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PubMed2004

A randomised trial of photographic reinforcement during postoperative counselling after diagnostic laparoscopy for pelvic pain.

OBJECTIVE: To measure the effect of seeing a photograph of the pelvic findings at laparoscopy. SETTING: Two university teaching hospitals. METHOD: A randomised-controlled trial. SUBJECTS: Two hundred thirty-three women undergoing diagnostic laparoscopy for the investigation of chronic pelvic pain. INTERVENTIONS: At operation a Polaroid print was taken of the pelvis. If this was of satisfactory quality, the patient was randomly allocated to either see, or not see, the print during the postoperative consultation. MAIN OUTCOMES: Pain severity and pain belief scores at 3 and 6 months. ANALYSIS: By intention to treat. RESULTS: Postoperative consultations with photographs did not improve immediate understanding and satisfaction with the consultation. In addition, compared to controls, both patients and doctors did not perceive particular benefit for communication from the photograph. There was a consistent trend to more pain in the photographic reinforcement group and more negative pain beliefs. At 3 months, the average within person differences showed some benefit in visual analogue pain scores, McGill affect scores, 'permanence' and 'self-blame' scores. These benefits were not statistically significant. At 6 months, there was a consistent pattern of benefit from pain severity and pain beliefs, again these benefits were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: No clear benefits result from showing patients photographs of their pelvis.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

A novel experimental design for comparative two-dimensional gel analysis: two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis incorporating a pooled internal standard.

The comparison of two-dimensional (2-D) gel images from different samples is an established method used to study differences in protein expression. Conventional methods rely on comparing images from at least 2 different gels. Due to the high variation between gels, detection and quantification of protein differences can be problematic. Two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (Ettan trade mark DIGE) is an emerging technique for comparative proteomics, which improves the reproducibility and reliability of differential protein expression analysis between samples. In the application of DIGE different samples are labelled with mass and charge matched spectrally resolvable fluorescent dyes and are then separated on the same 2-D gel. Using an Escherichia coli lysate "spiked" with varying amounts of four different known proteins, we have tested a novel experimental design that exploits the sample multiplexing capabilities of DIGE, by including a standard sample in each gel. The standard sample comprises equal amounts of each sample to be compared and was found to improve the accuracy of protein quantification between samples from different gels allowing accurate detection of small differences in protein levels between samples.

Electrophoresis, Gel, Two-Dimensional↗