduction to the age-related diagnosis (ARD) index: an age at presentation related index for diagnostic use.

Development and, therefore, age is important in paediatrics. Diagnostically useful data from this journal has been related to age and organized to form an age-related diagnostic (ARD) index. The ARD index is designed for non-expert clinical and laboratory workers to use in the early phases of diagnosis and as an addition to existing diagnostic schemes. Entry to the index is from the age at clinical presentation. Each entry is a sequence starting with clinical and laboratory presentations, clinical course, laboratory key investigations and finally diagnosis with volume and page numbers of the original article, the primary source. Within age groups, entries are grouped by diagnoses with the commonest diagnosis first; this has the effect of roughly but not precisely grouping similar clinical and laboratory findings.

Adolescent↗

Clinicopathological features, MIB-1 labeling index and apoptotic index in recurrent astrocytic tumors.

This is a study of 64 cases of recurrent astrocytic tumors of all four WHO grades wherein a comparative evaluation of initial vs. recurrent tumor was done with respect to histological grading, MIB-1 labeling index (LI) and apoptotic index (AI). The aim was to identify factor/s that could influence interval to recurrence and/or malignant progression. Recurrence was noted in all grades and upon recurrence, 93.3% of grade II (low grade diffuse) astrocytomas and 63.6% of grade III anaplastic astrocytomas underwent malignant progression. However, none of the Grade I tumors showed evidence of malignant progression. Though interval to recurrence varied considerably, there was a correlation with histological grade of the initial tumor in that grade I and II tumors had a significantly longer mean interval to recurrence (43 months and 54.8 months respectively) as compared to grade III and IV (glioblastoma multiforme) tumors (17.6 and 12.8 months respectively). The interval to recurrence was also longer for grade II and III tumors which showed progression on recurrence (55.3 months for Grade II->Grade III; 54 months for Grade II->Grade IV and 20.6 months for Grade III->IV) as compared to tumors which recurred to the same grade (12.5 months for Grade III->Grade III and 12.8 months for Grade IV->Grade IV). A statistically significant inverse correlation of MIB-1 LI with interval to recurrence was noted. Higher the MIB-1 LI, shorter was the interval to recurrence. Further a cut off MIB-1 LI value of 2.8% could be proposed in predicting recurrence free survival. Interestingly, MIB-1 LI of grade II tumors, which had progressed to grade IV was significantly higher than MIB-1 LI of grade II tumors which had progressed to grade III. Thus, this study establishes the potential role of MIB-1 LI of the initial tumor in determining interval to recurrence. However, apoptotic index has no role in predicting either interval to recurrence or malignant progression.

Adolescent↗

The fixation strength of hydroxyapatite-coated Schanz screws and standard stainless steel Schanz screws in lower extremity lengthening : a comparison based on a new torque value index: the fixation index.

INTRODUCTION: Lengthening procedures are often complicated by loosening of pins. It has been reported that coating with hydroxyapatite improves fixation and reduces the rate of pin-track infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We compared 47 hydroxyapatite-coated Schanz screws (HA screws) in 12 monolateral fixators mounted at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf with 45 standard stainless steel screws in 9 monolateral fixators mounted at the St Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden by measuring the insertion and extraction torque values. The average implantation period was 7 months for the hydroxyapatite-coated screws and 5.4 months for the uncoated screws. We established the quotient of the maximum extraction torque over insertion torque which shows the change in the fixation strength with respect to time, the fixation index. It eliminates the influence of the varying pin-bone contact. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the rate of infection. In the Schanz screws without signs of infection the index was 1.92 for the HA screws and 0.76 for the stainless steel screws (P = 0.0002) giving evidence of the improvement of the fixation by the coating. CONCLUSION: HA coating resulted in improved fixation of Schanz screws in bone and may be useful in prolonged external fixation of the lower leg. The fixation index proved to be a simple tool for the evaluation of the fixation strength of Schanz screws.

Bone Lengthening↗

Estimating and testing an index of responsiveness and the relationship of the index to power.

Responsiveness has been proposed as a criterion, in addition to reliability and validity, to evaluate instruments that measure quality of life or functional status. The responsiveness index measures the change in a quality of life score due to a treatment relative to the variability of changes in that score within a stable control group. We derive the expected value, variance and distribution of the responsiveness index and give a large sample distribution for comparing the responsiveness of two different instruments. We also give the relationship between the responsiveness index and the power of a test of treatment effect.

Hearing Aids↗

Abdominal volume index. An anthropometry-based index for estimation of obesity is strongly related to impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND: Our objective was to develop an anthropometric-based index (abdominal volume index, AVI) for estimating overall abdominal volume and to determine its relationship with presence of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional, population-based study between November 1998 and June 2001 among 746 men and non-pregnant women randomly recruited from Durango City in northern Mexico. AVI was calculated using volume formulas for cylinder (V=pir2h) and vertical cone V=(1/3)pir2h. The formula developed was AVI=[2 cm (waist)2+0.7 cm (waist-hip)2]/1,000, which estimates overall abdominal volume between symphysis of pubis and xiphoid appendix and theoretically includes intra-abdominal fat and adipose tissue volumes. RESULTS: Receiver operating curve (ROC) scatter plot showed as best cut-off value of AVI for estimation of obesity, corresponding to 24.5 liters (L). Logistic regression analysis adjusted by age and sex showed higher odds ratio between AVI and IGT 1.6 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.1-9.1, p=0.01) as well as between AVI and DM 2.1 (95% CI 1.3-7.9, p=0.001) than odds ratio (OR) estimated by other anthropometric obesity criteria such as waist-to-hip ratio, body mass index, truncated cone, and waist circumference. CONCLUSIONS: AVI is a reliable and easy-to-calculate anthropometric tool for estimation of overall abdominal volume that is shown to be strongly related to IGT and DM.

