Self-care intervention to reduce oral candidiasis recurrences in HIV-seropositive persons: a pilot study

OBJECTIVES: This single-blind randomized controlled pilot study evaluated the efficacy of a behavioral intervention program, PRO-SELF: Candidiasis, to reduce time to recurrence of oral candidiasis over 6 months in susceptible HIV-seropositive persons. The intervention involved instruction by dentists on improving oral hygiene, minimizing sugar intake, and self-diagnosing candidiasis. METHODS: Participants were adults with oral candidiasis responsive to antifungals who presented to the UCSF Stomatology Clinic between 1997 and 2000. At 2-3 weeks of follow-up visits, a dentist "examiner", masked to group assignment, quizzed participants as to the presence of candidiasis, and assessed candidiasis status. A second, unmasked dentist "instructor" then delivered the program to intervention participants. Participants recorded dietary and oral hygiene practices in 24-h recall diaries: intervention participants at each visit and controls at initial and final visits. RESULTS: At randomization, CD4+ cell counts (cells/mm(3)) were 298 +/- 188 among 18 intervention participants and 396 +/- 228 among 17 controls. The candidiasis recurrence rates at 6 months were 78% among intervention compared with 88% among control participants (hazard ratio 0.72; 95% CI 0.35-1.50). Performing oral hygiene after meals/snacks showed the largest relative improvement: intervention-control difference in proportion of meals/snacks affected was 24% (95% CI -1 to 48%). Self-diagnoses of candidiasis were inaccurate, possibly because of mild episodes. CONCLUSIONS: The results weakly indicate that regular instruction from healthcare professionals helps patients delay candidiasis recurrence by improving oral hygiene. Among HIV-seropositive persons, those with poor oral hygiene, and high-sugar diets are most likely to benefit.     

Inhaled nitric oxide therapy in the near-term or term neonate with hypoxic respiratory failure

Inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) has altered the management strategy for treating near-term and term infants with hypoxic respiratory failure (HRF). There is a strong relationship between HRF and persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN). PPHN is characterized by elevated pulmonary resistance, pulmonary vasoconstriction, and altered vascular reactivity. The resulting high pulmonary pressure may lead to HRF, which is defined as a relative deficiency of oxygen in arterial blood and insufficient minute ventilation. iNO improves oxygenation and decreases the need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Although iNO therapy is effective, its efficacy can depend on the fine points of its use and on other care the infant is receiving. Even in NICUs that do not have iNO available, those who care for term infants with HRF must be familiar with its use and know when and how to transfer these infants and how to help families through this difficult period. Because iNO therapy will probably be used more frequently in nurseries over the next few years, more information on the safety and efficacy of its use in the broader neonatal population needs to be available.     

Severity of injury and service utilization following traumatic brain injury: the first 3 months

OBJECTIVE: To describe the medical and rehabilitation service use of model systems by brain injured participants 1 to 3 months postdischarge from inpatient rehabilitation. DESIGN: Prospective follow-up study. SETTING: Georgia Model Brain Injury System (GAMBIS). PARTICIPANTS: Seventy-three GAMBIS subjects consenting to participate in the utilization substudy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Receipt of services and intensity of service use. ANALYSIS: Chi-square analysis of receipt of services by severity of injury. RESULTS: The likelihood of service use did not vary with severity of injury. Data suggest that intensity of service use was a function of injury severity. CONCLUSIONS: Subjects with mild and moderate injuries were as likely to use a range of medical and rehabilitation services during the 3-month postdischarge period as those with severe injuries. Traditional rehabilitation services, such as physical therapy, were far more likely to be used, than nontraditional services, such as psychological counseling, in spite of the high level of cognitive and social disability associated with traumatic brain injury.     

