HACCP-koncepcija ukazuje na slabe točke proizvodnje, odnosno mjesta gdje se pogreške i mogući rizici kontaminacije moraju popraviti da hi se proizveo higijenski ispravan proizvod. To se odnosi i na ...uvjete proizvodnje konzumnog mlijeka, a tiče se propisane toplinske obrade mlijeka, hlađenja, punjenja i drugih tehnoloških procesa u proizvodnji mlijeka. U radu se prikazuju rezultati bakterioloških pretraga mlijeka u tehnološkom procesu proizvodnje primjenom HACCP-koncepcije, a koji ukazuju na glavnu kontaminaciju, moguću kontaminaciju, kao i na efikasnu i ograničenu kontrolu u proizvodnji mlijeka.
U radu su izneseni osnovni principi korištenja energije mikrovalova za toplinsko tretiranje namirnica. Opisana su osnovna svojstva mikrovalova i navedene različite mogućnosti primjene u pojedinim ...tehnološkim operacijama. Ukratko je razmotreno djelovanje mikrovalova na pojedine sastojke namirnica i prehrambenu vrijednost namirnica. Upozoreno je na baktericidno djelovanje mikrovalova i djelovanje na enzime. Analizirane su ekonomske i tehnološke prednosti korištenja mikrovalova u komparaciji s klasičnim postupcima zagrijavanja.
Provedena je analiza sadržaja 690 dječjih crteža stomatološke ambulante s ciljem da se utvrdi zastupljenost »zastrašujućih« i »ohrabrujućih« elemenata u tim crtežima. Rezultati pokazuju kako svega 9% ...djece crta i ohrabrujuće elemente, kao što su cvijeće, slike, ukrasi itd. Zastupljenost zastrašujućih elemenata ovisi o: 1) ranijem iskustvu djece, 2) dobi djece, 3) načinu kako je zadatak zadan i 4) koji su elementi doista postojali u stomatološkoj ambulanti.
To validate Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC)-12 and American College of Rheumatology (ACR)-97 classification criteria on a patient cohort from the University Hospital Center ...Zagreb.
This retrospective study, conducted from 2014 to 2016, involved 308 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (n=146) and SLE-allied conditions (n=162). Patients' medical charts were evaluated by an expert rheumatologist to confirm the clinical diagnosis, regardless of the number of the ACR-97 criteria met. Overall sensitivity and specificity, as well as the sensitivity and specificity according to disease duration, were compared between ACR-97 and SLICC-12 classifications. Predictive value for SLE for both classifications was assessed using logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
The SLICC-12 criteria had significantly higher sensitivity in early disase, which increased with disease duration. The ACR-97 criteria had higher specificity. The specificity of the SLICC-12 criteria was low and decreased with disease duration. Regression analysis demonstrated the superiority of the SLICC-12 classification criteria over the ACR-97 criteria, with areas under the ROC curve of 0.801 and 0.780, respectively.
Although the SLICC-12 criteria were superior to the ACR-97 and were more sensitive for diagnosing early SLE, their specificity in our population was too low. The sensitivity of the SLICC-12 classification is increased by better defined clinical features within each criterion. Our results contribute to the current initiative for developing new criteria for SLE.
Aim To validate Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC)-12 and American College of Rheumatology (ACR)-97 classification criteria on a patient cohort from the University Hospital ...Center Zagreb. Methods This retrospective study, conducted from 2014 to 2016, involved 308 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (n = 146) and SLE-allied conditions (n = 162). Patients' medical charts were evaluated by an expert rheumatologist to confirm the clinical diagnosis, regardless of the number of the ACR-97 criteria met. Overall sensitivity and specificity, as well as the sensitivity and specificity according to disease duration, were compared between ACR97 and SLICC-12 classifications. Predictive value for SLE for both classifications was assessed using logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results The SLICC-12 criteria had significantly higher sensitivity in early disase, which increased with disease duration. The ACR-97 criteria had higher specificity. The specificity of the SLICC-12 criteria was low and decreased with disease duration. Regression analysis demonstrated the superiority of the SLICC-12 classification criteria over the ACR-97 criteria, with areas under the ROC curve of 0.801 and 0.780, respectively. Conclusion Although the SLICC-12 criteria were superior to the ACR-97 and were more sensitive for diagnosing early SLE, their specificity in our population was too low. The sensitivity of the SLICC-12 classification is increased by better defined clinical features within each criterion. Our results contribute to the current initiative for developing new criteria for SLE.
