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Biomedical subjects

S Good

Publications and source records attributed to S Good.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

[A survey on contraceptive knowledge, attitude and behavior among never-married young women who are seeking pregnancy termination in Beijing].

OBJECTIVE: To identify contraceptive knowledge, attitude, behavior and its determinants among never-married young women who have unwanted pregnancy in Beijing. METHODS: A cross-sectional study under adoption of Lawrence "Procede-Proceed" model, was conducted in China in 1999. Three hundred and six unmarried young women aged 18 to 24, requesting for pregnancy termination were interviewed in person. RESULTS: Findings of this study indicated that only one-eighth (13%) of the young women insisted on contraceptive use every time, and almost an equal proportion (26.4%, 26.8% respectively) occasionally or never using contraceptives. Among 224 women who ever used contraceptives during the past 12 months, condom (49%) ranked the first place followed by withdrawal (27.7%) and the rhythm method (15.6%). One of the most important reasons, cited by 73 percent of women who had never used contraceptives, was that they were not aware of the risk of pregnancy when engaging in sexual activities. The results of logistic regression analysis revealed that knowledge about contraception, boyfriend's approval of contraceptive use, perceived the risk of getting pregnancy, perceived availability of contraceptive service and discussion of contraception with boyfriend were important indicators of young women's behavior on contraceptive use. CONCLUSION: These results indicated an urgent need to develop sex education about contraception among young women and men, through enhancing perception about risk of unwanted pregnancy and complications of induced abortion among young women, and to promote men's co-operation and participation in contraceptive use as well as strengthening communication on contraception between young women and their partners.

Abortion, Induced↗

Patterns of movement and orientation during caching and recovery by Clark's nutcrackers, Nucifraga columbiana.

Clark's nutcrackers regularly store large numbers of pine seeds and remember the locations of the cached seeds. Although they are very accurate, they do make some errors during recovery. In an attempt to determine whether any behaviours during caching predicted the occurrence of errors during recovery, we videotaped Clark's nutcrackers while they cached and recovered seeds under laboratory conditions. We used the videotapes to develop complete, quantitative descriptions of caching and recovery behaviour, with an emphasis on body orientation and directions of movement. During caching, the birds showed the greatest change in their orientation and direction following cache creation. During cache recovery, in contrast, body orientation changed most following successful recovery of a seed. When orientation while making a cache was compared with orientation when recovering the same cache, orientations were similar more often than would be expected by chance. However, this consistency of direction was not related to the accuracy of cache recovery, indicating that such consistency is not necessary for accurate cache recovery. The location in which the birds chose to place their caches was the only variable that predicted the location of probes during recovery. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Journal Article↗

Development of novel benzimidazole riboside compounds for treatment of cytomegalovirus disease.

Benzimidazole ribosides are a new class of compounds with novel mechanisms of action against CMV. One compound in this series, BDCRB, inhibits CMV DNA processing by the UL89 gene product (putative terminase), but rapid metabolism to an inactive compound makes it unsuitable for development as a medicine. Another benzimidazole analogue, 1263W94, has many characteristics that make it an attractive candidate for development, including high potency in vitro, selectivity, good oral bioavailability, and lower toxicity than therapies currently available for treatment of CMV disease. Initial clinical trials have provided encouraging results, including good tolerability and linear pharmacokinetics over a wide dose range. Ongoing and planned clinical trials that will study the safety and tolerability of repeated dosing and evaluate the in vivo antiviral activity and ocular penetration of 1263W94, will help to determine the potential of this drug as an improved therapy for CMV disease.

