Urinary incontinence as a marker of higher mortality in patients receiving home care services.

Objective: To evaluate urinary incontinence (UI) as a predictor of nursing home admission, hospitalization or death in patients receiving home care services.

Subjects And Methods: A total of 699 community-dwelling participants receiving home care services in Geneva were evaluated in Autumn 2004 using the Minimal Data Set-Home Care, a validated instrument that includes grading of UI. Data on death, hospitalization and nursing home admission were collected up until June 2007.

Comparative sensitivities of functional MRI sequences in detection of local recurrence of prostate carcinoma after radical prostatectomy or external-beam radiotherapy.

Objective: The aim of this retrospective study was to determine the respective accuracies of three types of functional MRI sequences-diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI, and 3D (1)H-MR spectroscopy (MRS)-in the depiction of local prostate cancer recurrence after two different initial therapy options.

Materials And Methods: From a cohort of 83 patients with suspicion of local recurrence based on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) kinetics who were imaged on a 3-T MRI unit using an identical protocol including the three functional sequences with an endorectal coil, we selected 60 patients (group A, 28 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy; group B, 32 patients who underwent external-beam radiation) who had local recurrence ascertained on the basis of a transrectal ultrasound-guided biopsy results and a reduction in PSA level after salvage therapy.

Results: All patients presented with a local relapse.

Reproducibility and gender-related differences of heart rate variability during all-day activity in young men and women.

Background: Only few data are available on reproducibility over time in healthy young men and women and the corresponding gender-related changes of heart rate variability (HRV) measurements.

Methods: We studied temporal and spectral HRV indices obtained from 24-hour Holter recordings in 32 healthy volunteers (14 men and 18 women, mean age 29 +/- 3 years) during 2 days of their usual all-day activity.

Results: Time-domain measures and the spectral low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) components as well as the LF/HF ratio were comparable on both test days.