RT is as safe as OT for the treatment of thyroid cancer. Based on the long-time follow-up and surgical completeness, the adverse events and complications, and recurrence rate of RT were comparable with OT. RT was associated with a significantly lesser blood loss, smaller number of retrieved lymph nodes, a lower level of swallowing impairment, and better cosmetic satisfaction. In contrast, OT was associated with shorter operation time, smaller total drain amount, and lower postoperative serum Tg level. Overall, randomized clinical trials and larger patient cohort with long-term follow-up are still essential to further demonstrate the value of the robotic approach.

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BackgroundThe effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) on cardiovascular (CV) risk in hypertensive patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2 DM) are uncertain. Our objective was to analyze the effects of ACE/ARBs, on the incidence of myocardial infarction, stroke, CV events, and all-cause mortality in hypertensive patients with T2 DM.MethodPubMed and Embase databases were searched through January 2014 to identify studies meeting a priori inclusion criteria and references in the published articles were also reviewed. Two investigators independently extracted the information with either fixed-effect model or random-effect model to assess the effects of ACE/ARBs treatment in hypertensive patients with T2 DM.ResultsTen randomized controlled studies were included with a total of 21,871 participants. Overall, treatment with ACE/ARBs in hypertensive patients with T2 DM was associated with a statistically significant 10% reduction in CV events, pooled hazard ratio (HR) of 0.90 [95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.82-0.98] with no heterogeneity (I2 = 19.50%; P = 0.275);and 17% reduction in CV mortality, pooled HR of 0.83 [95% CI: 0.72-0.96] with no heterogeneity (I2 = 0.9%; P = 0.388). ACE/ARBs was not associated with MI, stroke and all-cause mortality.ConclusionsTreatment with ACE/ARBs results in significant reduction in CV events and mortality in hypertensive patients with T2 DM.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2261-14-148) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Despite their considerable importance to biomechanics, there are no existing methods available to directly measure apparent Poisson's ratio and friction coefficient of oral mucosa. This study aimed to develop an inverse procedure to determine these two biomechanical parameters by utilizing in vivo experiment of contact pressure between partial denture and beneath mucosa through nonlinear finite element (FE) analysis and surrogate response surface (RS) modelling technique. First, the in vivo denture-mucosa contact pressure was measured by a tactile electronic sensing sheet. Second, a 3D FE model was constructed based on the patient CT images. Third, a range of apparent Poisson's ratios and the coefficients of friction from literature was considered as the design variables in a series of FE runs for constructing a RS surrogate model. Finally, the discrepancy between computed in silico and measured in vivo results was minimized to identify the best matching Poisson's ratio and coefficient of friction. The established non-invasive methodology was demonstrated effective to identify such biomechanical parameters of oral mucosa and can be potentially used for determining the biomaterial properties of other soft biological tissues.

Physical activity (PA) during leisure time has been inversely associated with cardiovascular disease risk in the Western populations. We evaluated PA at work and leisure time in relation to acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Chinese population. We conducted a hospital-based case-control study. The cases had first AMI (n = 2909). The controls (n = 2947) were matched to the cases in age and sex. The odds ratios (ORs) of leisure-time PA for strenuous exercise compared to mainly sedentary was 0.74 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.61-0.90) and for moderate exercise it was 0.96 (95% CI: 0.85-1.08). Multivariate adjustment did not substantially alter the association. The ORs of work-related PA for heavy PA compared to mainly sedentary was 1.44 (95% CI: 1.06-1.94), for climbing and lifting was 1.00 (95% CI: 0.77-.30), and for walking was 0.90 (95%CI: 0.75-1.07). Leisure-time PA was protective for AMI risk compared to sedentary lifestyles in a population in China.