A skin abscess model for teaching incision and drainage procedures

Background  

Skin and soft tissue infections are increasingly prevalent clinical problems, and it is important for health care practitioners to be well trained in how to treat skin abscesses. A realistic model of abscess incision and drainage will allow trainees to learn and practice this basic physician procedure.     

Improvement of Atrophic Acne Scars with a 1,320 nm Nd:YAG Laser: Retrospective Study

Background. Facial acne scarring has been treated with multiple methods with varying degrees of improvement. Although the 1,320 nm neodymium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet (Nd:YAG) laser has been widely used to improve photoaging, studies analyzing its effects on atrophic acne scarring are limited.
Objective. To evaluate the efficacy of a dynamic cryogen-cooled 1,320 nm Nd:YAG laser for the treatment of atrophic facial acne scars in a larger cohort of patients with long-term follow-up.
Methods. Twenty-nine patients (skin phototypes I–IV) with facial acne scarring received a mean of 5.5 (range 2–17) treatments with a 1,320 nm Nd:YAG laser. Objective physician assessment scores of improvement were determined by side-by-side comparison of preoperative and postoperative photographs at a range of 1 to 27 months (mean 10.4 months) postoperatively. Subjective patient self-assessment scores of improvement were also obtained.
Results. Acne scarring was significantly improved by both physician and patient assessment scores. Mean improvement was 2.8 (  p < .05  ) on a 0- to 4-point scale by physician assessment and 5.4 (  p < .05  ) on a 0- to 10-point scale by patient assessment. No significant complications were observed.
Conclusions. Nonablative laser skin resurfacing with a 1,320 nm Nd:YAG laser can effectively improve the appearance of facial acne scars with minimal adverse sequelae.     

The social behavior of autistic children with younger and same-age nonhandicapped peers

Results of a study observing autistic children's interactions with nonhandicapped and autistic peers are reported. Six 8- to 12-year-old autistic children played in dyads with younger, normally developing kindergarten children and with nonhandicapped peers matched on chronological age for 10 15-minute sessions spaced over 3 weeks and then with a playmate of the alternate age for another 10 sessions. After intervention, all subjects showed gains in proximity, orientation, and responsiveness when playing with nonhandicapped peers and with autistic classmates. Same-age nonhandicapped playmates initiated more frequently than did younger nonhandicapped playmates and were better able to modify their initiations in ways that increased the likelihood of response from the autistic children.     

Use of a violence risk assessment tool in an acute care hospital: effectiveness in identifying violent patients.

This study examined the use and effectiveness of the Alert assessment form. The form is part of the Alert system, used by one large acute care hospital to identify patients with a propensity for violence. All reported incidents of patient violence from August 1, 2003, through December 31, 2004, were included in patient charts. One hundred seventeen violent patient charts were reviewed and compared with 161 non-violent patient charts, randomly chosen from the same time period. Overall use of the Alert assessment form for violent and non-violent patients was 75.7% and 35.4%, respectively. The assessment form was found to have moderate sensitivity (71%) and high specificity (94%). It is reasonably effective in identifying potentially violent or aggressive patients when it is used according to protocol. Efforts to improve the tool are warranted, as is evaluation of its benefit in settings with low prevalence of violence. Also, greater effort must be taken to prevent violence once an aggressive patient has been identified.     

Phospho-akt expression is associated with a favorable outcome in non-small cell lung cancer.

Akt, a Serine/Threonine protein kinase, mediates growth factor-associated cell survival. Constitutive activation of Akt (phosphorylated Akt, P-Akt) has been observed in several human cancers, including lung cancer and may be associated with poor prognosis and chemotherapy and radiotherapy resistance. The clinical relevance of P-Akt in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is not well described. In the present study, we examined 82 surgically resected snap-frozen and paraffin-embedded stage I to IIIA NSCLC samples for P-Akt and Akt by Western blotting and for P-Akt by immunohistochemistry. P-Akt protein levels above the median, measured using reproducible semiquantitative band densitometry, correlated with a favorable outcome (P = 0.007). Multivariate analysis identified P-Akt as a significant independent favorable prognostic factor (P = 0.004). Although associated with a favorable prognosis, high P-Akt levels correlated with high tumor grade (P = 0.02). Adenocarcinomas were associated with low P-Akt levels (P = 0.039). Akt was not associated with either outcome or clinicopathologic variables.Cytoplasmic (CP-Akt) and nuclear (NP-Akt) P-Akt tumor cell staining was detected in 96% and 42% of cases, respectively. Both CP-Akt and NP-Akt correlated with well-differentiated tumors (P = 0.008 and 0.017, respectively). NP-Akt also correlated with nodal metastases (P = 0.022) and squamous histology (P = 0.037).These results suggest P-Akt expression is a favorable prognostic factor in NSCLC. Immunolocalization of P-Akt, however, may be relevant as NP-Akt was associated with nodal metastases, a known poor prognostic feature in this disease. P-Akt may be a potential novel therapeutic target for the management of NSCLC.