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Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is commonly used for assessing arterial stiffness and it is a useful and accurate cardiovascular mortality predictor. Currently, many techniques and devices for PWV measurement are known, but they are usually expensive and require operator experience. One possible solution for PWV measurement is photoplethysmography (PPG), which is convenient, inexpensive and provides continuous PWV results. The aim of this paper is validation of a new device for PPG sensor-based measurement of multi-site arterial PWV using a SphygmoCor XCEL (as the reference device) according to the recommendations of the Artery Society Guidelines (ASG). In this study, 108 subjects (56 men and 52 women, 20–91 years in 3 required age groups) were enrolled. The multi-site PWV was simultaneous measured by 7 PPG sensors commonly used in pulse oximetry in clinical settings. These sensors were placed on the forehead, and right and left earlobes, fingers and toes. Pulse transit time (PTT) was measured offline as the difference of time delay between two onsets of the pulse wave determined by the intersecting tangent method. The PWV was calculated by dividing the distance between PPG sensors by PTT. During PPG signals measurement, reference carotid to femoral PWV (cfPWV) was performed with a SphygmoCor XCEL system. The Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between the obtained PWV results was calculated. The Bland-Altman method was used to establish the level of agreement between the two devices. Mean difference (md) and standard deviation (SD) were also calculated. The multi-site PWV was highly correlated with accuracy at the ASG-defined level of “Acceptable” (md

Auscultation of the respiratory system – a key system in a human body – is a complicated procedure and it requires a doctor to have good perception skills and profound experience. During auscultation, specific sounds are identified by the doctor who then associates the acoustic phenomena heard with pathological processes. This article is an attempt at developing a classification system, using wavelet packets, a genetic algorithm, and a Support Vector Machine (SVM), which distinguishes between healthy patients and patients with crackles caused by pneumonia, pulmonary fibrosis, Heart Failure (HF) or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The system is elaborated and tested over a dataset consisting of 62 healthy (166 recordings) and 58 sick patients (187 recordings). A reliable system is described, consisting of 5 wavelet classifiers, featuring approx. 95 % sensitivity and 91 % specificity, applying 10-fold cross-validation.

Summary Purpose Evaluation of relationships between survival time of patients with advanced, non-resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and telomerase activity in aspirates, collected from primary lung tumours, and serum p53 protein levels. Material and methods The study group consisted of 52 patients with advanced (stage IIIB and IV) non-small cell lung cancer. In all of them, transthoracic fine-needle biopsy (TFNB) of focal pulmonary lesion was performed. The aspirates were subjected to telomerase activity by the PCR–ELISA PLUS method and serum levels of p53 protein were determined by the ELISA method. Additionally, clinical advancement of cancer and the time period of survival were assessed in the studied group. Kaplan–Meyer method and Cox analysis were used for statistical evaluation of survival prognosis. Results Increased telomerase activity was observed in 42 (81%) of the patients with non-resectable non-small cell lung cancer. Elevated concentrations of serum p53 protein were found in 28 (54%) of the participants. The following death rates were noted during the entire study period: twenty-three (23) (62%), out of 37 patients with increased telomerase activity, 7 (47%), out of 15 without detectable telomerase activity in primary lung tumour, 16 (57%), out of 28 subjects with increased serum levels of p53 protein and 14 (58%), out of 24 with no increased serum levels of p53. A significant relationship was observed in Cox hazard analysis between the time of survival and telomerase activity, while no such relationship was observed between the survival time period and serum p53 protein levels or sex, age, primary lung tumour size, lymph node status or development of distant metastases. Conclusion Telomerase activity in advanced primary non-small cell lung cancer is a better predictor of patients' survival than serum levels of p53 protein. The assessment of telomerase activity supplements in the prognosis of survival in the course of non-resectable NSCLC.

The aim of the study was to compare humoral response to influenza vaccinations in healthy people and patients with bronchial asthma or COPD. Ninety-one subjects (20 with COPD, 21 with bronchial asthma and 45 healthy) were vaccinated with a single dose of influenza subunit vaccine. Antibody response to haemagglutinin (HI) and neuraminidase (NI) glycoproteins and pulmonary function were measured before and after vaccination. Influenza-like symptoms and intensity of COPD or asthma complaints after vaccination were also recorded. A significant increase of geometric mean titres of HI and NI antibodies was observed in all three vaccinated groups. No significant differences between the COPD, asthma and healthy groups were observed in mean fold increase of HI and NI antibodies and response rate to vaccination or proportion of subjects with the sufficient protection level of HI. No change in intensity of asthma or COPD symptoms was found. There were no differences between the groups in the proportion of subjects who experienced influenza-like symptoms. The results suggest that in patients with bronchial asthma or COPD humoral response to influenza vaccine and safety of vaccinations are comparable to those in healthy individuals.