Antiviral Agents↗

Radiologic placement of metallic esophageal stents: preliminary experience.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the usefulness of covered, self-expanding metallic stents for alleviating stricture associated with malignant esophageal lesions. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Self-expanding metallic stents were placed in 10 patients with dysphagia related to stricture caused by malignant esophageal lesions. The stents were placed fluoroscopically with local anesthesia, and patency of the esophageal lumen was assessed by barium study after the procedure. The patients were then followed clinically. RESULTS: In all 10 cases patency of the lumen was renewed after stent placement. After the procedure 9 of the patients could tolerate a normal or near-normal diet; in the other patient esophageal perforation occurred, and clinical deterioration prevented oral intake of food. In one patient, 2 stents were needed because of the length of the stricture. Two patients experienced reflux after placement of the stent across the gastro-esophageal junction. Another patient had asymptomatic aspiration after stent placement in the proximal esophagus. In 2 patients, symptoms associated with tracheoesophageal fistula were relieved after placement of the stents. Six of the 10 patients died; mean survival after the procedure was 12 (range 1 to 56) weeks. The other 4 patients were alive at the time of writing, having survived for a mean of 7.5 (range 2 to 13) weeks; all of these patients tolerated a near-normal diet. CONCLUSIONS: The placement of covered, self-expanding metallic stents is a quick, effective method of palliating dysphagia related to stricture caused by malignant esophageal lesions.

Aged↗

Use of a psychiatric proforma for accident and emergency officers.

OBJECTIVE: To devise a proforma for clinical documentation of psychiatric illness in an accident and emergency (A&E) department, since A&E senior house officers (SHOs) have little psychiatric experience before starting their jobs. METHODS: History taking and mental state examinations by 16 SHOs were compared before (n = 50) and after (n = 50) the introduction of the proforma. Comments on the proforma were provided by all participants on a questionnaire. RESULTS: There was an improvement in documentation with the use of the proforma (Mann-Whitney U test, P < 0.001). The senior house officers found the proforma useful and supported further development of this initiative. CONCLUSIONS: A standard form for documenting psychiatric history, designed according to local needs, is useful and should be available in A&E departments.

Clinical Competence↗

Acyclovir kinetics after intravenous infusion.

The disposition and safety of the antiviral drug acyclovir were studied in 14 subjects with advanced malignancies. Acyclovir was administered by a 1-hr intravenous infusion at doses of 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, and 5.0 mg/kg. At the end of infusion, mean peak plasma levels (+/- SEM), determined by radioimmunoassay, were 6.4 +/- 0.7, 12.1 +/- 2.3, 14.9 +/- 2.7, and 33.7 +/- 7.1 microM. The plasma concentration-time profiles could be described by a biexponential equation. The half-life of acyclovir in the slow disposition phase ranged from 2.2 to 5 hr and the drug was detected in the plasma for at least 18 hr after infusion. The total body clearance ranged from 117 to 396 ml/min/1.73 m2. A proportionality between area under the curve and dose suggests that acyclovir exhibits dose-independent kinetics in the dose range studied. There was wide variation in cumulative urinary excretion of unchanged drug, ranging from 30 to 69% of the dose. From renal clearances of acyclovir, which were higher than creatinine clearances, it appears that both glomerular filtration and tubular secretion contribute to its renal excretion. Analysis of the urine by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography revealed the presence of the metabolite 9-carboxymethoxymethylguanine. There was no indication of toxicity either clinically or from laboratory findings in any of the study subjects. This study demonstrates that in addition to selectivity and low toxicity, the kinetic profile and metabolic disposition of acyclovir make it an attractive candidate for therapy in a variety of herpes infections.

Aged↗

Development of cytotoxicity tests for assessment of the toxicity of water samples taken from the environment.

Different methods of measuring cytotoxicity have been investigated in order to establish a test system for assessment of the toxicity of water samples. Ideally this should be highly sensitive and rapid to perform. Four variations of the neutral red uptake test have been compared with the MTT test and ATP determination. Chinese hamster V79/4 cells were used as the test system with 10 model toxins. All tests gave essentially similar results, with linear regression analysis producing correlation coefficients in excess of .93. No single test was most sensitive to all 10 compounds. The neutral red uptake and MTT tests could be performed in a single working day (approximately 8 h) if test compound and cells were plated out simultaneously. These tests are preferable to ATP determination, which is a complex and lengthy procedure, requiring expensive reagents.

Animals↗