Abdomen↗

Application of the Articulation Index and the Speech Transmission Index to the recognition of speech by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.

The present article is divided into four major sections dealing with the application of acoustical indices to the prediction of speech recognition performance. In the first section, two acoustical indices, the Articulation Index (AI) and the Speech Transmission Index (STI), are described. In the next section, the effectiveness of the AI and the STI in describing the performance of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects listening to spectrally distorted (filtered) and temporarily distorted (reverberant) speech is examined retrospectively. In the third section, the results of a prospective investigation that examined the recognition of nonsense syllables under conditions of babble competition, filtering and reverberation are described. Finally, in the fourth section, the ability of the acoustical indices to describe the performance of 10 hearing-impaired listeners, 5 listening in quiet and 5 in babble, is examined. It is concluded that both the AI and the STI have significant shortcomings. A hybrid index, designated mSTI, which takes the best features from each procedure, is described and demonstrated to be the best alternative presently available.

Hearing Loss↗

The aromatic fluctuation index (FLU): a new aromaticity index based on electron delocalization.

In this work, the aromatic fluctuation index (FLU) that describes the fluctuation of electronic charge between adjacent atoms in a given ring is introduced as a new aromaticity measure. This new electronic criterion of aromaticity is based on the fact that aromaticity is related to the cyclic delocalized circulation of pi electrons. It is defined not only considering the amount of electron sharing between contiguous atoms, which should be substantial in aromatic molecules, but also taking into account the similarity of electron sharing between adjacent atoms. For a series of rings in 15 planar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, we have found that, in general, FLU is strongly correlated with other widely used indicators of local aromaticity, such as the harmonic-oscillator model of aromaticity, the nucleus independent chemical shift, and the para-delocalization index (PDI). In contrast to PDI, the FLU index can be applied to study the aromaticity of rings with any number of members and it can be used to analyze both the local and global aromatic character of rings and molecules.

Journal Article↗

Changes in the rapidly extracted auditory evoked potentials index and the bispectral index during sedation induced by propofol or midazolam under epidural block.

BACKGROUND: The bispectral index (BIS) and the rapidly extracted auditory evoked potentials index (A-line ARX Index or AAI) have been proposed as methods to measure the depth of sedation. A prospective study was designed to assess the performance of both these methods for measuring the depth of sedation induced by propofol or midazolam under epidural block. METHODS: Thirty-two ASA I and II adult patients undergoing elective gynaecological surgery under low-thoracolumbar epidural block were studied. Eighteen patients received propofol (Group P: 20 mg bolus every 3 min) and 14 received midazolam (Group M: 0.5 mg bolus every 5 min) until an observer's assessment of alertness/sedation (OAA/S) scale score of 1 was achieved. AAI and BIS were monitored for different OAA/S scores. RESULTS: AAI and BIS decreased and increased following the changes on the patients' OAA/S scores and correlated with sedation significantly. During the onset phase, the coefficients of Spearman's rank correlation for AAI and BIS were respectively 0.958 and 0.898 (P < 0.001) for Group P, and 0.973 and 0.945 (P < 0.001) for Group M. During the recovery phase in Group P, the coefficients were respectively 0.946 and 0.702 (P < 0.001). Linear regression analysis showed that both AAI and BIS were linearly related to the OAA/S scores. The coefficients of Spearman's rank correlation and linear regression for AAI were all greater than those for BIS (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Both AAI and BIS correlated well with the depth of sedation induced by propofol or midazolam under epidural block. AAI may be more valuable when monitoring depth of sedation.

Adult↗

A new index for rating aesthetics of implant-supported single crowns and adjacent soft tissues--the Implant Crown Aesthetic Index.

OBJECTIVES: The important item of aesthetics is rarely included in evaluation studies. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an index for rating aesthetics of implant-supported single crowns and adjacent soft tissues. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Nine items were selected, which have an influence on the aesthetic result. The items are based on the anatomic form, colour and surface characteristics of the crown and on the anatomic form, colour and surface characteristics of the peri-implant soft tissues. Two oral-maxillofacial surgeons and two prosthodontists rated 24 implant-supported single-tooth restorations and adjacent soft tissues on a form with the nine items of the rating index. The rating was carried out twice by each of the examiners. Weighted Cohen's kappa was calculated to express the intra- and interobserver agreement. RESULTS: Intraobserver results indicated that the agreement between the first and second rating of both the prosthodontists was good (both 0.7) and that the agreement of the oral-maxillofacial surgeons was moderate (0.49 and 0.56). The best interobserver agreement was found between the two prosthodontists (0.61, good agreement). CONCLUSIONS: The Implant Crown Aesthetic Index is an objective tool in rating aesthetics of implant-supported single crowns and adjacent soft tissues. The rating is best be carried out by one prosthodontist to have the highest reliability.

Crowns↗

Establishing an index arbitrage model by applying neural networks method--a case study of Nikkei 225 index.

This paper applies the neural network method to establish an index arbitrage model and compares the arbitrage performances to that from traditional cost of carry arbitrage model. From the empirical results of the Nikkei 225 stock index market, following conclusions can be stated: (1) The basis will get enlarged for a time period, more profitability may be obtained from the trend. (2) If the neural network is applied within the index arbitrage model, twofold of return would be obtained than traditional arbitrage model can do. (3) If the T_basis has volatile trend, the neural network arbitrage model will ignore the peak. Although arbitrageur would lose the chance to get profit, they may reduce the market impact risk.

Computer Simulation↗