Heart-focused anxiety as a mediating variable in the treatment of noncardiac chest pain by cognitive-behavioral therapy and paroxetine.

Objective: We compared the efficacy of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), paroxetine and placebo in the treatment of noncardiac chest pain (NCCP). We also investigated whether pre- to mid-treatment reduction of (heart-focused) anxiety mediated mid- to post-treatment pain reduction.

Methods: Sixty-nine adults with NCCP were randomly assigned to 16 weeks of outpatient treatment with CBT, paroxetine or placebo.

Daily worry is related to low heart rate variability during waking and the subsequent nocturnal sleep period.

Stress and anxiety are risk factors for cardiovascular (CV) disease. Worry might be a mediator of their risks by prolonging their cognitive representation and concomitant CV activity. We hypothesized that daily stressors and worry, and trait anxiety and trait worry would be associated with high heart rate (HR) and low heart rate variability (HRV) during waking and the subsequent nocturnal sleep period, and that worry would mediate the effects of daily stressors.

Determination of the reference air kerma rate for 192Ir brachytherapy sources and the related uncertainty.

Different methods exist to determine the air kerma calibration factor of an ionization chamber for the spectrum of a 192Ir high-dose-rate (HDR) or pulsed-dose-rate (PDR) source. An analysis of two methods to obtain such a calibration factor was performed: (i) the method recommended by [Goetsch et al., Med.