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At least 433 records · Page 24Linked to original sources
PubMed1999

Histological study of hair follicles treated with a 3-msec pulsed ruby laser.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Ruby laser energy at 694 mn is moderately absorbed by melanin and minimally absorbed by other skin chromophores. This property and its depth of penetration into dermis permit absorption into pigmented hair follicles, thus making it suited to photothermolysis of these appendages. Clinical reports of the efficacy of such lasers for removal of unwanted hair are emerging in large numbers, but scientific data regarding the exact mechanism of action is still lacking. This study aims to evaluate and define further the histological responses of hair follicles to 3-msec pulsed ruby laser light. STUDY DESIGN/MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four patients with brown or black axillary or groin hair were treated with a 3-msec ruby laser at fluences from 10 to 40 J/cm2 on one, two, or three occasions. Biopsies were taken at various intervals from immediately to 8 weeks after treatments. Biopsies were fixed and stained with either nitroblue tetrazolium chloride or hematoxylin and eosin for histological examination. RESULTS: One treatment induced changes typical of catagen followed by telogen at all fluences. The papillae always remained viable. Two and three treatments resulted in atypical telogen, with infundibular dilatation and plugging, and marked proliferation of the stem outer sheath. New anagen follicles were evident even after three treatments at 12- and then 8-week intervals and were biopsied 6 weeks later, but there were no hairs extending to or through the epidermis. CONCLUSION: There was no evidence of permanent follicle death after one ruby laser treatment. However, despite evidence of persistence of follicular elements after two and three treatments, it is possible that laser-induced damage to the isthmus and upper stem may interfere with the interaction between dermal and epidermal germinative cells, thus inhibiting or altering the normal hair cycle.

Biopsy↗
PubMed1996

Incidence of intracranial meningiomas in Nagasaki atomic-bomb survivors.

Among the Nagasaki atomic-bomb survivors registered at the Scientific Data Center for Atomic-Bomb Disaster, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, 45 cases of surgically treated intracranial meningioma were collected from 6 hospitals with departments of neurosurgery in or near Nagasaki City during the period from 1973 to 1992. All 45 patients were over 40 years of age at the time of diagnosis. Subsequently, the 45 cases were statistically analyzed in relationship to the estimated distance from the hypocenter by age, gender, intracranial location, histology and latent period. The analysis showed a high correlation between incidence of meningiomas and distance from the hypocenter. The incidence among Nagasaki atomic-bomb survivors over 40 years of age, especially in those proximally exposed, appears to be increasing, in inverse proportion to the exposure distance, since 1981, 36 years after the explosion of the atomic bomb.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Prevention of occupational asthma including medical surveillance.

The high figures of occupational asthma worldwide necessitate the intensification of appropriate primary, secondary, and tertiary preventive measures. Based on new scientific data on dose-response relationships as well as our own experience and ethical aspects, we focus on medical surveillance within the framework of secondary prevention. We propose that medical surveillance programs be mandatory for workplaces/occupations with an asthma incidence of > or = 200% than that of the general population. Medical surveillance programs are recommended if asthma frequency is elevated but below 200%. A stepwise approach of monitoring workers at risk for developing occupational asthma including a screening by questionnaire and a personal interview and diagnosis confirmation is presented. In addition, we briefly comment on the management of affected subjects.

Asthma↗
PubMed1999

Assessment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency methods for identification of hazards to developing organisms, Part II: The developmental toxicity testing guideline.

BACKGROUND: The effects of toxins on developing animals depend not only on the nature of the chemical but also on the timing of exposure and assessment of outcomes. This complicates the task of regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which must comply with the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act to ensure that their standards and policies protect infants and children from environmental toxins. For this task, the Agency relies heavily on scientific data obtained by manufacturers of industrial chemicals and pesticides following protocols collected under EPA's Health Effects Test Guidelines. METHODS AND RESULTS: This article reviews the protocols included in the EPA guidelines to assess developmental toxicity, which are required for food-use pesticides under the core testing battery. We reviewed these protocols on the basis of their adequacy for identifying hazards to infants and children. Our analysis found limitations in the protocols that hinder their potential for identifying developmental hazards. CONCLUSIONS: Methods that the EPA currently depends upon to identify developmental toxicity of chemicals have limitations that impede obtaining complete and reliable data on which to base regulatory decisions that protect children. Other methodological approaches need to be explored as alternatives or supplements to the current protocols. Until more accurate testing protocols become available, it may well be necessary under existing laws to employ safety factors that are more protective of the health of children at all stages of development.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

Legislative issues related to breast cancer.

