Summary
Background
Non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) encompasses a wide spectrum of clinical conditions, actually representing an emerging disease of great clinical interest. Currently, its ...diagnosis requires liver biopsy, an invasive procedure not free from potential complications. However, several non‐invasive diagnostic strategies have been proposed as potential diagnostic alternatives, each with different sensitivities and accuracies.
Aim
To review non‐invasive diagnostic parameters and tools for NAFLD diagnosis and to formulate a diagnostic and prognostic algorithm for a better classification of patients.
Methods
A literature search was carried out on MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science and Scopus for articles and s in English. The search terms used included ‘NAFLD’, ‘non invasive method and NAFLD’, ‘transient elastography’ and ‘liver fibrosis’. The articles cited were selected based on their relevancy to the objective of the review.
Results
Ultrasonography still represents the first‐line diagnostic tool for simple liver steatosis; its sensitivity could be enhanced by the complex biochemical score SteatoTest. Serum cytokeratin‐18 is a promising and accurate non‐invasive parameter (AUROCs: 0.83; 0.91) for the diagnosis of non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The staging of liver fibrosis still represents the most important prognostic problem: the most accurate estimating methods are FibroMeter, FIB‐4, NAFLD fibrosis score (AUROCs: 0.94; 0.86; 0.82) and transient elastography (AUROC: 0.84–1.00).
Conclusions
Different non‐invasive parameters are available for the accurate diagnosis and prognostic stratification of non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease which, if employed in a sequential algorithm, may lead to a reduced use of invasive methods, i.e. liver biopsy.
Psychosocial hazards and work-related stress have reached epidemic proportions in Europe. The Italia law introduced in 2008 the obligation for Italian companies to assess work related stress risk in ...order to protect their workers' safety and health. The purpose of our study was to propose an accurate measurement tool, using the HSE indicator tool, for more appropriate and significant work-related stress' prevention measures.
The study was conducted on 204 visual display unit (VDU) operators: 106 male and 98 female. All subjects were administered the HSE questionnaire. The sample was studied through a 4 step process, using HSE analysis tool and a statistical analysis, based on the odds ratio calculation.
The assessment model used demonstrated the presence of work related stress in VDU operators and additional "critical" aspects which had failed to emerge by the classical use of HSE analysis tool.
The approach we propose allows to obtain a complete picture of the perception of work-related stress and can point out the most appropriate corrective actions.
The present study aims to analyzing the relation between the work-related distress with the exposition to ionizing radiations in the radiology technicians, in the hospital environment.
Our present ...study has been conducted on a group of 36 sanitary technicians (14 women and 22 man, with an average age of 48±10,1 years) working in the Hospital Radiology Pavilion; 28 of them were less-exposed to radio-active emissions (B Category) and 8 were more exposed to radio-active emissions (A Category). The HSE questionnaire has been administered to all the 36 sanitary technicians. The data analysis and statistical elaboration were conducted using the HSE Tools. After that, the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was applied to the comparison of the medians of two independent samples.
The HSE tools questionnaire's analysis (made on the whole population) made evident some criticalities in the domains of the managerial support and of the professionals' relationships: in the B Category group (less- exposed to radio-emissions) further criticalities emerged, in the domain of peer-support and in the change domain. The HSE questionnaire analysis, made adopting the Mann-Whitney non-parametric statistical test, significant statistical differences emerged from 2 questions of the 35 sub-administered questions, regarding the mostly radio-exposed workers.
From the research analysis, the authors deducted the small relevance of the emerged criticalities for the two groups of workers; the researchers also believe that, given the (almost complete) homogeneity of the results emerging from the statistical analysis (done with the Mann Whitney test), the perception of the of the work-related distress risk is irrelevant to the dose of ionizing radio-exposition.
Any work activity performed at elevations over 3,000 m above sea level is considered as work at high altitude. The changing environmental conditions result in an adaptation of the human organism, ...mainly due to a reduced partial pressure of oxygen in the air and a proportional decrease in barometric pressure. We carried out a systematic review of the scientific literature in this field so as to develop a health and risk protocol as well as a procedure of ascent for researchers and staff expected to work in a science research lab at an altitude of 5,100 m asl. We wish to highlight the crucial role that occupational medicine plays in the formulation of a medical protocol used to assess the suitability of staff to work in environments posing high risks to human health, as in this case, and of a protocol of ascent minimizing the risk associated with changes in altitude.
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