A novel multistep approach to standardize the reported risk factors for in-hospital falls: a proof-of-concept study.

Background: Uncertainty and inconsistency in terminology regarding the risk factors (RFs) for in-hospital falls are present in the literature.

Objective: (1) To perform a literature review to identify the fall RFs among hospitalized adults; (2) to link the found RFs to the corresponding categories of international health classifications to reduce the heterogeneity of their definitions; (3) to perform a meta-analysis on the risk categories to identify the significant RFs; (4) to refine the final list of significant categories to avoid redundancies.

Methods: Four databases were investigated.

Influence of Storage Temperature on Radiochemical Purity of Tc-Radiopharmaceuticals.

The influence of effective room temperature on the radiochemical purity of Tc-radiopharmaceuticals was reported. This study was born from the observation that in the isolators used for the preparation of the Tc-radiopharmaceuticals the temperatures can be higher than those reported in the commercial illustrative leaflets of the kits. This is due, in particular, to the small size of the work area, the presence of instruments for heating, the continuous activation of air filtration, in addition to the fact that the environment of the isolator used for the Tc-radiopharmaceuticals preparation and storage is completely isolated and not conditioned.

An animal model based on the Sprague Dawley rat for the evaluation of ototoxicity.

Various methodological approaches that can be used to detect ototoxic effects caused by the administration of various substances are presented, using the Sprague-Dawley rat as an animal model. Electrophysiological data are also presented to show how the model behaves with potentially ototoxic (hyaluronic acid) and initially inert (hydroxy-propyl-methyl-cellulose) substances.

Intra-articular hyaluronic acid in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee: clinical and morphological study.

Objective: To evaluate, in a pilot, open clinical trial on 40 patients with knee osteoarthritis, the structural changes in the synovial membrane and cartilage following treatment with intra-articular hyaluronic acid (HA-Hyalgan).

Methods: The structural effects of HA given as 5 weekly injections (20 mg/2 ml once a week for 5 weeks), were evaluated by microarthroscopy and morphological analysis of biopsy samples taken at baseline and after 6 months, under blind conditions. Clinical efficacy was also evaluated using visual analogue scales for pain and functional parameters.

Aging of the human synovium: an in vivo and ex vivo morphological study.

Age-associated changes of the human synovium have been investigated by microarthroscopy, optical and electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and cytochemistry. The knee joints of nineteen 15- to 56-year-old subjects, classified as normal by inspection, were carefully examined by microarthroscopy; small synovial tissue biopsy specimens from both the suprapatellar pouch and the medial tibiofemoral gutter were taken. Microarthroscopy showed that the villi were more numerous and the vascular network and cell distribution and profiles less regular in aged individuals.