Introduction: Esophageal stenosis is a complication that can occur following surgical treatment of esophageal atresia. Esophageal stenosis should be treated with some methods. One of these methods is using dilation and there are different devices for dilation. In this study we have compared the outcomes of the endoscopic esophageal dilation by balloon or bougie. material and methods: This is a cross-sectional study that has been performed on 40 children in two groups including the bougie group and the balloon group with equal members. Dilation by balloon or bougie was performed and data of these procedures were collected and analyzed. Result: There were 20 patients in each group and the mean age of children was 21/33±, 12/46 months. All symptoms of stenosis were resolved by performing the bougie or the balloon dilation and these procedures were significantly effective. There was no difference between the balloon dilation or bougie dilation. Conclusion: There is no difference between balloon and bougie dilation. Both of them can be used effectively for esophageal stenosis.

Among the therapeutic options for achalasia are pneumatic dilatation (PD), an appropriate longterm therapy, and botulinum toxin injection (BT) that is a relatively short-term therapy. This study aimed to compare therapeutic effect of repetitive pneumatic dilation with a combined method (botulinum toxin injection and pneumatic dilation) in a group of achalasia patients who are low responder to two initial pneumatic dilations. Thirty- four patients with documented primary achalasia that had low response to two times PD (<50% decrease in symptom score and barium height at 5 minute in timed esophagogram after 3month of late PD) were randomized toreceive pneumatic dilation (n=18) or botulinum toxin injection and pneumatic dilation by four weeks interval (n=16), PD and BT+PD groups respectively. Symptom scores were evaluated before and at 1, 6 and 12 months after treatment. Clinical remission was defined as a decrease in symptom score ³ 50% of baseline. There were no significant differences between the two groups in gender, age and achalasia type. Remission rate of patients in BT-PD group in comparison with PD group were 87.5% vs. 67.1% (P = 0.7), 87.5% vs. 61.1% (P = 0.59) and 87.5% vs. 55.5% (P = 0.53) at 1, 6 and 12 months respectively .There were no major complications in either group. The mean symptom score decreased by 62.71% in the BT-PD group (P < 0.002) and 50.77% in the PD group (P < 0.01) at the end of the first year. Despite a better response rate in BT+PD group, a difference was not statistically significant. A difference may be meaningful if a large numbers of patients are included in the study.

Introduction: Percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) has turned to one of the major therapeutic approaches for renal stones. PCNL under fluoroscopic guidance is the most common modality applied to access the‎ pyelocaliceal ‎system. The purpose of this article is to compare the results of blind and fluoroscopy-guided dilation in PCNL candidates.Methods:  Over 20-year-old individuals with either over 2 centimeters pelvic/ pyelocalis renal stone(s) or over 1 centimeter compact renal stone in the proximal of ureter confirmed in ultrasonography or computed tomography (CT) scan were included. Renal anomalies or single kidney, uncontrolled coagulopathy, previous history of PCNL, pregnancy, active urinary tract infection, full staghorn renal stone and serum creatinine level above 1.5 mg/dl were considered as the exclusion criteria. The study population was gathered through convenience sampling. Then, they were randomly assigned into either blind or fluoroscopy-guided‎ dilatation groups using Random Allocation Software. accordingly, each patient was given a number by the software, if the number was odd the patient was allocated to the blind group, otherwise, he/ she entered into the flouroscopy-guided PCNL group.Results: In the present article, data of 96 patients undergoing PCNL in two groups of blind versus fluoroscopy-guided Dilatation were evaluated. The studied patients had the mean age of 49.57±12.15 years old and predominantly consisted of males (57.3%). The assessed groups were similar in terms of age (P-value=0.544), gender distribution (P-value=0.536), and body mass index (P value=0.210). Besides, the stone-related characteristics including the largest renal stone diameter (P-value=0.403), the location of the stones (P-value>0.05) and the targeted calyx (P-value>0.05) did not differ between the study groups.Conclusion: according to findings of the present research, despite the similar success rate, stone residual fragments and complications of both blind versus fluoroscopy-guided dilatation, the remarkable longer duration of irradiation fluoroscopic modality convinced us that blind technique might be superior.

