The concept of culture: A core issue in health disparities

Contemporary discourse contains numerous examples of use of the concept of culture by social and behavioral scientists. Simple reification, where the speaker makes culture into a thing capable of action exemplifies one usage in public discourse. Some quantitative social scientists attempt to characterize people’s cultural identities by means of a single categorical variable, which often “lumps” people into categories such as “Hispanic” or “Black” that in fact have numerous culturally bounded subcategories. Approaches that emphasize cultural process are preferable to those who attempt to categorize; more complex measures of acculturation help investigators to make convincing analyses of circumstances in which health disparities occur. Examples in which investigators make appropriate use of cultural characterizations demonstrate their utility in investigating health disparities in Haitian American women, injecting and noninjecting drug users, Hispanic youth, and adult Hispanics at risk of HIV infection. Focus on culture in the study of health disparities can identify entanglements between structural factors such as poverty and lack of education and cultural factors such as beliefs about health. Qualitative methods coupled with quantitative methods have great potential to improve investigators’ grasp of cultural nuance while capturing the distribution of qualitatively derived behaviors.     

模拟定位机引导下经皮穿刺集束巨能刀射频治疗肺癌的临床应用

为了探讨局部麻醉和模拟定位机引导在集束巨能刀治疗肺癌的射频治疗的适应证、治疗效果以及并发症的预防和处理，采用0．5％普鲁卡因局部浸润麻醉，模拟定位机引导下经皮穿刺集束巨能刀治疗肺癌46例。CT显示条索状瘢痕残余ll例，空洞形成或直径缩小32例，无变化1例，增大2例。治疗中患者均有不同程度的胸腔内热感及短时间内可以忍受的疼痛感。并发症包括气胸7例、皮下气肿5例、发热24例、咯血13例和慢性支气管炎急性发作4例。初步研究结果提示，集束巨能刀射频治疗周围型肺癌疗效满意，尤其适用于直径〈3cm的肿瘤。局部麻醉配合全身止痛药物应用可以很好地解决治疗中的疼痛问题，与全麻相比还具有省时省力、费用低的优势；对于周围型肺癌，模拟定位机引导经皮穿刺定位与CT引导相比，同样准确、安全，但操作更为方便。     

Discussing options between patients and health care professionals in genetic diagnosis: ethical and legal criteria

The specific characteristics of genetic data lead to ethical-legal conflicts in the framework of genetic diagnosis. Several international organisations, including UNESCO and the Council of Europe, have enacted rules referring to the use of genetic information. This paper discusses possible legal and ethical criteria that could be used in genetic testing.     

RNA干扰基因敲除MAGE-1在恶性胶质瘤U87细胞中的初步研究

目的：通过构建抑制MAGE-1的短片段双链核糖核酸（siRNA）表达载体，鉴定其在人恶性胶质瘤细胞系U87细胞中对MAGE．1基因表达的干涉作用。方法：化学合成2对编码短发夹RNA序列的靶向MAGE—1基因寡核苷酸链，克隆至经BglⅡ、HindⅢ双酶切的pSUPER载体上，重组构建核糖核酸干扰（RNAi）质粒载体。利用RT-PCR、流式细胞术和荧光显微镜，检测经稳定转染后胶质瘤U87细胞中MAGE-1的表达，以了解siRNA的干涉效果。结果：重组构建的pSUPER—MAGE—1载体经双酶切、电泳及插入基因片段序列分析，表明寡核苷酸链成功地插入至预计位点，且序列与预期完全一致。稳定转染后G418筛选出的U87多克隆细胞MAGE-1的表达经RT—PCR、流式细胞术和荧光显微镜检测，2对siRNA均有较明显的干扰作用。结论：载体的成功构建并能对U87细胞中的MAGE—1分子进行RNAi，为进一步研究MAGE—1在肿瘤中的作用，分析基因功能，展开肿瘤基因治疗奠定了基础。     

A Spanish version of the Family Assessment Device

Introduction  

This paper presents the results of a study on the psychometric properties of an authorized Spanish version of the McMaster Family Assessment Device, a self-report measure of family functioning.