Balloon-based adjuvant radiotherapy in breast cancer: comparison between (99m)Tc and HDR (192)Ir.

Objective: To perform a comparative dosimetric analysis, based on computer simulations, of temporary balloon implants with (99m)Tc and balloon brachytherapy with high-dose-rate (HDR) (192)Ir, as boosts to radiotherapy. We hypothesized that the two techniques would produce equivalent doses under pre-established conditions of activity and exposure time.

Materials And Methods: Simulations of implants with (99m)Tc-filled and HDR (192)Ir-filled balloons were performed with the Siscodes/MCNP5, modeling in voxels a magnetic resonance imaging set related to a young female.

Franz Joseph Gall on greatness in the fine arts: A collaboration of multiple cortical faculties of mind.

Although Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) is well known for his organology, i.e., his theory of cortical localization of function largely derived from skull features, little has been written about his ideas pertaining to specific faculties other than speech, and even less attention has been drawn to how the individual faculties might work together in specific situations.

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment over time.

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment are often thought of as relatively recent phenomena, influenced by a contemporary combination of technology, specialization, payment models, marketing, and supply-related demand. Yet a quick glance at the historical record reveals that physicians and medical manufacturers have been accused of iatrogenic excess for centuries, if not millennia. Medicine has long had therapeutic solutions that search for ever-increasing diagnostic problems.

The effect of reactive school closure on community influenza-like illness counts in the state of Michigan during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

Background: In sum, 559 Michigan schools were closed as a nonpharmaceutical intervention during the influenza A 2009 (H1N1) pandemic.

Methods: By linking the proportion of schools closed within a district to state influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance data, we measured its effect on community levels of ILI. This analysis was centered by the peak week of ILI for each school district, and a negative binomial model compared three levels of school closure: 0%, 1%-50%, and 51%-100% of schools closed from three weeks leading up to ILI peak to four weeks following ILI peak rate.

The bezoar stone: a princely antidote, the Távora Sequeira Pinto Collection-Oporto.

Bezoar stones, once used as universal antidotes and panaceas, but currently regarded as costly and useless medicines of the past, are a major milestone in the history of toxicology. Arabic physicians had been using bezoars in medicine from the 8th century onwards. In the 16th century, the Portuguese controlled bezoar trade from India, and the Portuguese doctors Garcia de Orta, Amatus Lusitanus, and Cristobal Acosta introduced the medicinal use of Oriental bezoars to European medical literature.

[Professor CHENG Zhifan and PUMHS Department of Medical History].

Professor Zhifan Cheng is a notable expert on medical history in modern China. Since 1950 when he graduated from Peking University Medical School, Prof. Cheng was working in the Department of Medical History until he retired in 2002.

[American surgeon J. P. Webster and the beginning of plastic surgery in China].

Objective: To investigate the role of American plastic surgeon Jerome P. Webster in the history of plastic surgery in China.

Methods: The archives stored in J.

Assessing Argentina's response to H1N1 in austral winter 2009: from presidential lethargy to local ingenuity.

Argentina experienced a heavy burden of novel H1N1 influenza in austral winter 2009. In early July 2009, Argentina reported more than 1,500 cases and was confronting the highest per capita H1N1 mortality rate in the world. By September 2009, more than 500 people had died of H1N1 in Argentina.

"Better off in school": School medical inspection as a public health strategy during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in the United States.

During the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in the United States, most cities responded by implementing community mitigation strategies, such as school closure. However, three cities--New York City, Chicago, and New Haven, Connecticut--diverged from the dominant pattern by keeping their public schools open while the pandemic raged. This article situates the experiences of these three cities in the broader context of the Progressive era, when officials and experts put great faith in expanding public programs in health and education.