Cancer is a political issue. Legislative decision-making as it relates to breast cancer must be driven by reliable scientific data and analysis. Carefully directed advocacy and responsible leadership can provide focus, resources, and enhancements for a beneficial impact on lives of breast cancer patients and potential patients.

American Cancer Society↗
PubMed1994

Prevention of folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly.

The results of the British Medical Research Council's randomized controlled trial proved that folic acid can prevent spina bifida and anencephaly. The trial provided critical scientific data upon which to base public health policy for preventing folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly. Within weeks of publication of the results, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US developed and issued guidelines for women who had had a pregnancy affected by spina bifida or anencephaly. A year later, the US Public Health Service issued the recommendation that all women of child-bearing age who are capable of becoming pregnant should consume 0.4 mg of folic acid per day. The Public Health Service needed a year to make inferential judgements about dose, target groups, safety, timing of ingestion, and existing and proposed vitamin and drug policies and regulations. Current policy discussions concern whether to permit manufacturers of vitamins or food products to claim that folic acid will prevent folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly and whether to allow a food staple to be fortified with folic acid.

Anencephaly↗
PubMed2002

Work environment effects on labor productivity: an intervention study in a storage building.

BACKGROUND: Although increased attention has been focused on the relationship between occupational health and productivity, solid scientific data on this topic are sparse. The purpose of the present case study was to assess the relationship between productivity and work environment in a storage building. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was implemented as an intervention consisting of the renovation of a harbor storage facility. The study design consisted of a single group of employees working in the storage hall. The physical and chemical factors, perceived environment, and labor productivity were measured before and after the renovation. RESULTS: As a result of the renovation, thermal conditions, air quality, and lighting conditions improved notably. In addition, the employees' subjective evaluations showed the significant decrease in dissatisfaction ratings. The direct measure for the labor productivity, expressed as zinc tons/work-hour (tn) increased about 9% after the renovation. DISCUSSION: We conclude that increased productivity is most likely related to the combined effect of the improved work environment, i.e., better thermal climate, reduced contaminant concentrations, and better lighting conditions.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Breaking difficult news in a newborn setting: Down syndrome as a paradigm.

Breaking the difficult news of an unexpected diagnosis to parents in the newborn setting is a common occurrence in genetic counseling. Many clinical geneticists and genetic counselors have had the challenge of delivering a postnatal diagnosis of Down syndrome to parents of newborns. Down syndrome is a common chromosome condition occurring in approximately 1 in 800 live births. Presenting the diagnosis to families must be accomplished in a supportive, positive, caring, and honest manner. However, there are few scientific data and little instruction in training programs on how best to convey this news in an appropriate manner. Several articles in the literature over the last three decades have proposed various guidelines for the so-called informing interview. Discussions of parents' preferences and experiences in receiving this news have also been documented. Few reports, however, have focused on breaking difficult news of the diagnosis of a genetic condition to parents in a newborn setting in the genetics literature. In this paper, we will review the medical literature on delivering difficult news, specifically focused on that regarding the diagnosis of Down syndrome in the newborn setting. We propose a theoretical framework from which the informing interview can be planned and future outcome data can be measured. In this way, researchers of this theme can investigate the process, including the healthcare professionals' delivery of difficult news and make recommendations for continued improvement of the process. Our model can be generalized to breaking difficult news for a variety of other congenital conditions.

Communication↗
PubMed1977

The Quinlan decision: problems and legislative alternatives.

In the Quinlan decision, a state supreme court authorized removal of a respirator from a person in a chronic vegetative state provided that the attending physicians and an "ethics committee" agreed there was no reasonable possibility of her regaining cognition or sapience. While the decision involves an unusual factual situation and poses some troublesome technical and doctrinal problems, it underscores the need for formal legal standards to guide physicians and families of severely brain-damaged patients. Legislation seems preferable to a series of court decisions. The legislative process allows the public to express views on controversial ethical and religious questions. It also permits extensive deliberations about medical and scientific data relating to brain damage and its prognosis. Legislative alternatives include expanding the concept of brain death, redefining homicide, allocating to physicians and families legally unreviewable discretion to decide on levels of care, mandating procedures for implementing a desired reduction of care, and approving the use of a "living will" as a means of requiring physicians to withdraw or withhold treatment.

Brain Damage, Chronic↗
PubMed2001

Use of hair pores to determine the orientation of collagen fibers in skin.

