Determinants of response to a parent questionnaire about development and behaviour in 3 year olds: European multicentre study of congenital toxoplasmosis

Background  

We aimed to determine how response to a parent-completed postal questionnaire measuring development, behaviour, impairment, and parental concerns and anxiety, varies in different European centres.     

Acute pesticide poisoning related deaths in Turkey

This study determined the spectrum of deaths due to acute agrochemical poisoning in Turkey. Data was obtained from all autopsy reports performed between 1997 and 2001, compiled by the Institute of Forensic Medicine (which is a department of the Ministry of Justice), and evaluated retrospectively. There were 3990 deaths by intoxication of one form or another. Acute agrochemical/pesticide poisoning caused 843 deaths. Almost half were under 30 yo; 55% were female and 45% were male. Of 205 deaths whose manner of death was determined, 153 (75%) were suicide; the most common substance used was insecticide followed by sulfur, rodenticides, and herbicides. The pattern appeared consistent from 1997 to 2001 with no decline in the number of cases, despite the government having taken measures to educate the public and reduce pesticide use by offering alternates to control pests and insects.     

Exploring the "two-hit hypothesis" in NF2: tests of two-hit and three-hit models of vestibular schwannoma development

Neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2) is a genetic disease that occurs in approximately 1 in 40,000 live births. Almost all affected individuals develop bilateral tumors of Schwann cells that surround the vestibular nerves; these tumors are known as vestibular schwannomas (VS). Evidence from molecular genetic studies suggests that at least two mutations are involved in formation of VS in patients with NF2. Several authors proposed probabilistic models for this process in other tumors, and showed that such models are consistent with incidence data. We evaluated two different probabilistic models for a "2-hit" hypothesis for VS development in NF2 patients, and we present results from fitting these models to incidence data. Molecular evidence does not exclude the possibility that additional hits are necessary for the development of VS, and we also assessed a "3-hit" model for tumor formation. The "3-hit" model fits the data marginally better than one of the "2-hit" models and much better than the other "2-hit" model. Our findings suggest that more than two mutations may be necessary for VS development in NF2 patients.