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[Prospective monitoring of vascular access in hemodialysis by means of a multidisciplinary team].

PURPOSE: Nowadays, expert guidelines recommend the monitoring programs of the vascular access (VA) by a multidisciplinary team. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We present the experience over the last five years, of a prospective VA surveillance by a multidisciplinary team. The quality indicators reached are described as the associated factors for survival of the new VA. RESULTS: Three hundred seventeen VA have been studied, 73% were arteriovenous fistulas(AVF) and the rest were polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) grafts at 282 patients. The main causes of dysfunctions were elevated dynamic venous pressure (42.5%) and the decreased blood flow (36.4%) with a 88% of positive predictive value. Over the 5 years there was 88 thrombosis (24 AVF and 64 PTFE grafts), that means a hazard thrombosis global rate of 0.15 access/year, which were distributed in 0.06 for AVF and 0.38 in PTFE grafts. Two hundred and one repairs of VA were done: 66.6% were elective repair after a proper review by the multidisciplinary team and the rest of them were done after the AV thrombosis happened. Urgent rescue surgeries were done in 76% of the thrombosis. 62.5% of the patients did not need a catheter after vascular access thrombosis. The complication relation with AVF and PTFE were 11.4% of the total patients hemodialysis hospitalizations. 65.2% of the VA were new access. 57% of patients were properly reviewed in the pre-dialysis unit at least once and 80% of them start haemodialysis with a mature access. The average survival (Kaplan Meier) of the new AVF was 1,575+/-55 days vs 1,087+/-102 of the PTFE grafts (p < 0.008). The survival after 1, 2 and 3 years for the AVF was 89%, 85% and 83% and for the PTFE graft 3% 67% and 51% respectively. The Cox regression has proved that the type of vascular access is the strongest factor associated to VA survival. The survival added of VA repaired due to dysfunction was 1,062 +/- 97 days vs 707 +/- 132 due to thrombosis, log rank 5.17 (p < 0,02). The increasing risk of those repaired after a thrombosis vs dysfunction is 4.2 p < 0,01. CONCLUSIONS: The monitoring of the vascular access by a multidisciplinary team has reached:low rate of thrombosis, high elective number of repairs of the VA, high urgent rescue surgery after a thrombosis and a few number catheter needed and hospitalizations. AVF are associated with greater survival than PTFE. The VA repair due to dysfunction vs thrombosis had a greater survival as well.

Adult↗

An assessment of the phylogenetic relationship among sugarcane and related taxa based on the nucleotide sequence of 5S rRNA intergenic spacers.

5S rRNA intergenic spacers were amplified from two elite sugarcane (Saccharum hybrids) cultivars and their related taxa by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with 5S rDNA consensus primers. Resulting PCR products were uniform in length from each accession but exhibited some degree of length variation among the sugarcane accessions and related taxa. These PCR products did not always cross hybridize in Southern blot hybridization experiments. These PCR products were cloned into a commercial plasmid vector PCR 2.1 and sequenced. Direct sequencing of cloned PCR products revealed spacer length of 231-237 bp for S. officinarum, 233-237 for sugarcane cultivars, 228-238 bp for S. spontaneum, 239-252 bp for S. giganteum, 385-410 bp for Erianthus spp., 226-230 bp for Miscanthus sinensis Zebra, 206-207 bp for M. sinensis IMP 3057, 207-209 bp for Sorghum bicolor, and 247-249 bp for Zea mays. Nucleotide sequence polymorphism were found at both the segment and single nucleotide level. A consensus sequence for each taxon was obtained by Align X. Multiple sequences were aligned and phylogenetic trees constructed using Align X. CLUSTAL and DNAMAN programs. In general, accessions of the following taxa tended to group together to form distinct clusters: S. giganteum, Erianthus spp., M. sinensis, S. bicolor, and Z. mays. However, the two S. officinarum clones and two sugarcane cultivars did not form distinct clusters but interrelated within the S. spontaneum cluster. The disclosure of these 5S rRNA intergenic spacer sequences will facilitate marker-assisted breeding in sugarcane.

