Inactive Cases Research Articles

Color Doppler imaging in thyroid eye disease and its correlation to disease activity

ABSTRACTPurpose: To evaluate alterations in orbital color Doppler imaging (CDI) parameters and their correlation to disease activity and severity in patients with thyroid eye disease (TED).Methods: Seventy-six orbits of 45 TED patients and 40 orbits of 40 normal controls were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. According to clinical activity score (CAS), patients were categorized to active (CAS ≥ 3) or inactive disease (CAS < 3). Patients were also classified as having mild, moderate or severe disease. Peak systolic velocity (PSV), end diastolic velocity (EDV), and resistance index (RI) in ophthalmic artery and central retinal artery, and maximum and minimum velocity in superior ophthalmic vein and central retinal vein were determined in all subjects.Results: There was a significant difference in maximum velocity of superior ophthalmic vein and EDV and RI of ophthalmic artery between patients with TED and normal subjects. Superior ophthalmic vein maximum and minimum velocity and ophthalmic artery RI were significantly higher in patients with active disease than inactive cases. Disease severity did not affect the blood flow parameters independently. A cutoff point of 3.99 cm/s in superior ophthalmic vein maximum velocity yielded a sensitivity of 91.2% and specificity of 81.2% in detecting active disease.Conclusion: Retrobulbar blood flow is altered in TED and is related to disease activity. Superior ophthalmic vein maximum velocity could be helpful in differentiation of active and inactive cases.

Microglia and astroglia proliferation within the normal appearing white matter in histologically active and inactive multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune, neurodegenerative disease with the involvement of white and grey matter. Histopathological abnormalities can be also identified in normal appearing white matter (NAWM). To compare the micro- and astroglia proliferation within NAWM in MS cases with and without inflammatory activity within central nervous system (CNS). In post-mortem brain examinations we investigated 13 MS cases and 5 individuals who suddenly died for cardiological reasons without neurological comorbidities. We analysed micro- and astroglia proliferation within NAWM in histologically active and inactive MS cases in relation to the control group. To avoid the possible influence of the modern disease modifying treatment (DMT) on NAWM histopathological appearance, we decided to investigate the individuals who died before the modern DMT was introduced in Poland. The morphometric analysis of micro- and astrogliosis was carried out at magnification 10 × 10 (microscopic lens × oculars = magnification 100×). The fields were expressed in mm2; each field = 0.364 mm2. In total, 775 fields of NAWM and 420 fields of white matter in the control group were morphometrically assessed. Significantly higher microglia proliferation appeared both in MS active and inactive cases compared to controls, while there were no differences between active and inactive cases. There was a significantly higher proliferation within NAWM of active MS cases compared to the inactive ones and controls as well as between inactive cases and controls. There were no correlations between microglia and astrocytes proliferation either in active or inactive MS groups. Our results suggest that within MS NAWM, which appears to be involved at the very least, intense diffuse micro- and astroglia reactions occur. Possibly, microglia rather support proinflammatory mechanisms, whereas astrocytes seem to be more neuroprotective. Diffuse microglia proliferation indicates that CNS immune system is chronically activated within the whole CNS.

Housing Affordability, Government Intervention and Housing Informality: An African Dilemma?

The imperfections associated with housing markets have often been the basis for government intervention policies. The purpose of this article is to show the need for governmental responsiveness regarding local realities in structuring policies in specific sectors of the housing market. It shows how government intervention contributes to housing supply and the consequences of this in developed and developing countries. Conversely, it also explores how government intervention in co-operative societies has been utilised in various countries to address housing supply inelasticity, the outcome of this, and lessons that can be learnt. This study takes the form of a literature review and a quantitative survey of co-operative societies in Lagos, Nigeria. Its analysis is based on multivariate techniques. The quantitative survey is utilised to show a specific case of government inactivity in the co-operative housing sector, while the literature review is utilised to showcase government intervention in co-operative housing in four countries. The study argues that while government interventions (by way of planning regulations) often leads to house-price increases and unaffordability in developed countries, it has contributed to the emergence of informal settlements in several African cities.Additionally, while co-operative societies have been historically recognised to reduce inelasticity, improve supply and affordability in developed countries, they have yet to be recognised and supported in African cities like Lagos. It is concluded that while housing affordability is a dilemma that faces both developed and African countries, informality arises as a uniquely developing country response to unaffordability. It is recommended that, learning from history, African governments should recognise and integrate co-operative societies into their housing supply system. Furthermore, governments should implement appropriate policies to guide their activities towards reducing supply inelasticity, increasing affordability and the reduction of ever-expanding informal communities.

