Biomedical subjects

N Sphiris

Publications and source records attributed to N Sphiris.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1997

A decision support software package for medical treatment of I.C.U. patients.

Critically ill patients admitted in I.C.U. often have multiple complicated problems which necessitate the use of a large number of drugs. The multiple potential interactions between substances and underlying pathologies as well as between substances themselves, obviate the need for a decision support system. We therefore developed a software package for medical treatment support in I.C.U. environment which is based on Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0 and it is organised around the commercially available RDBMS Access 2.0. The database consist of: a) all available substances, b) all generic names of medications available in Greece for each substance, c) incompatibilities (2,300 cases), d) interactions (50,000 cases) and e) cost information for each drug. This system assures the safety of the administered treatment, helps to adjust the dose according to the situation of each patient (anthropometric data, laboratory result, prognostic/severity score e.t.c.) and screens for possible interactions and incompatibilities between the administered drugs. It could also be used for education, treatment algorithms application and it will serve cost-reduction policy. It is a useful and powerful tool for ICU staff which does not impose additional work to the daily practice routine and it is currently under evaluation in clinical settings.

Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Systems↗

PubMed1996

Improved determination of breast cancer size in mammography.

Breast cancer size determination in a preoperative stage is of great importance, as it is taking into account the classification of the tumour. In this paper a simple method of the improved determination of the actual tumour size is presented. The method is based on the calculation of correction factors taking into account the magnification of the tumour image during the mammographic examination. The method was applied for evaluation on forty cases of breast cancer. In all cases the final approximation of tumour maximum diameter with the presented method is almost equal to this obtained from the pathologists' reports. The possibility of wrong stage characterisation of a tumour, which is a problem arising from the measurement of the maximum diameter directly from the mammogram, is also minimised, especially in case that tumour size is between two stages.

Bias↗

PubMed1995

A computer program for estimating the influence of the body bicarbonate pool during CO2 breath tests.

Mathematical representation of physiological systems is a useful means of monitoring various parameters and factors of such systems. The use of compartmental models for the study of physiological systems has led to the introduction of several new techniques for solving problems, concerning the kinetics between the individual sites of these systems. The computer program, presented here, allows the calculation of the influence of a mammillary model, representing the bicarbonate pool, on the expiration rate of the label, administered during a breath test. It consists of two modules, one for performing non-linear least squares regression fitting of discrete measurements from a breath test (model output) and a second one for estimating the corresponding label released into the bicarbonate pool (model input), based on the measurements of expired air. Data, derived from metabolic studies using oral administration of naturally labelled 13C-glucose in man, under various metabolic conditions, was used as an input to this program.

Bicarbonates↗

PubMed1995

A system for the management of codified medical database.

The basis, around which a health database system is structured, consists of the patient record, which has to contain all the basic information to support clinical diagnosis and therapy, as well as those which concern the programming of insurance organizations. Two new methods are introduced for the facilitating of the medical staff in data entry and transferring of information through a wide area network.

Databases, Factual↗

PubMed1991

Influence of the bicarbonate pool and on the occurrence of 13CO2 in exhaled air.

In 13CO2 breath tests, based on 13C:12C ratio measurements, the appearance of 13C in exhaled CO2 was monitored after the administration of a 13C-labelled compound. Independently of the substrate used, the existence of a bicarbonate pool into which the CO2 produced enters before being exhaled, imposes a delay on the appearance of changes in the 13C:12C ratio. To estimate the nature and magnitude of this delay, we applied a two-compartment model to describe the kinetics of the body bicarbonate pool and we evaluated the 13C:12C ratio of CO2 entering that pool from the measured 13C:12C ratio in the exhaled CO2 after an oral intake of "naturally labelled" 13C-glucose. Our results demonstrated that discrepancies between total and exogenous glucose oxidation in relation to the peak occurrence time, as well as the absolute quantities, could be adequately explained by the interference of the bicarbonate stores.

Bicarbonates↗

PubMedDate not supplied

An educational hypertext system supporting radiographic image quality.

Understanding the physical and technical factors affecting image characteristics is an essential learning task in the process of optimizing radiographic image quality. The goal of the present effort is the design of a stand-alone software application acting as an educational aid to radiology residents and radiographers. The application is organized in three modules, each one offering a different approach to the learning task. The core of the system is a hypertext database management system composed of text, digitized radiographs, graphics and animations. User orientation, linking, indexing, and annotation are some of the facilities offered in pursuing topics of interest.

Computer Graphics↗