Base Sequence↗

A collaborative partnership to enhance school-based tobacco control policies in West Virginia. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

INTRODUCTION: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Guidelines for School Health Programs to Prevent Tobacco Use and Addiction were developed, in part, to help state and local education agencies implement effective school-based tobacco control programs. This paper: (1) reports on school tobacco policies, one facet of a larger investigation conducted to examine the consistency between WV's school-based tobacco control policies and programs and the CDC Tobacco Guidelines and (2) describes the impact this investigation had on state policy in WV. METHODS: A content analysis was conducted on all (n = 55) county tobacco policies using a coding protocol developed by the authors. This protocol was designed to enable judgment about whether the county policies addressed particular elements specified in the CDC Tobacco Guidelines. Additionally, data about school-level policies, collected from a telephone survey of a sample of school principals (n = 421), are presented. Since the purpose of the needs assessment was to describe current practice, frequencies were computed for both the county and school-level analyses. RESULTS: Both county- and school-level tobacco policies were found lacking in many of the elements recommended in CDC's Tobacco Guidelines, particularly in the areas of enforcement procedures and access to cessation programs. CONCLUSIONS: Two major outcomes resulted from this needs assessment: (1) the WV State Board of Education's Tobacco Control Policy was revised to be more consistent with CDC's Tobacco Guidelines and (2) increased attention is now being focused on providing cessation options for WV schools.

Adolescent↗

State implementation of the AIDS drug assistance programs.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) drug assistance programs (ADAPs) provide access to medications for people who lack other health coverage. In this article, the authors present the results of a 1997 survey identifying how 48 States implemented ADAPs, focusing on the number of beneficiaries, medical and financial eligibility criteria, the administration of waiting lists, and the coverage of drugs including protease inhibitors. Increased funding for ADAPs is necessary to maintain this important part of the public sector safety net for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

The University of Minnesota Youth and AIDS Projects' Adolescent Early Intervention Program: a model to link HIV-seropositive youth with care.

The survival of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive adolescents may be abbreviated by delays in health care delivery. Methods of linking youth with services have not been well studied. With support from the Special Projects of National Significance Program, the Youth and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) Projects' (YAP) Adolescent Early Intervention Program offers early intervention health care services to all affected youth in Minnesota, a state with mandatory reporting of HIV/AIDS cases. The conceptual framework is a novel application of traditional public health disease surveillance strategies to link HIV-positive adolescents with health care services. The target population is composed of all 13-22-year-old HIV-positive persons reported to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). MDH staff locate and contact HIV-positive youth, conduct structured interviews regarding health status and needs, and facilitate enrollment at YAP. Sixteen male and 20 female participants (mean age 21 years; 56% people of color; 32% gay or bisexual) reported serious health risks, including inconsistent condom use (83%), poverty (78%), high school dropout (56%), unemployment (50%), illegal conduct (50%), medical debt (42%), unstable living situations (33%), running away (33%), substance abuse (33%) and attempted suicide (28%). More than one third reported each of six HIV-related symptoms. Seventy-five percent of participants sought advocacy/case coordination; 56%, clinical trials of experimental therapies; and 50%, vocational training and access to entitlement/eligibility programs. Linking HIV-positive youth to care is a valuable extension of the work of disease intervention specialists in states with similar reporting systems.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

Does providing extended relapse prevention bibliotherapy to problem gamblers improve outcome?

Relapse rates among pathological gamblers are high with as many as 75% of gamblers returning to gambling shortly after a serious attempt to quit. The present study focused on providing a low cost, easy to access relapse prevention program to such individuals. Based on information collected in our ongoing study of the process of relapse, a series of relapse prevention booklets were developed and evaluated. Individuals who had recently quit gambling (N = 169) were recruited (through media announcements) and randomly assigned to a single mailing condition in which they received one booklet summarizing all of the relapse prevention information or a repeated mailing condition in which they received the summary booklet plus 7 additional booklets mailed to them at regular intervals over the course of a year period. Gambling involvement over the course of the 12-month follow-up period, confirmed by family or friends, was compared between the two groups. Results indicated that participants receiving the repeated mailings were more likely to meet their goal, but they did not differ from participants receiving the single mailing in frequency of gambling or extent of gambling losses. The results of this project suggest that providing extended relapse prevention bibliotherapy to problem gamblers does not improve outcome. However, providing the overview booklet may be a low cost, easy to access alternative for individuals who have quit gambling.

