"Concordance" Revisited: A Multispecialty Appraisal of "Concordant" Preliminary Abdominopelvic CT Reports.

Purpose: To determine whether resident abdominopelvic CT reports considered prospectively concordant with the final interpretation are also considered concordant by other blinded specialists and abdominal radiologists.

Methods: In this institutional review board-approved retrospective cohort study, 119 randomly selected urgent abdominopelvic CT examinations with a resident preliminary report deemed prospectively "concordant" by the signing faculty were identified. Nine blinded specialists from Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Abdominal Radiology reviewed the preliminary and final reports and scored the preliminary report with respect to urgent findings as follows: 1.

US of the Peripheral Nerves of the Upper Extremity: A Landmark Approach.

Ultrasonography (US) has become a first-line modality for the evaluation of the peripheral nerves of the upper extremity. The benefits of US over magnetic resonance (MR) imaging include higher soft-tissue resolution, cost effectiveness, portability, real-time and dynamic imaging, and the ability to scan an entire extremity quickly and efficiently. US can be performed on patients who are not eligible for MR imaging.

C-reactive protein enhances tissue factor expression by vascular smooth muscle cells: mechanisms and in vivo significance.

Objective: We examined the impact of C-reactive protein (CRP) on vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) expression of tissue factor (TF) and TF pathway inhibitor (TFPI).

Methods And Results: TF mRNA, protein, and activity levels were significantly higher in VSMCs isolated from CRP-transgenic (Tg) mice than from wild-type (WT) mice. TFPI expression was significantly downregulated in CRP-Tg versus WT VSMCs.