Thoracolithiasis: 11 cases with a calcified intrapleural loose body.

Purpose: To describe clinical and imaging characteristics of thoracolithiasis.

Materials And Methods: Medical records from our center from September 2005 to March 2007 were reviewed. A definitive diagnosis was made by multidetector-row computed tomography studies of the chest, which revealed in each patient an intrapleural calcified nodular opacity, which changed in intrapleural location on serial examinations.

Relationship between prostate-specific antigen and hematocrit: does hemodilution lead to lower PSA concentrations in men with a higher body mass index?

Objectives: To examine whether a lower hematocrit was associated with a lower prostate-specific antigen (PSA), when stratifying by body mass index (BMI) in healthy men. PSA test is widely used in screening for prostate cancer. Many studies have found that PSA levels inversely correlate with BMI.

Evaluated reference intervals for serum free thyroxine and thyrotropin using the conventional outliner rejection test without regard to presence of thyroid antibodies and prevalence of thyroid dysfunction in Japanese subjects.

The determination of the reference intervals for serum free thyroxine (FT4) and thyrotropin (TSH) is usually based on central 95 percentile intervals using subjects without detectable antibodies against thyroid peroxidase (TPO) or thyroglobulin (Tg). However, some subjects with extreme data over reference intervals are generally included. The study objective was to evaluate the reference intervals for FT4 and TSH using different outlier tests.

Lipid re-screening: what is the best measure and interval?

Objectives: To estimate the long-term true change variation ('signal') and short-term within-person variation ('noise') of the different lipid measures and evaluate the best measure and the optimal interval for lipid re-screening.

Design: Retrospective cohort study from 2005 to 2008.

Setting: A medical health check-up programme at a centre for preventive medicine in a teaching hospital in Tokyo, Japan.

Evaluation of a new rapid and fully automated electrochemiluminescence immunoassay for thyrotropin receptor autoantibodies.

Background: Hyperthyroidism in Graves' disease is caused by autoantibodies to the TSH receptor (TSHR), and measurement of the TSHR autoantibody (TRAb) yields important information to diagnose and decide on the course of treatment of Graves' disease. We evaluated basic and clinical performance of a new, rapid, and fully automated electrochemiluminescence immunoassay Elecsys Anti-TSHR (Elecsys TRAb) for measuring serum TRAb.

Methods: For evaluation of basic performance of the assay, we carried out intra- and interassay precision studies using five serum pools and three serum pools, respectively, and the assay was compared with four commercial TRAb assays.

Comparison of reading time between screen-film mammography and soft-copied, full-field digital mammography.

Purpose: To compare the reading time for full-field digital mammography (FFDM) and screen-film mammography (SFM) using a recommended reading method and to provide data regarding the reading time required to establish the optimal conditions for digital mammography.

Methods: Reading time was measured during image interpretation by two expert radiologists. FFDM images were taken for screening, and readers A and B read images obtained for 79 and 82 patients, respectively.