Feeling “Pooped” and “Run Down?”: Fatigue Experiences in Latino Cancer Patients

The purpose of this study was to describe fatigue and the utility of the Multidimensional Fatigue Symptom Inventory‐Short Form (MFSI‐SF) to assess fatigue among Latino cancer patients. Twenty‐two female and thirteen male Latino cancer patients participated in one of seven focus groups that took place in the southern California USA‐Mexico border region. Participants were asked to describe their fatigue experiences; participants also completed the MFSI‐SF and provided feedback about the items. Content analyses indicate that there are gender differences in the salience of the challenges that fatigue poses. Men tended to focus on physical symptoms, whereas women tended to focus on the impairment in role fulfillment. Findings have implications for intervention and health education efforts in Latino cancer patients.     

Postnatal stress in mice: Does “stressing” the mother have the same effect as “stressing” the pups?

Short- and long-term effects of brief maternal separation, maternal exposure to novel male odor, and standard rearing were compared in NMRI mice. The first condition consisted of 15 min of daily exposure of pups to clean bedding (CB), and the second condition consisted of 15 min of mothers' exposure to the odor of strange males (SM), for 14 days after birth starting from postnatal Day 1. Thus, both conditions entailed the same period of maternal separation. A control mother-offspring group was left undisturbed (nonhandled, N-H). Corticosterone levels of mothers and pups were measured at the end of the last manipulation session. Corticosterone levels were higher in SM mothers, differing from both those of CB and of control dams; CB pups showed the highest corticosterone levels in comparison with the pups belonging to the other groups. Maternal behavior observed as furthest as possible from the daily separation session did not differ among the three groups. The behavioral response to 0.5 mg/kg of apomorphine in 15-day-old pups was enhanced in both CB and SM animals, which suggests an alteration of dopaminergic functioning. Finally, adult CB and SM male mice showed an increase in the percentage of time and entries into the open arms of the plus-maze in comparison to nonhandled males. This study indicates that exposure to ecologically relevant stimuli elicited a stress response in lactating dams. This "social stress" brings about short- and long-term effects in the offspring, even in the absence of any direct manipulation of the pups.     

B‐type suppression: A role played by “regulatory B cells” or “regulatory plasma cells”?

B‐cell depletion can improve disease in some patients with rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis, indicating the pathogenic contribution of B cells to autoimmunity. However, studies in mice have demonstrated that B cells have immunosuppressive functions as well, with IL‐10 being a critical mediator of B‐cell‐mediated suppression. IL‐10‐secreting B cells have been shown to promote disease remission in some mouse models of autoimmune disorders. Human B cells also produce IL‐10, and evidence is accumulating that human IL‐10‐producing B cells might inhibit immunity. There is considerable interest in identifying the phenotype of B cells providing IL‐10 in a suppressive manner, which would facilitate the analysis of the molecular mechanisms controlling this B‐cell property. Here, we review current knowledge on the B‐cell subpopulations found to provide suppressive functions in mice, considering both the pathological context in which they were identified and the signals that control their induction. We discuss the phenotype of B cells that have IL‐10‐dependent regulatory activities in mice, which leads us to propose that antibody‐secreting cells are, in some cases at least, the major source of B‐cell‐derived regulatory IL‐10 in vivo. Anti‐inflammatory cytokine production by antibody‐secreting cells offers a novel mechanism for the coordination of innate and humoral immune responses.     

Comment on “The authoritarian as measured by a personality scale: Solid citizen or misfit?”

A recent article (Ray, 1979) questioned whether forced-choice formats can attenuate social desirability response styles and attacked the California F scale with its accompanying construct of authoritarianism as ineffective in predicting and describing authoritarian behavior. The success of a forced-choice measure of machiavellianism casts doubt on Ray's first contention, while the approach of averaging measures of behavior over an increasing number of events suggests an alternative to the second. The demise of the forced-choice format and the authoritarian construct may be premature.     

The concept of “we”: A community social psychology myth?

This paper questions the conceptions of community found in the literature on community psychology, as well as those employed in everyday life, which reflect the notion of community as a “we”. This notion is understood as a compact and homogenous group, assuming that their members feel, think, and behave in similar and predictable ways, as corresponds to their belonging to the community. It implies a set of processes such as membership, inclusion, identity, feeling of belonging, and an emotional bond or sense of community which do not seem to vary across time and within members of the community. Thus, this meaning of “we” appeals to an idealized vision of the community, and as we shall argue in this paper, it is rather a dialectic and dynamic process, in which shared needs and group processes built across time afford intragroup diversity, disagreements, and fluctuations in dimensions such as participation in collective actions, among others. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

“C3, C4, C5 keep you alive,” or do they?

Contrary to traditional teaching in anatomy courses, historical data suggest that bilateral loss of phrenic nerve function does not necessarily result in death.     

Ventilator-associated Pneumonia: Is the Dilemma Still “Open” or “Closed”?

How to cite this article: Sinha S, Ahuja B. Ventilator-associated Pneumonia: Is the Dilemma Still “Open” or “Closed”? Indian J Crit Care Med 2022;26(7):778–779.     

What Does “Work” Mean? Reopening the Debate About Clinical Significance

[Clin Psychol Sci Prac 17: 48–51, 2010]
Researchers and practitioners have long debated the meaning and measurement of clinical significance. Shearer-Underhill and Marker (2010) offer a valuable contribution to this discussion by drawing the psychotherapy research community's attention to an additional statistical method for measuring clinical significance—the number needed to treat. After a decrease in publication rates in the last 5 years on methods for measuring clinical significance, the article by Shearer-Underhill and Marker represents a renewed interest in the construct of clinical significance of treatment outcome results. This commentary discusses the importance of the article by elaborating on the theoretical and methodological issues that cut across measures of clinical significance. Strengths and weaknesses of specific statistical methods are reviewed and a call is made for continued pursuit of conceptual clarity and methodological rigor for measures of clinical significance.     

Can the serological status of “anti‐HBc alone” be considered a sentinel marker for detection of “occult” HBV infection?

Some individuals have "occult" infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV), defined as presence of HBV genome in the serum or liver tissue without HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) in the serum. The aim of this study was to investigate whether serum antibodies against HBV core antigen in isolation ("anti-HBc alone") are a useful marker of "occult" HBV in patients with or without hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. "Anti-HBc alone" was detected in the sera of 119/6,544 (1.8%) asymptomatic outpatients referred to the diagnostic laboratory for routine testing for viral hepatitis, 62/607 (10.2%) drug users, and 42/195 (21.5%) patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Using three in-house nested-PCR amplification assays to detect HBV preS-S (S), precore-core (C), and Pol viral regions, respectively, "occult" HBV sequences were found in 9 of the 223 sera (4.0%) with "anti-HBc alone." The highest prevalence of "occult" HBV sequences (5.9%) was detected in "anti-HBV alone" sera of individuals referred to the diagnostic laboratory without HCV antibodies. Direct sequencing of all PCR products confirmed the specificity of the PCR reactions and revealed the predominance of HBV genotype D. The data presented in this study suggest that detection of "anti-HBc alone" could reflect unrecognized "occult" HBV infection and that physicians should consider investigating such patients with HBV molecular tests.