Background: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have found antibiotics to be a feasible and safe alternative to appendicectomy in adults with imaging-confirmed acute appendicitis. However, patient inclusion criteria and outcome definitions vary greatly between RCTs. We aimed to compare antibiotics with appendicectomy for the treatment of acute appendicitis using individual patient data and uniform outcome definitions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Antibiotic therapy is currently considered a safe and effective treatment alternative for computed tomography (CT)-confirmed uncomplicated acute appendicitis with recent studies reporting good results on both oral antibiotics only and outpatient management. Furthermore, there are promising pilot results on uncomplicated acute appendicitis management with symptomatic treatment (placebo). This trial aims to assess whether both antibiotics and hospitalization can be safely omitted from the treatment of uncomplicated acute appendicitis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Appendicoliths are associated with a more complicated course of acute appendicitis and failure of non-operative treatment. We aimed to update the appendicolith classification originally described in 1966 and to assess the association of appendicolith characteristics with appendicitis severity.
Design: This prospective predefined MAPPAC-trial (ClinicalTrials.
17-Beta-estradiol (E2), a steroid hormone synthesized from cholesterol, has various impacts on health and the environment. Currently, the gold standard for its measurement in the body is a conventional blood test (mass spectrometry), but carbon-based electrochemical sensors have been proposed as an alternative due to their advantages, such as rapid analysis time and sensitivity. To improve the atomic-level understanding of the interactions at the substrate surface, we performed density functional theory (DFT) simulations to study the nature of the adsorption of E2 on pristine graphene.
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