Adult↗

[Renal cancer: descriptive analysis of a series of 267 intervened cases].

OBJECTIVE: To present the results of a descriptive analysis of 267 surgically treated renal tumors. METHODS: From January 1986 to October 1999, 267 patients (153 males and 114 females) with renal tumor were treated in our department. All data were introduced into the Access data base program and analyzed using the SPSS software. Descriptive analysis was performed and life expectancy was calculated with the Kaplan-Meier survival curve. Mean follow-up was 42.72 months. RESULTS: 56.4% were in the right and 43.6% were in the left kidney. 41.2% of the cases were incidentally discovered. In the symptomatic patients, the most common presenting feature was hematuria (51.8%). Radical nephrectomy was performed in 94.2%, partial in 3.1% and tumor resection in 2.7%. The lumbar approach was used in 75.5% of the cases. In regard to the histology, 88.7% were carcinomas. Clear cell was the most frequent cell type (91.5%). By grade, 55.8% were GI, 32.9% GII and 11.3% were GIII. By stage (according to the 1992 TNM classification), 64.3% were stage I, 15.4% stage II, 17% stage III and 3.3% stage IV. 80.5% showed no vascular involvement. The 5-year overall survival was 71.93% (mean 114 months; median 167 months). Currently, 76% of the patients are alive. CONCLUSIONS: Distribution by sex in our series was different to that reported in most of the studies. The tumor was incidentally discovered in a high proportion of the cases. The lumbar access was the most widely used surgical approach. The overall survival is similar to that reported by other groups.

Adolescent↗

The Healthy People 2010 smoking prevalence and tobacco control objectives: results from the SimSmoke tobacco control policy simulation model (United States).

OBJECTIVES: Healthy People 2010 (HP2010) set a goal of reducing the adult smoking prevalence to 12% by 2010. Smoking prevalence rates do not appear to be declining at or near the rate targeted in the HP2010 goals. The purpose of this paper is to examine the attainability of HP2010 smoking prevalence objectives through the stricter tobacco control policies suggested in HP2010. METHODS: A tested dynamic simulation model of smoking trends, known as SimSmoke, is applied. Smoking prevalence evolves over time through initiation and cessation, behaviors which are in turned influenced by tobacco control policies. We consider the effect of changes in taxes/prices, clean air laws, media campaigns, cessation programs and youth access policies on projected smoking prevalence over the period 2003-2020, focusing on the levels in 2010. RESULTS: The SimSmoke model projects that the aging of older cohorts and the impact of policies in years prior to 2004 will yield a reduction in smoking rates to 18.4% by 2010, which is substantially above the 2010 target of 12%. When policies similar to the HP2010 tobacco control policy objectives are implemented, SimSmoke projects that smoking rates could be reduced to 16.1%. Further reductions might be realized by increasing the tax rate by $1.00. CONCLUSIONS: The SimSmoke model suggests that the HP2010 smoking prevalence objective is unlikely to be attained. Although we are unlikely to reach the goals by meeting the HP2010 policy objectives, they could get us much closer to the goal. Emphasis should be placed on meeting the tax, clean air, media/comprehensive campaigns, and cessation treatment objectives.

Computer Simulation↗

Children's access to primary care: differences by race, income, and insurance status.

OBJECTIVE: Congressional initiatives to reduce spending under major public programs designed to improve access to health care have brought renewed attention to the health care needs of traditionally disadvantaged populations. The objective of this study was to assess access to and use of primary care services for poor, minority, and uninsured children in the United States. DESIGN AND SETTING: We analyzed data on 7578 1- to 17-year-old children of families responding to the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey, a nationally representative sample of families and children. OUTCOME MEASURES: Adult respondents were asked to report on several measures of access and use of care for children in the household. These included the presence of a usual source of care and its characteristics (type of site, travel time, waiting time, after-hours care, and availability of a regular physician). We also examined the volume of physician contacts relative to the sample child's health status, the receipt of measles vaccinations, and whether children received care in response to selected symptoms of ill health. Results are presented for children generally and for four subgroups: poor children; minority children; uninsured children; and white, non-poor, insured children (the reference group). RESULTS: Poor, minority, and uninsured children fared consistently worse than the children in the reference group on all indicators studied. For example, children in each of the three at-risk groups were twice as likely as the children in the reference group to lack usual sources of care, nearly twice as likely to wait 60 minutes or more at their sites of care, and used only about half as many physician services after adjusting for health status. Multivariate analyses revealed that poverty, minority status, and absence of insurance exert independent effects on access to and use of primary care. CONCLUSIONS: The existence of substantial barriers to the access to and use of primary care for low-income, minority, and uninsured children is cause for significant concern, especially in an era of program cutbacks. New initiatives are needed to address both financial and non-financial barriers to the receipt of primary care for disenfranchised children.

