A Novel Approach to Left Ventricular Filling Pressure Assessment: The Role of Hemodynamic Forces Analysis.

Diastolic function in patients with heart failure is usually impaired, resulting in increased left ventricular (LV) filling pressures, whose gold standard assessment is right heart catheterization (RHC). Hemodynamic force (HDF) analysis is a novel echocardiographic tool, providing an original approach to cardiac function assessment through the speckle-tracking technology. The aim of our study was to evaluate the use of HDFs, both alone and included in a new predictive model, as a potential novel diagnostic tool of the diastolic function.

[Dental caries and treatment needs in adolescents from the state of São Paulo, 1998 and 2002].

Objective: To evaluate indicators of prevalence and severity of dental caries and treatment needs in adolescents.

Methods: Data were obtained from oral health epidemiological surveys carried out in the state of Sao Paulo with adolescents from 12 to 18 years old. Dental caries experience was assessed using DMFT Index and the need for treatment was assessed using World Health Organization criteria.

[Dental caries in 15-to-19-year-old adolescents in São Paulo State, Brazil, 2002].

Dental caries was evaluated by surveying 15-to-19-year-olds in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2002, concerning disease prevalence and severity according to age, gender, ethnicity, and public water supply fluoridation. This cross-sectional study was based on data collected through an oral dental health epidemiological survey. Adolescents (n = 1,825) were examined at their homes by 132 dentists from 35 cities in the State of São Paulo.

Relationship between dental caries and socio-economic factors in adolescents.

Dental caries has a multifactorial etiology, including socio-economic variables and access to dental care, which were discussed in the national survey conducted in 2002. The aim of this study was to investigate the socio-economic aspects and access to dental care, associated with caries prevalence and severity in adolescents from the State of São Paulo. The study design was cross-sectional, on which data on 1,825 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years achieved from the data of an epidemiological survey conducted in the State of São Paulo in 2002 were analyzed.