Most people are interested in recovery of skin defects caused by burn, scald or trauma from the aesthetic and functional point of view. It will occupy an important role for successful skin graft for patients with such skin defects that the orientation of collagen fibers in the grafted skin matches to the fiber orientation in surrounding skin. There have been, to my best knowledge, no methods for determining the orientation of collagen fibers in the skin from the clinical point of view. Recently, the author has found a new method for directly determining the collagen-fiber orientation without cutting samples from a calf leather by analyzing the anisotropic shape of hair pore. Its principle is based on the quantitative evaluation of collagen-fiber orientation by approximating a hair pore to an ellipse. The results obtained by the new method using hair pores were supported by the microwave method, mechanical measurements and scanning electron microscopy. Such a method will be applicable for determining the orientational distribution of collagen fibers in skins of animals and humans and give a valuable probe for performing skin grafting based on the scientific data of hair pores.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Scientific evidence supporting folic acid fortification of flour in Australia and New Zealand.

BACKGROUND: Fortification of flour with folic acid is a safe, sustainable, and cost-effective approach for preventing spina bifida and anencephaly, and it is likely to confer multiple health benefits to the adult population. Scientists and advocates are bringing this intervention to the attention of policymakers in countries around the world, and consequently the demand for sound, science-backed policy rationale is increasing. METHODS: We recently prepared this scientific review for scientists, physicians, and advocates who were promoting mandatory folic acid fortification of flour in Australia and New Zealand. This short document references the most relevant published scientific data and national and international recommendations from other countries and presents an argument for fortification based on demonstrated need, proven effectiveness, safety, and multiple health benefits. CONCLUSIONS: With some modifications, this document could be utilized in other countries considering fortification of flour or other staple products with folic acid.

Anencephaly↗
PubMed2004

Mobile phones and children: is precaution warranted?

Are there health related arguments to recommend that children limit their use of mobile telephones? The International Expert Group on Mobile Phones from the UK concluded so, but did not come up with convincing scientific data to back this statement. The Health Council of the Netherlands approached the problem by considering whether developmental arguments might be found, i.e., asking if there reason to believe that the heads of children are more susceptible to the electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile telephones than those of adults. It concluded that no major changes in head development occur after the second year of life that might point at a difference in electromagnetic susceptibility between children and adults. The Health Council therefore sees no reason to recommend limiting the use of mobile phones by children.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1988

Standardization of the surgical technique in breast-conserving treatment of mammary cancer.

A number of designations--for example excision, wide excision, lumpectomy, tylectomy, extended tylectomy, partial mastectomy, tumorectomy, segmental resection and quadrantectomy--have been applied to operative procedures aimed at treating mammary carcinoma with preservation of the breast. None of them, however, has been explicitly linked to a defined surgical technique and there is no consensus about the terminology. We propose a simple classification system for breast-conserving procedures, which can facilitate the communication between surgeons and the interpretation and exchange of scientific data. We also describe a strictly defined and locally radical partial mastectomy--a sector resection--which has been used at several centres in Sweden for more than 5 years with a favourable outcome so far in terms of local tumour control and the cosmetic result.

Breast↗
PubMed1991

Medicalizing the drug war.

Recent findings in the field of psychopharmacology pertain to the abuse of drugs and alcohol among criminal offenders and have implications for new management techniques. Drugs of abuse exert their effects on areas of the brain responsible for pleasure, providing a powerful reinforcement for drug usage. Furthermore, there is a prevalence of psychological, psychiatric and social dysfunctions that antedate drug use which are identifiable at an early age. It is suggested that drugs of abuse differentially influence users via these biological, psychological and social mechanisms, reinforcing the development of serious and chronic abuse in a vulnerable subgroup. Studies of drug abuse specially indicate that within this subgroup, antisocial behavior precedes and exacerbates drug abuse, and multiple risk factors contribute to the concomitant development of criminality and drug abuse. Early detection and comprehensive treatment of underlying disorders that may both precipitate and result from drug abuse promise to improve possibilities for prevention and reducing relapse rates. Furthermore, the inclusion of pharmacologic treatments may further enhance the success of conventional drug treatments. This article proposes that incorporating scientific data and medicalizing our approach to drug abuse is essential to win the war against drugs.

Crime↗
PubMed1975

Panel 2: phase II investigations.

