Influence of a medialized middle turbinate on olfactory function: a prospective randomized double-blind study.

Background: Medialization of the middle turbinate (MT) is an effective technique to prevent recurrent rhinosinusitis but could, in theory, reduce olfactory function by interfering the odorants to reach the olfactory mucosae. We performed a prospective randomized double-blind trial under the hypothesis that olfactory functions would be affected by the status of olfactory mucosae, not by MT medialization.

Methods: In randomly selected sides, the unilateral MT was medialized in 80 patients undergoing bilateral endoscopic sinus surgery for chronic rhinosinusitis.

Interleukin-4 enzyme-linked immunospot assay may be useful for diagnosing sensitization to house dust mite.

Background: The skin prick test (SPT) is considered a standard test for identification of allergens, but it has some limitations in clinical practice. The multiple allergen simultaneous test (MAST), which measures allergen-specific immunoglobulin E in patients' serum, is a widely used alternative test, but is limited by its relatively low sensitivity and specificity. As a novel diagnostic test to identify allergens, we investigated the sensitivity and specificity of an interleukin-4 (IL-4) enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISpot) assay for Dermatophagoides farinae (Der f) and Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (Der p).

Interactive entity resolution in relational data: a visual analytic tool and its evaluation.

Databases often contain uncertain and imprecise references to real-world entities. Entity resolution, the process of reconciling multiple references to underlying real-world entities, is an important data cleaning process required before accurate visualization or analysis of the data is possible. In many cases, in addition to noisy data describing entities, there is data describing the relationships among the entities.