Characteristics of teenage mothers and predictors of breastfeeding initiation in the Michigan WIC Program in 1995. Women, Infants, and Children.

Although breast milk is recommended as the optimal source of infant nutrition, breastfeeding initiation is below recommended levels, especially among teenage mothers. Breastfeeding initiation rates among Michigan (US) teenage mothers (12-19 y) were compared by demographics and health behaviors. Multivariate analyses determined which factors were significant independent predictors of breastfeeding initiation among teenage mothers enrolled prenatally in the Michigan Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program in 1995. Significant predictors independently associated with breastfeeding initiation were race/ethnicity, education, marital status, postpartum anemia status, parity, prenatal trimester of WIC enrollment, and smoking. The strongest predictor of breastfeeding initiation differed for white mothers (positive predictor: education beyond high school [OR = 3.13]) and black mothers (negative predictor: multiparous [OR = 0.25]). Initiation rates for this population of teenage mothers fall below the national average for mothers of all ages and the US Healthy People 2010 goals. Research is needed concerning how breastfeeding support and education can be improved to reach the US national health goals.     

Innovative Wundtherapie und Hautersatz bei Verbrennungen

The success of modern burn therapy is based mainly on special burn intensive care, topical treatment, early eschar excision, and wound closure by immediate skin grafting or skin substitutes. This paper describes the current state of wound care and skin substitutes in burn therapy.     

Thymidine labeling index in breast tumors

The relationship between primary tumor proliferative activity and clinical and pathologic characteristics was analyzed in relation to menopausal status in 32 patients with malignant or benign breast disease. The thymidine labeling index (TLI) showed significantly higher median values in the cancer patients (3.48 per cent) than in the patients with benign diseases (1.02 per cent). TLI was not significantly affected by delayed incubation at room temperature for about 1 hour. In the breast cancer patients, TLI did not significantly correlate to tumor size, the presence of axillary lymph node metastasis or pathologic nuclear grading. The only significant difference was limited to the breast cancer patients without axillary lymph node metastasis in relation to menopausal status; the TLI in the premenopausal patients (5.10 per cent) was significantly higher (p<0.05) than that in the postmenopausal patients (2.28 per cent). These data thus suggest that among premenopausal patients without axillary lymph node metastasis, those with a high TLI could be potential candidates for adjuvant chemotherapy.     

Ultra-early evaluation of regional cerebral blood flow in severely head-injured patients using xenon-enhanced computerized tomography.

The role of cerebral ischemia in the pathophysiology of traumatic brain injury is unclear. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements with 133Xe have thus far revealed ischemia in a substantial number of patients only when performed between 4 and 12 hours postinjury. But these studies cannot be performed sooner after injury, they cannot be done in patients with intracranial hematomas still in place, and they cannot detect focal ischemia. Therefore, the authors performed CBF measurements in 35 comatose head-injured patients using stable xenon-enhanced computerized tomography (CT), simultaneously with the initial CT scan (at a mean (+/- standard error of the mean) interval of 3.1 +/- 2.1 hours after injury). Seven patients with diffuse cerebral swelling had significantly lower flows in all brain regions measured as compared to patients without swelling or with focal contusions; in four of the seven, cerebral ischemia (CBF less than or equal to 18 ml/100 gm.min-1) was present. Acute intracranial hematomas were associated with decreased CBF and regional ischemia in the ipsilateral hemisphere, but did not disproportionately impair brain-stem blood flow. Overall, global or regional ischemia was found in 11 patients (31.4%). There was no correlation between the presence of hypoxia or hypertension before resuscitation and the occurrence of ischemia, neither could ischemia be attributed to low pCO2. Ischemia was significantly associated with early mortality (p less than 0.02), whereas normal or high CBF values were not predictive of favorable short-term outcome. These data support the hypothesis that ischemia is an important secondary injury mechanism after traumatic brain injury, and that trauma may share pathophysiological mechanisms with stroke in a large number of cases; this may have important implications for the use of hyperventilation and antihypertensive drugs in the acute management of severely head-injured patients, and may lead to testing of drugs that are effective or have shown promise in the treatment of ischemic stroke.     

The future of outcomes measurement: item banking,tailored short-forms,and computerized adaptive assessment

The use of item banks and computerized adaptive testing (CAT) begins with clear definitions of important outcomes, and references those definitions to specific questions gathered into large and well-studied pools, or “banks” of items. Items can be selected from the bank to form customized short scales, or can be administered in a sequence and length determined by a computer programmed for precision and clinical relevance. Although far from perfect, such item banks can form a common definition and understanding of human symptoms and functional problems such as fatigue, pain, depression, mobility, social function, sensory function, and many other health concepts that we can only measure by asking people directly. The support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as witnessed by its cooperative agreement with measurement experts through the NIH Roadmap Initiative known as PROMIS (www.nihpromis.org), is a big step in that direction. Our approach to item banking and CAT is practical; as focused on application as it is on science or theory. From a practical perspective, we frequently must decide whether to re-write and retest an item, add more items to fill gaps (often at the ceiling of the measure), re-test a bank after some modifications, or split up a bank into units that are more unidimensional, yet less clinically relevant or complete. These decisions are not easy, and yet they are rarely unforgiving. We encourage people to build practical tools that are capable of producing multiple short form measures and CAT administrations from common banks, and to further our understanding of these banks with various clinical populations and ages, so that with time the scores that emerge from these many activities begin to have not only a common metric and range, but a shared meaning and understanding across users. In this paper, we provide an overview of item banking and CAT, discuss our approach to item banking and its byproducts, describe testing options, discuss an example of CAT for fatigue, and discuss models for long term sustainability of an entity such as PROMIS. Some barriers to success include limitations in the methods themselves, controversies and disagreements across approaches, and end-user reluctance to move away from the familiar.     

A SLAP lesion associated with calcific tendinitis of the long head of the biceps brachii at its origin

Calcific tendinitis is a common condition with characteristic clinical and radiological findings. Although we do not know which condition initiated the pathologic cascade, we present a rare case of calcific tendinitis of the long head of the biceps brachii at its origin, associated with a SLAP lesion. The calcium deposit was removed and the SLAP lesion was repaired with a suture anchor arthroscopically.     

Multiple internal resorptions in deciduous teeth: a case report

We report a case of rare multiple internal resorptions. Etiology of multiple internal resorptions is unknown. Interestingly, the patient had an atopic dermatitis, which is possibly related to multiple and rapid internal resorptions.