At the end of Phase II, a decision must be made as to whether or not the drug should be developed as a therapeutic agent. Such a decision may be based on many criteria in addition to the scientific data derived from the Phase II study. At this point, expert judgment is needed. One should like to assume that if the decision is made to proceed with the increasingly expensive and laborious process of further development, the drug will, barring some completely unforeseen misadventure, ultimately find its way into clinical therapeutics. Phase II studies, therefore, are the most crucial stage in the course of drug development. Planning of these studies requires great care and investigators of the highest caliber should be used for their conduct. The escalating costs of new drug development are resulting in an undesirable imbalance of efforts in the direction of studies characterized more by easily defined end points than by therapeutic needs. Industry, academia, and the FDA must all be concerned with facilitationg studies in areas of most-needed therapeutic advances.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed2002

Genetic susceptibility and gastric cancer risk.

The aim of the present paper is to review and evaluate, in a comprehensive manner, the most recent published evidence on the contribution of genetic susceptibility to gastric cancer risk in humans. We have identified all studies available in MEDLINE published up to October 2001. Only studies carried out in humans and comparing gastric cancer cases with at least 1 standard control group were included in the analysis. We were able to find 31 articles based on 25 case-control studies carried out in Caucasian, Asian and African populations. Most of the studies assess the effect of genes involved in detoxifying pathways (n = 12) and inflammatory responses (n = 7). The most widely studied is the GSTM1 null polymorphism. Only a very few studies have evaluated the risk of gastric cancer associated with genes acting on mucosa protection, oxidative damage and DNA repair. The most consistent results are the increased gastric cancer risk associated with IL1B and NAT1 variants, which may account for up to 48% of attributable risk of gastric cancer. Only polymorphisms at HLA-DQ, TNF and CYP2E genes may confer some protective effect against gastric cancer. The most important limitations that preclude definitive conclusions are (i) the lack of appropriate control of potential sources of bias (only 5 population-based studies have been published so far); (ii) the low number of cases analyzed (14 studies included fewer than 99 cases); and (iii) the low number of studies (n = 3) offering concomitant analysis of genetic susceptibility and exposure to relevant cofactors (Helicobacter pylori infection, diet and smoking). We conclude that the scientific data on the role of genetic factors in gastric cancer risk are promising. The lack of association reported so far should be considered with caution due to significant limitations in study design. Cohort studies taking into account simultaneously the different genetic and environmental factors potentially involved in gastric tumorigenesis are needed to ascertain not only the relative contribution of these factors to tumor development but also the contribution of their putative interactions.

Carcinogens↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Management of antibiotic-resistant organisms in the rehabilitation setting.

Preventing the spread of infection is a team effort. Development and use of rehabilitation-based infection control practices for control of ARO nosocomial infections must be a priority for rehabilitation research. Ongoing infection control surveillance of ARO presence, along with monitoring of resistance patterns, equips infection control practitioners with scientific data to identify appropriate barriers for use in the rehabilitation setting. Modification of antimicrobial usage may offer hope for reversing some of the damage done. With the assistance of physicians, infection control practitioners, laboratory personnel and others, we can prevent the spread of these dangerous organisms.

Enterococcus↗
PubMed2026

Genetic Variation and Evolutionary Characteristics of Coxsackievirus B1: F3 Subtype Associated With Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease in China.

Coxsackievirus B1 (CV-B1) is primarily associated with meningitis but can also cause localized outbreaks of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). This study analyzed the genetic diversity of the VP1 gene in 39 strains of the CVB1 virus isolated from HFMD children across 15 provinces in China between 2010 and 2024, as well as 179 strains from 17 countries. Based on the average nucleotide difference of VP1 gene, we classified CVB1 virus into six genotypes A to F, Notably, genotype F is newly classified. Since 2010, genotype F guadually replaced genotype E as the dominant genotype in China and has further subdivided into three subtypes: F1, F2, and F3, with F3 being the most prevalent subtype in China currently. We specifically study the mild and severe cases within the F3 subtype. Temperature-sensitivity experiments revealed no differences between mild and severe cases of the F3 subtype, and they all belong to temperature-sensitive strains. Interestingly, we found that mild cases of the F3 subtype did not involve recombination, whereas all severe cases of the F3 subtype showed recombination with Coxsackievirus B4 (CVB4). CVB4 has consistently been the primary pathogen responsible for severe neonatal illnesses, suggesting that recombination between the F3 subtype and CVB4 may be associated with the development of severe HFMD. These findings provide fundamental scientific data for further investigation into the epidemiology and genetic characteristics of variants of Coxsackievirus B1 in China.

Humans↗