Utilidad del complejo soluble de ataque a membrana para determinar actividad clínica de la dermatomiositis y respuesta al tratamiento

Dermatomyositis is an autoimmune disease and the most common idiopathic inflammatory myopathy. During patient follow-up, determining biochemical parameters is required in order to assess for disease activity and treatment efficacy. To determine the relationship between the degree of activation of the complement system through the soluble membrane attack complex (c5b-9), dermatomyositis clinical activity and its variations with conventional treatment. Forty-five patients with active and inactive dermatomyositis were studied. Chemical parameters and clinical severity were established and correlated with ELISA-determined C5b-9 serum levels. There was positive correlation between dermatomyositis cutaneous and muscular activity and C5b-9 serum levels, which was lower than with traditional biochemical markers. In the case of treatment response, C5b-9 showed significant reduction, similar to clinical severity; with biochemical parameters, the reduction was not significant at one month of treatment with systemic steroids. Serum levels of C5b-9 levels of C5b-9 are higher in patients with dermatomyositis than in healthy subjects; dermatomyositis active and inactive cases were determined by means of their measurement. They can be a reliable parameter of therapeutic response, more accurate than muscle enzymes measurement, particularly creatine phosphokinase.

Effect of driving inactivity on driver’s lateral positioning control: A driving simulator study

Overall on-road driving skill is a cumulated acquisition of driving skills learned during training period and furthered tempered with post-licensing driving exposure on the roads. Training serves to develop a person’s basic driving skills to operate safely on the roads at first, while subsequent on-road driving hones the driving skills further. Inactivity from on-road driving can result in deterioration of driving skills. Particularly for the case of inactivity immediately following licensure, which is not uncommon in Singapore, the learned skills can degrade rapidly. This research aims to examine the effect of driving inactivity on the learned driving skill, i.e. lateral positioning control, specifically for young-inexperienced drivers. A series of experiments were conducted on a driving simulator for different subject groups involving active driver, novice driver (freshly-licensed driver), inactive driver (never ever drive upon licensure), and no licence subjects. The participants drove through a stretch of expressway under free-flow conditions, and lane positioning control was monitored. It is found that without on-road driving exposure, driving skills like maintenance of lane positioning control in terms of lane wandering and lane encroachment may deteriorate after some periods of inactivity, i.e. 3 months. The deterioration varies at different rate, with faster deterioration for more complex tasks. The skills level can regress close to un-trained level for complex driving tasks. The findings also suggest that on-road driving exposure is needed to not only retain but also to improve the lane positioning control skills.

A Neglected Issue in Ulcerative Colitis: Mesenteric Lymph Nodes.

Data evaluating the presence and characteristics of mesenteric lymph nodes (LNs) in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) are scarce. The aim of this study is to determine the presence and characteristics of LNs in UC. The LN characteristics in computed tomography (CT), including LN dimension and attenuation, were evaluated retrospectively in 100 patients with UC (61 active and 39 inactive cases). Clinical characteristics and laboratory parameters, including CBC, biochemical analysis, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and C reactive protein (CRP) were also compared. Mesenteric LNs were evident in all patients with UC. The attenuation and dimension of mesenteric LNs did not differ between active and inactive patients with UC. No correlation was found among patients with UC in terms of LN dimension, attenuation, ESR, CRP, leucocyte, and albumin (all with p > 0.05). The current study suggested that inflammation results in the development of mesenteric LN in UC, similar to Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory disorders.

Safety of biologic agents for psoriasis in patients with viral hepatitis

Introduction: Biologics are highly effective, important treatment options for moderate-to-severe psoriasis. Biologics are well tolerated and have few side effects. However, the use of biologics in patients with concomitant chronic viral hepatitis is debatable. Recent reports have suggested a very low associated risk of reactivation of chronic hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCB).Objective: To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of biologics for moderate to severe psoriasis patients with concomitant chronic viral hepatitis.Methods: We followed 39 patients with psoriasis and concurrent chronic viral hepatitis (chronic inactive and occult cases) with no clinical signs and/or lab indication of active liver disease) treated with biologic agents for at least 24 weeks. Patients were regularly monitored for reactivation of viral hepatitis with liver enzymes, viral DNA load, and viral markers.Results: There was no evidence of viral reactivation until the last available lab investigation results (done three months after stopping the medication). None of the patients showed signs or symptoms of liver failure.Conclusion: The use of biologic therapy appeared safe and effective in this small cohort of selected patients with chronic HBV and HCV infection. Close monitoring for HBV and HCV viral load is recommended for patients with high-risk factors.