In this study, we aimed to assess the prevalence of uncommon staining patterns found during testing for the presence of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and to determine their association with certain ...antibodies and clinical diagnoses. Presence of ANA and the staining pattern was determined in 10955 samples using indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) on HEp-2 cells. ANA-positive samples were assessed for presence of 14 specific antibody types using a microbead based system. Demographic data (age, sex) and clinical diagnoses were collected from the referral documentation. Particular staining patterns were then compared with a representative comparison group comprised of samples with common staining patterns using these criteria. There were 22 patterns present in less than 3% of samples each and these were jointly present in 42.43% of ANA-positive samples. Specific antibodies were found in proportions similar to the comparison group (46.06%) and varied significantly between patterns. Likewise, there were significant differences in antibody distribution in particular patterns. Some patterns were associated with presence of rheumatic diseases or inflammatory arthropathies, while in others there was a concurrent diagnosis of liver disease, or a neoplastic process. Many of the uncommon IIF patterns have distinctive characteristics that warrant further investigation in order to determine their role in diagnosing various diseases, not limited only to the illnesses of the rheumatic spectrum. IIF on HEp-2 cells remains an irreplaceable method because of the diversity of ANA, only a number of which can be detected using other standardised methods.
Rheumatoid arthritis and primary biliary cirrhosis coexist in up to 6% of cases. Tumor necrosis factor alpha seems to have an important role in the pathogenesis of both diseases. Tumor necrosis ...factor alpha inhibitors have become an established therapeutic regimen for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The only approved drug for primary biliary cirrhosis is ursodeoxycholic acid. We describe the case of a female patient with both rheumatoid arthritis and primary biliary cirrhosis in a long term remission of both diseases induced with adalimumab. This case report is an important addendum to a few published similar reports.
To identify systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients diagnosed and treated at the outpatient clinic of our Division fulfilling at least four American College of Rheumatology (ACR) classification ...criteria at the time of the study, to determine the prevalence of each of the criteria at three different time points, and to compare the data with similar studies.
We performed retrospective and descriptive analysis of medical records of 162 patients fulfilling at least 4 ACR criteria. Classification criteria were counted and the frequency of each criterion was identified at three different time points: disease onset, time of diagnosis, and the time when the study was conducted.
At diagnosis and at the time when the study was conducted there were 3.8 and 5.4 fulfilled classification criteria, respectively. The most common criterion at the time of the disease onset was arthritis (52.6%); at the time of diagnosis it was positive antinuclear antibody (ANA) titer (88.0%); and at the time when the study was conducted it was positive ANA titer (95.7%), immunologic disorder (89.5%), arthritis (71.0%), hematologic disorder (70.4%), malar rash (61.7%), and photosensitivity (51.9%).
The prevalence of ACR criteria in our patients is similar to that in other studies, especially those involving Caucasian patients. Our results confirm the value of the ACR criteria in patients with an already established diagnosis. This is the first study on the prevalence of disease manifestations among Croatian patients with SLE.
Infliximab is anti-TNFα monoclonal antibody, which is widely used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and other inflammatory diseases. Anti-TNFα treatment can induce the occurrence of ...autoantibodies but in the majority of treated patients, they have no clinical significance although several cases of drug induced lupus have been described. In our cohort of refractory RA patients treated with infliximab for one year, we found a very high number of patients who developed antinuclear autoantibodies (16 of 24 (66.6%) at the time of infliximab discontinuation) and anti-ds-DNA autoantibodies (12 of 24 (50%) at the time of infliximab discontinuation). However, in most of these patients they had no clinical significance. One patient developed clinical and laboratory signs of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which over time became overt as SLE-RA overlapping unmasked by infliximab.