Pak J Med Sci
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Review
Exercise therapy versus surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
To compare the effectiveness of exercise therapy with surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis. ⋯ In brief, the current evidence demonstrated a trend that exercise therapy had a similar effect for lumbar spinal stenosis compared with decompressive laminectomies. However, for the small sample size and low methodology quality of the included trials, some rigorously designed and large-scaled RCTs need to be performed to confirm the conclusion.
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Upper lip bite test (ULBT) is one of the various bedside tests used for prediction of difficult laryngoscopic intubation. However, its usefulness is not still very clear, and there is controversy regarding its accuracy. The aim of this systematic review was to determine the accuracy of the ULBT for predicting difficult airway including difficult laryngoscopy or difficult tracheal intubation. ⋯ It appears that ULBT is a useful bedside test for evaluation of patient airway before the general anesthesia.
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This review was undertaken to highlight the worldwide prevalence and causes of visual impairment (VI), on the basis of a wide range of recent and clearly defined data and in comparison with published articles from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ⋯ Epidemiological surveys about the prevalence and causes of VI are crucial for the formulation of preventive and curative measures. Data about VI are still scarce with a need to make wider population based surveys, worldwide and in Saudi Arabia for in-depth evaluation of the problem and better strategies to reduce the burden of VI.
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Primary aim was to review the literature on the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and Vision threatening diabetic retinopathy (VTDR) in Pakistan. ⋯ A great variation in the values of DR and VTDR was observed in this study. Researchers suggest a community based study with uniform methodology to find out a comparable value of prevalence of DR and VTDR in all provinces of Pakistan.