Purpose: Nephrostomy tract creation is a key step to perform a successful percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL). In an attempt to improve the conventional technique of the tract dilation, a Chinese one-shot dilation was developed and compared with the sequential fascial dilation using a retrospective study. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed medical records of 116 patients who had undergone 116 PCNL in our department from January 2012 to December 2012. The nephrostomy tracts had been created by using Chinese one-shot (one-shot group, 59 cases) or sequential fascial dilation technique (sequential group, 57 cases). Tract creation time, hemorrhage loss, overall renal function, tract dilation failure and major complications were compared between the two groups. Results: The one-shot group had a significantly shorter mean (SD) tract creation time (1. 9 ± 0. 5 vs 4. 5 ± 0. 8 min, P < 0. 001) and lower mean (SD) decrease in hemoglobin concentration (0. 60 ± 0. 34 vs 0. 69 ± 0. 36 g/dL, P = 0. 0008) compared to the sequential group, respectively. There were no significant differences in mean (SD) value changes of preoperative and postoperative serum creatinine concentrations (4. 7 ± 11. 5 vs 4. 8 ± 14. 8 μ mol/L, P = 0. 2611) and stone-free rate (86. 4% vs 85. 9%, P = 0. 6145) between the one-shot and sequential group. No tract dilation failure or major complications occurred in both of the groups. Conclusion: This retrospective study demonstrated that the Chinese one-shot dilation technique is as safe and feasible as the conventional sequential fascial dilation. Furthermore, a greater reduction in tract creation time and blood loss was achieved using this technique.

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Transient ischemic left ventricular dilation (TID) is a marker of severe and extensive coronary artery disease as well as an increased risk of adverse outcomes. The patients with more severe and extensive ischemia, multivessel-type of perfusion abnormality as well as patients with left anterior descending artery (LAD) territory perfusion abnormality have more probability of having TID. Evaluation of TID may be purely visual, or based on calculation of TID ratio between stress and rest images. Cutoff values for an abnormal TID ratio vary widely throughout the literature and may be related to different factors like patient populations and imaging protocols. On the other hand, several other causes of TID in the absence of significant epicardial stenoses have been reported. These include severe hypertension with myocardial hypertrophy; hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; and dilated cardiomyopathy.

In the present study utilizing large scale direct shear test, the effect of ballast encasing with geogrid has been investigated. In this mater two ballast grading of 1 and 4 have been considered in conjunction with three types of geogrids GP35/35, GP40/20 and GP60/20. All direct shear test have been carried out under the vertical surcharges of50, 100 and 150 kPa with shear deformation rate of 1mm/min. The outcomes of the results reveals that in absence of geogrid encasing, the shear strength of ballast depends on the maximum particle size, uniformity coefficient and the vertical surcharge value. In the case of geogrid encasing of the ballast has promoted the shear strength behavior whereas for the grade 1 gradation of the ballast, the maximum friction angle corresponding to 50 and 150 kPa surcharges have been 74.5 and 68.96 degrees while the maximum reduction percentage in dilation angle has been 32.22. On the other hand for ballast grading 4, the mentioned variations have been correspondingly obtained as 30.12, 14.67 and 27.86 percentages.

In this paper, we first discuss about canonical dual of g -frame LP={LiPÎB(H, Hi): iÎI}, where L={LiÎB(H, Hi): iÎI} is a g -frame for a Hilbert space H and P is the orthogonal projection from H onto a closed subspace M. Next, we prove that, if L={LiÎB (H, Hi): iÎI} and Q={QiÎB (K, Hi): iÎI} be respective g -frames for non zero Hilbert spaces H and K, and L and Q are unitarily equivalent (similar), then L and can not be weakly disjoint. On the other hand, we study dilation property for g -frames and we show that two g -frames for a Hilbert space have dilation property, if they are disjoint, or they are similar, or one of them is similar to a dual g -frame of another one. We also prove that a family of g -frames for a Hilbert space has dilation property, if all the members in that family have the same deficiency.

Purpose: To evaluate pupil dilation with intracameral injection of preservative-free lidocaine 1% during phacoemulsification. Methods: This interventional case series included 31 consecutive senile cataract patients scheduled for phacoemulsification and intraocular lens (IOL) implantation. Pupil dilation was achieved using intracameral preservative-free lidocaine 1% without any preoperative or intraoperative mydriatics. Pupil diameter was measured by calipers immediately before and 90 seconds after intracameral injection of lidocaine.Results: Patients included 16 male and 15 female subjects with mean age of 67.3±9.9 years. Four patients were diabetic and four cases had pseudoexfoliation. Pupil diameter increased from 2.63±0.3 mm preoperatively to 7.03±0.61 mm 90 seconds after intracameral injection of lidocaine with a mean increase of 4.39±0.53 mm (range 3.4-5.2, P<0.001). Mean post-injection mydriasis was significantly greater in patients without pseudo exfoliation (7.1 mm vs 6.00 mm, independent t test and Mann-Whitney test, P<0.01). There was no significant difference between diabetic and nondiabetic patients regarding of pre- and post-injection diameter of the pupil.Conclusion: Intracameraم preservative-free lidocaine 1% provides rapid and effective mydriasis and can be a safe alternative to other topical and intracameral mydriatics used in phacoemulsification.