Transient response of the flexible blade of horizontal-axis wind turbines in wind gusts and rapid yaw changes

In this paper, the aeroelastic analysis of a large scale wind turbine rotor is performed with the aim of studying transient performance of turbine in extreme wind conditions, such as wind gusts and rapid yaw changes. The effect of the presence and/or lack of blade pitch control system on output power, rotor thrust, and blade deformation in sudden change of wind speed are investigated. The NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine is used as the baseline case. In this regard, the modal approach is implemented for modeling the flexible blade structure with tension, bending and torsion degrees of freedom. The unsteady vortex lattice method is employed to obtain the aerodynamic loads. Moreover, the Lagrange equation is utilized to derive the governing dynamic equations and the yielded nonlinear system of equations is solved in time domain. Structure and aerodynamic models are validated by using standard cases. Wind turbine response to different scenarios for sudden change of wind speed and direction are investigated. The results show that the sudden change in wind speed leads to the emergence of overshoots (or undershoots) in output power as high as 40% (and 20%) for active pitch control case and nearly 25% and 20% gradual increment of thrust and tip deformations for inactive case. Time delay of recovering to the new steady-state output power is about 4 s (corresponding to one rotor revolution) and independent from the state of pitch control system. With sudden change of yaw angle, the turbine transient response gradually attains a new steady-state after a time delay of about 5 s. Moreover, results indicate that the output power and rotor thrust have a cyclical variation with the frequency of rotor rotation due to the asymmetric wake configuration.

Level of Interleukin 37 (IL-37) in Children with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Its Correlation with Disease Activity

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disorder caused by auto-antibodies against self-antigens. Interleukin 37 (IL-37) is a member of IL-1family, and it is a key cytokine in regulating inflammation. We aimed to detect the level of IL-37 in SLE patients and to correlate it with disease activity. Methods: A cross-sectional study included fifty children with SLE following up at the pediatric rheumatology clinic in specialized children’s hospital, Cairo University and chosen randomly; aged up to 16 years and thirty, apparently healthy children with matched age and gender, were assigned as the control group. In all cases and controls, full history was taken, full physical examination performed and laboratory investigations including level of IL-37 were done. Results: Levels of IL-37 in the 50 cases with SLE were higher than in the 30 controls with statistically significant difference (P = 0.028). Level of IL-37 was higher in active cases than in inactive cases but without statistically significant difference (P = 0.58). Level of IL-37 level in cases with mild activity was lower than in cases with moderate or severe activity but without statistically significant difference (P = 0.23). Conclusions: level of IL-37 was higher in our SLE patients than in controls and it is higher in active cases than inactive cases. IL-37 is correlated positively with duration between onset and diagnosis of disease and SLEDAI-2K activity score.

SimBoost: a read-across approach for predicting drug\u2013target binding affinities using gradient boosting machines

Computational prediction of the interaction between drugs and targets is a standing challenge in the field of drug discovery. A number of rather accurate predictions were reported for various binary drug–target benchmark datasets. However, a notable drawback of a binary representation of interaction data is that missing endpoints for non-interacting drug–target pairs are not differentiated from inactive cases, and that predicted levels of activity depend on pre-defined binarization thresholds. In this paper, we present a method called SimBoost that predicts continuous (non-binary) values of binding affinities of compounds and proteins and thus incorporates the whole interaction spectrum from true negative to true positive interactions. Additionally, we propose a version of the method called SimBoostQuant which computes a prediction interval in order to assess the confidence of the predicted affinity, thus defining the Applicability Domain metrics explicitly. We evaluate SimBoost and SimBoostQuant on two established drug–target interaction benchmark datasets and one new dataset that we propose to use as a benchmark for read-across cheminformatics applications. We demonstrate that our methods outperform the previously reported models across the studied datasets.

