Search results for "Narrative Review"

Advances in liver US, CT, and MRI: moving toward the future

2021

AbstractOver the past two decades, the epidemiology of chronic liver disease has changed with an increase in the prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in parallel to the advent of curative treatments for hepatitis C. Recent developments provided new tools for diagnosis and monitoring of liver diseases based on ultrasound (US), computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as applied for assessing steatosis, fibrosis, and focal lesions. This narrative review aims to discuss the emerging approaches for qualitative and quantitative liver imaging, focusing on those expected to become adopted in clinical practice in the next 5 to 10 years. While radiomics is an emergin…

Surgeon volume and hospital volume in endocrine neck surgery: how many procedures are needed for reaching a safety level and acceptable costs? A syst…

2018

The relationship between quality of care and provider's experience is well known in all fields of surgery. Even in thyroidectomies and parathyroidectomies, the emphasis on positive volume-outcome relationships is believed. It led us to an evaluation of volume activity's impact in terms of quality of care. A systematic narrative review was performed. According to the PRISMA criteria, we selected 87 paper and, after the study selection was performed, 22 studies were finally included in this review. All articles included were unanimous in attributing to activity volume of surgeons as well as centers a substantial importance. Some differences in outcomes between these investigated categories ha…

Role of sex and age in fatal outcomes of COVID-19: women and older centenarians are more resilient.

2023

In the present paper, we have analysed the role of age and sex in the fatal outcome of COVID-19, as there are conflicting results in the literature. As such, we have answered three controversial questions regarding this aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) Have women been more resilient than men? (2) Did centenarians die less than the remaining older people? (3) Were older centenarians more resistant to SARS-CoV-2 than younger centenarians? The literature review demonstrated that: (1) it is women who are more resilient, in agreement with data showing that women live longer than men even during severe famines and epidemics; however, there are conflicting data regarding centenarian men; (2) c…

Non-abusing mothers' support needs after child sexual abuse disclosure: A narrative review

2018

Machine Learning: An Overview and Applications in Pharmacogenetics.

2021

This narrative review aims to provide an overview of the main Machine Learning (ML) techniques and their applications in pharmacogenetics (such as antidepressant, anti-cancer and warfarin drugs) over the past 10 years. ML deals with the study, the design and the development of algorithms that give computers capability to learn without being explicitly programmed. ML is a sub-field of artificial intelligence, and to date, it has demonstrated satisfactory performance on a wide range of tasks in biomedicine. According to the final goal, ML can be defined as Supervised (SML) or as Unsupervised (UML). SML techniques are applied when prediction is the focus of the research. On the other hand, UML…

The Efficacy of Powered Oscillating Heads vs. Powered Sonic Action Heads Toothbrushes to Maintain Periodontal and Peri-Implant Health: A Narrative Re…

2021

Objectives: To compare the efficacy of rotating-oscillating heads (ORHs) VS sonic action heads (SAHs) powered toothbrushes on plaque accumulation and gingival inflammation. Methods: An electronic (MEDLINE, Embase, Inspec, PQ SciTech and BIOSIS) and a complementary manual search were made to detect eligible studies. RCTs meeting the following criteria were included: final timepoint longer than 15 days; year of publication after 2000; patients without orthodontic appliances or severe systemic/psychiatric diseases. Studies comparing two or more different types of sonic/roto-oscillating toothbrushes were excluded. Selection of articles, extraction of data, and assessment of quality were made in…

Financial Aspects of Cervical Disc Arthroplasty: A Narrative Review of Recent Literature

2020

Recently, there has been significant interest in understanding the cost-effectiveness of treatments in spine surgery as health care systems in the United States move toward value-based care and alternative payment models. Previous studies have shown comparable outcomes of cervical disc arthroplasty (CDA) and anterior cervical discectomy fusion; however, there is a lack of consensus on the cost-effectiveness of CDA to support full adoption. Evidence of the limitations of these cost-analysis studies also exists in the literature, including industry funding, potential selection bias, and varying methods of calculating value. The goal of this narrative review is to provide an overview of the co…

New antihyperglycaemic agents and cardiovascular disease: let's be optimistic.

2018

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) substantially increases mortality in diabetes mellitus. This narrative review highlights recent research on the putative associations between dipeptyl peptidase 4 inhibitors, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) and sodium glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT-2is) and several cardiovascular risk factors.New antihyperglycaemic agents favourably modulate several CVD risk factors, including fasting and postprandial plasma glucose levels, body weight, blood pressure, lipids, microalbuminuria, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, serum uric acid, and arterial stiffness. Liraglutide (in LEADER), semaglutide (in SUSTAIN-6), empagliflozin (in EMPA-REG …

Is work intensification bad for employees? A review of outcomes for employees over the last two decades

2022

Work intensification (WI) is a notable job stressor, which has been hypothesised to result in various negative outcomes for employees. However, earlier empirical studies regarding this stressor hypothesis have not yet been reviewed. Our narrative review focused on the outcomes for employees of WI as a perceived job stressor. Our review was based on selected qualitative and quantitative empirical studies (k = 44) published in peer-reviewed journals between the years 2000 and 2020. Altogether, the findings of these studies showed that WI was related to various negative outcomes for employees, such as impaired well-being and motivation, supporting the stressor hypothesis. Stressful WI manifest…

The effect of residential urban greenness on allergic respiratory diseases in youth: A narrative review

2020

Abstract Background Environmental exposures across the life course may be a contributor to the increased worldwide prevalence of respiratory and allergic diseases occurring in the last decades. Asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis especially contribute to the global burden of disease. Greenness has been suggested to have beneficial effects in terms of reduction of occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases. However, the available evidence of a relationship between urban greenness and childhood health outcomes is not yet conclusive. The current review aimed at investigating the current state of evidence, exploring the relationship between children's exposure to residential urban greenness and dev…