Sex differences in temporal summation of pain and aftersensations following repetitive noxious mechanical stimulation

The SF-36 is a well-validated health status instrument measuring eight different health concepts. One aim of this study was to compare health status as measured by SF-36 in subjects from the general population with no chronic pain (NCP), chronic regional pain (CRP), and chronic widespread pain (CWP). A second aim was to assess if SF-36 could reflect changes in pain status over time. A third aim was to study if health status at baseline, measured by SF-36, could predict pain status 3 years later. The study was designed as a 3-year follow up with a postal questionnaire, including the SF-36 health survey, to 2357 subjects from the general population aged 20-74 years. The results were controlled for age, sex, co-morbidity, and socio-economic status. At baseline, all eight health concepts of SF-36 discriminated between subgroups with NCP, CRP and CWP. Changes in SF-36 over the 3-year follow up time coincided with improvement or deterioration of pain status. Baseline SF-36 scores predicted pain outcome 3 years later. These results support that both physical and mental aspects of health status as measured by SF-36 are affected by the burden of musculoskeletal pain, are sensitive to changes in pain status, and also predict the further development of pain.     

Conditioning deficits of CaM-kinase transgenic Drosophila melanogaster in a new excitatory courtship assay

Courtship suppression is an associative conditioning procedure in Drosophila melanogaster that is ethologically based and capable of being tested on individual flies. We have expanded the range of the courtship conditioning by developing an excitatory procedure in which male flies learn to associate a novel odor with the courtship stimulating cues of virgin females. Wild-type males normally court other mature males very little, but following training, the odor alone is able to elicit increased levels of courtship towards an object male. Flies expressing an inhibitor of calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) were previously shown to have no retention one hour after training in the courtship suppression task, as manifested in their persistent courting of a virgin female. A possible trivial explanation for this response is that the CaMKII-inhibited fly strains (ala1 and ala2) were merely hyperactive courters. The poor performance of these mutants in the new excitatory conditioning procedure confirms that their conditioning deficit results from a disruption of an associative mechanism per se.     

Changes in bone density and turnover explain the reductions in incidence of nonvertebral fractures that occur during treatment with antiresorptive agents

Some, but not all, antiresorptive agents have been shown to reduce the risk of nonvertebral fractures. Agents that significantly reduced nonvertebral fracture risk also appear to produce larger mean increases in bone mineral density (BMD) and reductions in biochemical markers (BCM) of bone turnover, compared with other agents. To examine the extent to which increases in BMD and reductions in BCM during antiresorptive therapy are associated with reductions in risk of nonvertebral fractures, we performed a meta-analysis of all randomized, placebo-controlled trials of antiresorptive agents conducted in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis (i.e. prior vertebral fracture or low BMD) with available relevant data. A total of 18 such trials with usable data were identified, including a total of 2,415 women with incident nonvertebral fractures over 69,369 women-years of follow-up. Poisson regression was used to estimate the association between changes in BMD or BCM during the first year and overall reductions in risk of nonvertebral fractures (vs. the placebo group) across all trials. Larger increases in BMD and larger reductions in BCM were significantly associated with greater reductions in nonvertebral fracture risk. For example, each 1% increase in spine BMD at 1 yr was associated with an 8% reduction in nonvertebral fracture risk (P = 0.02). Mean BMD changes at the hip were smaller than at the spine, but the predicted net effect on fracture risk was the same; an agent that increases spine BMD by 6% at 1 yr reduces nonvertebral fracture risk by about 39%, and an agent that increases hip BMD by 3% at 1 yr reduces nonvertebral fracture risk by about 46%. The results also predict that a 70% reduction in resorption BCM would reduce risk by 40%, and a 50% reduction in formation BCM would reduce risk by 44%. It appears that either BMD or BCM changes are able to explain the effect of treatment, because a separate variable for treatment was not independently significant in any models. These data demonstrate that larger increases in BMD at both the spine and hip and larger reductions in both formation and resorption BCM are associated with greater reductions in the risk of nonvertebral fractures. Antiresorptive agents that do not produce large increases in BMD or large reductions in BCM do not appear to and would not be expected to decrease the risk of nonvertebral fractures.