Intestinal Bacteria Composition and Translocation of Bacteria in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

BackgroundLive commensal intestinal bacteria are present in the peripheral blood where they can induce inflammation.ObjectiveTo evaluate the intestinal bacteria composition and translocation of bacteria in IBD.MethodsBoth blood and tissue biopsy samples were collected from adult patients with active/inactive Crohn’s disease (CD), active/inactive ulcerative colitis (UC) and healthy individuals. Most of the patients were newly diagnosed and none of them received antibiotics. Using a reverse transcription–quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) method, we determined the composition of microbiota. NOD2/CARD15 genotyping was also studied.ResultsTotal bacterial DNA concentration was increased in tissue and blood samples of IBD patients compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, the active IBD cases had higher total bacterial DNA concentration levels compared to the inactive cases. Three species characterized dysbiosis in IBD, namely an increase of Bacteroides spp in active and inactive IBD samples, and a decrease in Clostridium leptum group (IV), and Faecalibacterium prausnitzi in both active and inactive IBD patients. No significant association between bacterial translocation and NOD2/CARD15 mutations was found.ConclusionsThe composition of the microbiota in IBD patients differs from that of healthy controls. The high rate of bacterial DNA in the blood samples indicates translocation in inflammatory bowel disease.

Correlation between Epstein-Barr Virus Infection and Disease Activity of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: a Cross-Sectional Study

Background:Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease for whose pathogenesis viral infections are important. The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is the main infectious etiological agent. This study aimed to quantitative evaluation of EBV in SLE patients.Materials and Methods:In this cross-sectional study, 40 patients with SLE diagnosed based on American College of Rheumatology criteria were selected using purposive sampling. All were included in the study after obtaining informed consent for participation. Whole blood samples were taken and buffy coat preparations were isolated to determine viral load using the real-time polymerase chain reaction method and assessment with the SLE disease activity index (SLE-DAI).Results:From a total of 40 patients, 37 cases (92.5%) were women. The EBV test was positive in 67.5% and mean viral load was 5396 ± 1891.9 copy/ml. Twenty of forty patients had active and 50% inactive disease, mean EBV viral loads being 6798 and 28.25 copy/ml, respectively (P-value = 0.003). In terms of the severity of disease activity, 17.5 % of female patients had mild to moderate activity, whilst 32.5% of them had severe activity, with respective viral loads of 5,803.3 and 29.73 copy/ml (P-value = 0.003).Conclusion:The Epstein-Barr viral load in SLE patients with active disease was found to be markedly higher than in inactive cases. Thus, EBV may have an important role in the pathogenesis and activity of SLE.

The effect of vitamin D on clinical manifestations and activity of Behçet's disease.

IntroductionImmune mechanisms have been implemented to have a role in the pathogenesis of Behçet’s disease (BD) and vitamin D has been shown to have a regulatory role in the immune system function.AimTo evaluate the vitamin D levels of BD patients and its relationship between clinical findings and disease activity of BD.Material and methodsSixty-eight patients with BD and 70 age- and sex-matched controls were examined retrospectively. Demographic features, vitamin D levels for both groups and clinical findings, disease activity, drug usage for BD patients were examined from their medical reports. Disease activity was calculated for each patient according to Krause’s BD activity assessment.ResultsMean vitamin D levels of patients and controls were 15.35 ±7.18 ng/ml and 18.44 ±5.79 ng/ml, respectively. Vitamin D levels were significantly lower in BD patients than in controls (p = 0.006). Mean vitamin D levels of active and inactive BD cases were 15.68 ±7.31 ng/ml and 15.08 ±7.17 ng/ml, respectively (p = 0.73). Disease activity of patients using and not using vitamin D was similar (p = 0.51).ConclusionsSignificantly lower levels of vitamin D were observed in BD patients. Our results indicate that there is no correlation between BD activity and a vitamin D level. Together with these, vitamin D replacement treatment was found to have no effect on disease activity.

Multi-Target QSAR Approaches for Modeling Protein Inhibitors. Simultaneous Prediction of Activities Against Biomacromolecules Present in Gram-Negative Bacteria.