Adolescent↗

Comparing provider perceptions of access and utilization management in full-risk and no-risk Medicaid programs for adults with serious mental illness.

This article compares provider perceptions of access to services and utilization management (UM) procedures in two Medicaid programs in the same state: a full-risk capitated managed care (MC) program and a no-risk, fee-for-service (FFS) program. Survey data were obtained from 198 mental health clinicians and administrators. The only difference found between respondents in the FFS and MC sites was that outpatient providers in the MC site reported significantly lower levels of access to high-intensity services than did providers in the FFS site (p < .001). Respondents in the two sites reported similar attitudes toward UM procedures, including a strong preference for internal over external UM procedures. These findings support the conclusion that through diffusion of UM procedures, all care in the Medicaid program for persons with a serious mental illness is managed, regardless of risk arrangement. Implications for mental health services and further research are discussed.

Adult↗

Challenges for communicable disease surveillance and control in southern Iraq, April-June 2003.

The recent war in Iraq presents significant challenges for the surveillance and control of communicable diseases. In early April 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) sent a team of public health experts to Kuwait and a base was established in the southern Iraqi governorate of Basrah on May 3. We present the lessons learned from the communicable disease surveillance and control program implemented in the Basrah governorate in Iraq (population of 1.9 million) in April and May 2003, and we report communicable disease surveillance data through June 2003. Following the war, communicable disease control programs were disrupted, access to safe water was reduced, and public health facilities were looted. Rapid health assessments were carried out in health centers and hospitals to identify priorities for action. A Health Sector Coordination Group was organized with local and international health partners, and an early warning surveillance system for communicable disease was set up. In the first week of May 2003, physicians in hospitals in Basrah suspected cholera cases and WHO formed a cholera control committee. As of June 29, 2003, Iraqi hospital laboratories have confirmed 94 cases of cholera from 7 of the 8 districts of the Basrah governorate. To prevent the transmission of major communicable diseases, restoring basic public health and water/sanitation services is currently a top priority in Iraq. Lack of security continues to be a barrier for effective public health surveillance and response in Iraq.

Communicable Disease Control↗

Patient-controlled transdermal fentanyl hydrochloride vs intravenous morphine pump for postoperative pain: a randomized controlled trial.

CONTEXT: Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) with morphine is commonly used to provide acute postoperative pain control after major surgery. The fentanyl hydrochloride patient-controlled transdermal system eliminates the need for venous access and complicated programming of pumps. OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy and safety of an investigational patient-controlled iontophoretic transdermal system using fentanyl hydrochloride compared with a standard intravenous morphine patient-controlled pump. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS: Prospective randomized controlled parallel-group trial conducted between September 2000 and March 2001 at 33 North American hospitals, enrolling 636 adult patients who had just undergone major surgery. INTERVENTIONS: In surgical recovery rooms, patients were randomly assigned to intravenous morphine (1-mg bolus every 5 minutes; maximum of 10 mg/h) by a patient-controlled analgesia pump (n = 320) or iontophoretic fentanyl hydrochloride (40- microg infusion over 10 minutes) by a patient-controlled transdermal system (n = 316). Supplemental analgesia (morphine or fentanyl intravenous boluses) was administered as needed before and for the first 3 hours after activation of the PCA treatments. Patients then used the PCA treatments without additional analgesics for up to 72 hours. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary efficacy variable was patient global assessment of the method of pain control during the first 24 hours. Additional efficacy measures were the proportion of patients discontinuing the study because of inadequate analgesia for any reason, patient-reported pain intensity scores on a 100-mm visual analog scale (VAS), and patient global assessments at 48 and 72 hours. Adverse effects were also recorded. RESULTS: Ratings of good or excellent after 24 hours of treatment for the method of pain control were given by 73.7% of patients (233/316) who used transdermal fentanyl PCA and 76.9% of patients (246/320) who used intravenous morphine PCA; treatment difference was -3.2% (95% confidence interval, -9.9% to 3.5%; P =.36). Early patient discontinuations (25.9% fentanyl vs 25.0% morphine; P =.78) and last pain intensity scores (32.7 fentanyl vs 31.1 morphine on the VAS; P =.45) were not different between the 2 treatments. With continued treatment for up to 48 or 72 hours, more than 80% of patient assessments in each treatment group were good or excellent. The incidence of opioid-related adverse events was similar between the groups. CONCLUSION: An investigational PCA transdermal system using iontophoresis to deliver fentanyl provided postsurgical pain control equivalent to that of a standard intravenous morphine regimen delivered by a PCA pump.

