Lyme disease is a tick-borne spirochetal infection that may affect the heart. Cardiac manifestations include conduction disturbances and other pathologies of the heart. We report on a 37-year old ...male, who was admitted to the emergency department because of dizziness and generalized tiredness. Physical examination and the initial laboratory values revealed no abnormalities. The patient's electrocardiogram on admission revealed newly diagnosed bradycardia due to atrioventricular heart block. The ventricular heart rate was 35/min. The patient was admitted to the ICU. Lyme serology and Western blot were positive for Borrelia antibodies. After institution of antibiotic therapy with ceftriaxone, atrioventricular heart block resolved rapidly. We therefore have to assume that in this patient Lyme carditis was the cause of third-degree AV block.
The lower mortality rate associated with Oxaliplatin or Irinotecan added to Fluorouracil chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer should outweigh significantly higher costs of these therapies. While ...efficacy data currently are lacking, our aim was to generate cost-effectiveness data about a range of potential benefits to define the increase in mortality reduction required for the future acceptance of these new chemotherapies.
Estimates of efficacy were derived from the literature. Forty-seven of our patients treated with Oxaliplatin or Fluorouracil/Leucovorin alone were evaluated for cost-analysis.
Three scenarios for Oxaliplatin chemotherapies were constructed with a 20% to 50% increase of mortality reduction at 5 years after surgery when compared to Fluorouracil chemotherapy. The associated increase of cost-effectiveness ratio to Fluorouacil chemotherapy was 92% to 36%. A sensitivity analysis for various key input parameters demonstrated the robustness of the model overall. Only the choice of another chemotherapy schedule may significantly alter cost-effective ratios (p < 0.001).
Even the most conservative scenario showed a discounted cost-effectiveness ratio of only 12,485 per life year gained, when compared to best supportive care and therefore met strict cost-effectiveness standards. Oxaliplatin chemotherapy should be accepted for all patients with stage III colon cancer if the required 20% increase in mortality reduction is achieved. Because of the high impact on cost-effectiveness each more expensive chemo-therapy schedule with higher overall dosage should first prove its superior clinical efficacy.
The lifetime of the τ lepton is measured using the process e+ e- → τ+ τ- , where both τ leptons decay to 3πν(τ). The result for the mean lifetime, based on 711 fb(-1) of data collected with the ...Belle detector at the ϒ(4S) resonance and 60 MeV below, is τ=(290.17±0.53(stat)±0.33(syst))×10(-15) s. The first measurement of the lifetime difference between τ+ and τ- is performed. The upper limit on the relative lifetime difference between positive and negative τ leptons is |Δτ|/τ<7.0×10(-3) at 90% C.L.
A
bstract
We report a search for
B
decays to selected final states with the
η
c
meson:
B
±
→
K
±
η
c
π
+
π
−
,
B
±
→
K
±
η
c
ω
,
B
±
→
K
±
η
c
η
and
B
±
→
K
±
η
c
π
0
. The analysis is based on 772 × ...10
6
B
B
¯
pairs collected at the Υ(4
S
) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy
e
+
e
−
collider. We set 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions of the studied
B
decay modes, independent of intermediate resonances, in the range (0
.
6–5
.
3) × 10
−4
. We also search for molecular-state candidates in the
D
0
D
¯
∗
0
−
D
¯
0
D
∗
0
,
D
0
D
¯
0
+
D
¯
0
D
0
and
D
∗
0
D
¯
∗
0
+
D
¯
∗
0
D
∗
0
combinations, neutral partners of the
Z
(3900)
±
and
Z
(4020)
±
, and a poorly understood state
X
(3915) as possible intermediate states in the decay chain, and set 90% confidence level upper limits on the product of branching fractions to the mentioned intermediate states and decay branching fractions of these states in the range (0
.
6–6
.
9) × 10
−5
.
We search for bottomonium states in Υ(2S) → (bb)γ decays with an integrated luminosity of 24.7 fb(-1) recorded at the Υ(2S) resonance with the Belle detector at KEK, containing (157.8±3.6)×10(6) ...Υ(2S) events. The (bb) system is reconstructed in 26 exclusive hadronic final states composed of charged pions, kaons, protons, and K(S)(0) mesons. We find no evidence for the state recently observed around 9975 MeV (X(bb)) in an analysis based on a data sample of 9.3×10(6) Υ(2S) events collected with the CLEO III detector. We set a 90% confidence level upper limit on the branching fraction BΥ(2S) → X(bb)γ × ∑(i)BX(bb) → h(i) < 4.9×10(-6), summed over the exclusive hadronic final states employed in our analysis. This result is an order of magnitude smaller than the measurement reported with CLEO data. We also set an upper limit for the ηb(1S) state of BΥ(2S) → ηb(1S)γ × ∑(i)Bηb(1S) → h(i) < 3.7×10(-6).
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