Drug discovery is aimed at finding therapeutic agents for the treatment of many diverse diseases and infections. However, this is a very slow an expensive process, and for this reason, in silico approaches are needed to rationalize the search for new molecular entities with desired biological profiles. Models focused on quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR) have constituted useful complementary tools in medicinal chemistry, allowing the virtual predictions of dissimilar pharmacological activities of compounds. In the last 10 years, multi-target (mt) QSAR models have been reported, representing great advances with respect to those models generated from classical approaches. Thus, mt- QSAR models can simultaneously predict activities against different biological targets (proteins, microorganisms, cell lines, etc.) by using large and heterogeneous datasets of chemicals. The present review is devoted to discuss the most promising mt-QSAR models, particularly those developed for the prediction of protein inhibitors. We also report the first multi-tasking QSAR (mtk-QSAR) model for simultaneous prediction of inhibitors against biomacromolecules (specifically proteins) present in Gram-negative bacteria. This model allowed us to consider both different proteins and multiple experimental conditions under which the inhibitory activities of the chemicals were determined. The mtk-QSAR model exhibited accuracies higher than 98% in both training and prediction sets, also displaying a very good performance in the classification of active and inactive cases that depended on the specific elements of the experimental conditions. The physicochemical interpretations of the molecular descriptors were also analyzed, providing important insights regarding the molecular patterns associated with the appearance/enhancement of the inhibitory potency.

Determination of serum visfatin levels in patients with Behçet’s disease: A case–control study

Aim of the workBehçet’s disease (BD) is an inflammatory, systemic and chronic disorder with unknown etiology affecting multiple systems. Visfatin is a new adipokine with insulin-mimetic properties and pro-inflammatory function. The serum visfatin levels were evaluated in BD patients to investigate its role in the pathogenesis and clinical manifestations of the disease. Patients and methodsForty BD patients were recruited from the Behçet’s disease clinic at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in southern Iran and 40 healthy control subjects of matching age, sex and body mass index (BMI) were also included. Serum visfatin level was measured using ELISA. ResultsThe 40 BD patients included 16 males and 24 females. Seventeen had active clinical manifestations; 16 with oral ulcer, 5 with genital ulcer, 6 with arthritis and 2 with uveitis. The mean age of the BD patients was 34.95±9.6years and mean BMI was 23.98±4.44. There were no significant differences between cases (5.05±3.05ng/ml) and controls (4.72±2.84ng/ml) in the visfatin level (p=0.61). The difference in the visfatin level between patients with active and inactive manifestations did not reach statistical significance (6.13±3.20 and 4.25±2.73, respectively; p=0.07). There was no significant difference according to the gender of the patients or the presence of clinical manifestations. ConclusionIn view of the results in this study, visfatin levels were not significantly different between cases and controls. There was a tendency to a higher level of serum visfatin in active BD patients compared to the inactive cases; however, the difference was unremarkable.

Conventional markers in determination of activity of sarcoidosis.

Currently, there are no objective criteria to determine sarcoidosis activity. The present study aimed to discover a sensitive serum marker that would determine the activity of sarcoidosis and can be used during disease follow-up. Forty-eight patients with sarcoidosis and twenty healthy volunteers as a control group were included in the study. On their control visits, the patients were divided into active and inactive groups based on their clinical, physiological, and radiological status. Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), adenosine deaminase (ADA), total IgE (T-IgE), C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid-A (SAA), and soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL2R) serum levels and classical findings of activity were compared, and the utilization of these parameters as markers of activity was investigated. Thirty-nine cases were female (female/male: 39/9) and the mean age was 44.29±10.9years. Thirty-seven cases were active and 11 cases were inactive. Serum ACE, ADA, sIL2R, and SAA levels were significantly higher while T-IgE levels were lower in the sarcoidosis cases. A comparison of the markers between active and inactive cases showed that only SAA was significantly higher (p<0.001). sIL2R was elevated in cases with extra-pulmonary involvement (p<0.014). The area under the curve value was rather high for ADA (0.98 CI: 0.96-1.0); it also had high sensitivity (93.8%) and specificity (100%), and therefore had the highest diagnostic value (96.6%). The current study showed that SAA wil be helpfull for detecting the activity of srcoidosis, IL2R measurement in exploring the extra-pulmonary organ involvement.

Comparative Study of Paired Serum and Cerebrospinal Fluid Samples from Neurocysticercosis Patients for the Detection of Specific Antibody to Taenia solium Immunodiagnostic Antigen.