Administration, Cutaneous↗

Estimation of the duration of the preclinical phase of cervical adenocarcinoma suggests that there is ample opportunity for screening.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the mean time for progression from cervical adenocarcinoma in situ (ACIS) to invasive cervical adenocarcinoma in order to assess the feasibility of screening and secondary prevention. METHODS: To approximate time to progression from in situ to invasive lesions, we calculated and compared mean ages at diagnosis of ACIS and invasive adenocarcinoma from patients registered in the SEER (NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) public-use database from 1973 to 1995 [1]. Findings are contrasted with means calculated from patients with squamous lesions registered during the same period. Statistical significance was tested with the t test for independent samples. RESULTS: The database includes 5845 patients with glandular lesions; 1476 (25%) have ACIS and 4369 (75%) have invasive adenocarcinoma. There are 143,333 women with squamous lesions; 120,317 (84%) have squamous CIS and 23,016 (16%) have invasive squamous cancers. Mean age (std error) at diagnosis is 38.8 (0.3) years for ACIS and 51.7 (0.3) years for invasive adenocarcinoma; the mean difference is 13.0 (0.5) years. Mean age (std error) for squamous CIS is 33.6 (0.0) and for invasive squamous cancer is 51.4 (0.1); mean difference is 17.9 (0.1). CONCLUSIONS: While not quite as long as for squamous lesions, the average of 13 years that elapses during progression from cervical ACIS to invasive adenocarcinoma allows ample time for screening for the preinvasive lesion and for secondary prevention of invasive cervical adenocarcinoma. The similar mean ages at diagnosis suggest that women who will develop cervical adenocarcinoma should be as amenable and accessible to screening programs as are those with squamous lesions.

Adenocarcinoma↗

Protein identification with N and C-terminal sequence tags in proteome projects.

Genome sequences are available for increasing numbers of organisms. The proteomes (protein complement expressed by the genome) of many such organisms are being studied with two-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis. Here we have investigated the application of short N-terminal and C-terminal sequence tags to the identification of proteins separated on 2D gels. The theoretical N and C termini of 15, 519 proteins, representing all SWISS-PROT entries for the organisms Mycoplasma genitalium, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and human, were analysed. Sequence tags were found to be surprisingly specific, with N-terminal tags of four amino acid residues found to be unique for between 43% and 83% of proteins, and C-terminal tags of four amino acid residues unique for between 74% and 97% of proteins, depending on the species studied. Sequence tags of five amino acid residues were found to be even more specific. To utilise this specificity of sequence tags for protein identification, we created a world-wide web-accessible protein identification program, TagIdent (http://www.expasy.ch/www/tools.html), which matches sequence tags of up to six amino acid residues as well as estimated protein pI and mass against proteins in the SWISS-PROT database. We demonstrate the utility of this identification approach with sequence tags generated from 91 different E. coli proteins purified by 2D gel electrophoresis. Fifty-one proteins were unambiguously identified by virtue of their sequence tags and estimated pI and mass, and a further 11 proteins identified when sequence tags were combined with protein amino acid composition data. We conlcude that the TagIdent identification approach is best suited to the identification of proteins from prokaryotes whose complete genome sequences are available. The approach is less well suited to proteins from eukaryotes, as many eukaryotic proteins are not amenable to sequencing via Edman degradation, and tag protein identification cannot be unambiguous unless an organism's complete sequence is available.

Amino Acid Sequence↗