Advances in oncologic imaging

Imaging has become a pivotal component throughout a patient's encounter with cancer, from initial disease detection and characterization through treatment response assessment and posttreatment follow‐up. Recent progress in imaging technology has presented new opportunities for improving clinical care. This article provides updates on the latest approaches to imaging of 5 common cancers: breast, lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers, and lymphoma. CA Cancer J Clin 2012. © 2012 American Cancer Society.     

'We call it the shaking illness': perceptions and experiences of Parkinson's disease in rural northern Tanzania

Background  

Parkinson disease (PD) causes physical disability that negatively affects the quality of life of the sufferer's and their families. There are no Parkinson's disease (PD) social science studies published from Africa. This paper presents findings from a qualitative research study on how PD is perceived and treated in a population of approximately 161,000 within a demographic surveillance site in rural Tanzania.     

The modified dental anxiety scale: UK general public population norms in 2008 with further psychometrics and effects of age

Background  

The Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) is a brief, self-complete questionnaire consisting of five questions and summed together to produce a total score ranging from 5 to 25. It has reasonable psychometric properties, low instrumental effects and can be integrated into everyday dental practice as a clinical aid and screen for dental anxiety. The objectives were to (i) produce confirmatory evidence of reliability and validity for the MDAS, (ii) provide up-to-date UK representative norms for the general public to enable clinicians to compare their patients' scores, (iii) to determine the nature of the relationship between dental anxiety and age.     

Evaluation of left ventricular function in patients with sickle cell anemia

The echocardiographic measurements of cardiac chamber dimension, ejection phase indices of left ventricular function and the systolic time intervals of 23 adult patients with sickle cell anemia were compared to those of normal control subjects. Patients with sickle cell anemia had a significantly greater mean left ventricular systolic dimension index, left ventricular diastolic dimension index, left ventricular mass, stroke volume index, interventricular septal width, aortic root index and left atrial index. No significant differences were noted between the mean velocity of circumferential fiber shortening, ejection fraction or systolic time intervals. The anemic population was divided into two groups; one consisting of patients less than 30 years old and the other of patients over 30 years old. There were no significant differences between the ventricular dimensions, velocity of circumferential fiber shortening, ejection fraction and systolic time intervals of the two groups. These data indicate that the chronic volume overload of sickle cell anemia is well tolerated without development of left ventricular dysfunction.