It has been well established that prolonged
in vitro
cultivation of
Toxoplasma gondii
augments progression of the lytic cycle. This lab adaptation results in increased capacities to divide, migrate, and survive outside a host cell, all of which are considered host-independent virulence factors.
The attack of novel avian influenza (H7N9) in east China caused a serious health crisis and public panic. In this paper, we empirically analyze the onset patterns of human cases of the novel avian influenza and observe several spatial and temporal properties that are similar to other infective diseases. More deeply, using the empirical analysis and modeling studies, we find that the spatio-temporal network that connects the cities with human cases along the order of outbreak timing emerges two-section-power-law edge-length distribution, indicating the picture that several islands with higher and heterogeneous risk straggle in east China. The proposed method is applicable to the analysis on the spreading situation in early stage of disease outbreak using quite limited dataset.
Objective: Patent foramen ovale (PFO) has been regarded as a potential source of cryptogenic stroke, which was conventionally detected by transesophageal echocardiography. Cardiac computed tomography (CCT) is a promising, noninvasive test for detection of PFO. We sought to conduct a meta-analysis to evaluate the diagnostic performance of CCT in detecting PFO.
Methods: PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Wanfang from inception to June 2020 were searched for relevant studies comparing CCT and transesophageal echocardiography as the reference standard in detecting PFO. A bivariate model was used to pool sensitivity and specificity and to construct summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves.
Results: A total of seven studies with 483 patients were included in this meta-analysis. For the diagnosis of PFO, CCT had a mean sensitivity and specificity of 0.70 [95% CI:0.58, 0.79] and 0.97 [95% CI: 0.95, 0.99]. The SROC analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.97.
Conclusion: CCT shows good diagnostic accuracy in detecting PFO with relatively high sensitivity and specificity. CCT could be considered a noninvasive alternative to transesophageal echocardiography for detecting PFO.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.