Neurocysticercosis (NCC) is an important disease of the central nervous system caused by infection with Taenia solium metacestodes. In addition to the clinical findings and the imaging analysis, the results of immunological tests are informative for the diagnosis of NCC. To compare the usefulness of serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples for antibody detection, paired serum and CSF samples from patients with NCC and other neurological diseases were examined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with low-molecular-weight antigens purified from T. solium cyst fluid in a blinded fashion. The sensitivity of both serum and CSF samples was 25.0% in inactive NCC cases (n = 4) and 90.9% in active NCC cases (n = 33), and the specificity of serum and CSF was 100% and 95.8%, respectively. When the serum and CSF samples were combined, the sensitivity in active NCC cases became 100%. There was no difference in test performance between serum and CSF samples. Based on these results, we recommend the detection of specific antibodies in serum for the diagnosis of active NCC because of the ease of collection. When the antibody test is negative, however, CSF should be used to confirm NCC and to rule out other medical disorders of the central nervous system. Antibody detection test using only serum or CSF has a limited diagnostic value and cannot be recommended for the diagnosis of suspected inactive NCC cases.

The Epidemiology of Herpes Simplex Virus Eye Disease in Northern California

Purpose: To calculate the incidence and prevalence of herpes simplex virus (HSV) eye disease in a large, well-defined population in Northern California, USA, and to determine the recurrence rate following an initial episode of disease in this cohort.Methods: A retrospective, observational, cohort study using population-based data and medical record review. The patient database of a large, regional health maintenance organization (Northern California Kaiser Permanente) was searched, and the study population consisted of 1,042,351 people over a 1-year study period from 1 July 1998 through 30 June 1999. Only ocular HSV cases with definitive clinical or laboratory confirmed diagnoses were included. Active and inactive cases were included, however only active cases were used in incidence and prevalence calculations. Bilateral disease was counted as one case. Newly diagnosed cases were followed for recurrence from initial presentation through 31 December 2002.Results: After chart review of 322 possible cases, 71 new cases and 59 previously diagnosed active cases of ocular HSV were confirmed. This resulted in an incidence rate of 6.8 new cases/100,000 person-years (95% confidence interval, CI, 5.3–8.6). Incidence increased with age, and rates were highest in people over 75 years of age (p < 0.001). The recurrence rate in new cases was 18% for the 3-year follow-up time, and was equal to 5% per year (95% CI 3–9%).Conclusion: The incidence and prevalence of ocular herpes simplex in this study was lower than previously reported. Incidence increased with age, and there were significantly higher rates in the older population.

Computed tomography enterography in assessment of Crohn’s disease activity

BackgroundMonitoring the disease activity in Crohn’s disease (CD) may be challenging with endoscopic manoeuvers due to difficulties in reaching the affected areas and being restricted to mucosal lesions, so the existence of a more tolerable and reliable technique will be highly warranted. ObjectivesThis study aims at detection of CD’s activity by computed tomography enterography (CTE) in correlation with ileocolonoscopy evaluation as well as detection of extra-enteric manifestations and complications of the disease. Materials and methodsTwenty-four patients who were clinically and histopathologically proven as CD patients were retrospectively included in this study. Patients were divided into active and inactive groups according to ileocolonoscopic evaluation. All patients underwent CTE as clinically indicated within 1 week of ileocolonoscopy. Radiological parameters suggestive of Crohn’s disease activity at CTE were interpreted at the terminal ileum and correlated to the corresponding ileocolonoscopy reports for signs of CD activity. Extra-enteric findings and complications of CD were also reported if present. ResultsCTE was accurate in detecting CD activity in 15 out of 18 active cases (active group) and in detecting disease inactivity in 5 out of 6 inactive cases (inactive group) with sensitivity and specificity of 83.3%. Mural hyperenhancement was the most distinguished sign of CD activity in CTE. ConclusionCTE is a non invasive and reliable technique that has a significant value in assessment of CD activity in correlation with endoscopy, hence, it is useful in follow up and preoperative guidance.

Teaching Across the Lines of Fault in Psychology and Sociology: Health, Obesity and Physical Activity in the Canadian Context

While interdisciplinary knowledge is critical to moving beyond categorical ways of knowing, this comes with its own set of pedagogical challenges. We contend that acknowledging existing knowledge hierarchies and epistemological differences, recognizing the ideological baggage that students’ bring to the classroom in terms of their understandings of health, embracing intellectual uncertainty, and encouraging learning-as-witnessing, are fundamental to fostering an interdisciplinary pedagogy that opens up a space for dialogue between psychology and sociology. We draw on the case of obesity and physical inactivity in the Canadian context as an exemplar of a kinesiology dilemma in which both psychology and sociology have important, albeit different, roles to play. We suggest that the anxiety provoked by such an approach is not only necessary but productive to forge an intellectual space where psychologists and sociologists may better hear one another.