Boyhood varicocele

Boyhood varicocele is a common disorder which appears in prepubertal and parapubertal boys as well as adults. Few clinicians are aware of its actual prevalence among boys, hence, the infrequent referrals of this disorder to the specialist centres. This article highlights the importance and prevalence of the disorder in boys, discusses its management and stresses the need for prospective studies regarding its relation to future subfertility.     

Simultaneous non-parametric confidence intervals for survival probabilities from censored data

In medical studies with censored data Kaplan and Meier's product limit estimator has frequent use as the estimate of the survival function. Simultaneous confidence intervals for the survival function at various time points constitute a useful addition to the analysis. This study compares several such methods. We consider in a simulation investigation two whole curve confidence bands and four methods based on the Bonferroni inequality. The results show that three Bonferroni-type methods are essentially equivalent, all being better than the other methods when the number of time points is small (3 or 5).     

Button wires in the treatment of mandibular fractures

Button wiring has been used as an alternative to eyelet wiring in the Department of Oral and Dental Surgery of Birmingham General Hospital since 1977. This clinical update reviews 65 patients with mandibular fractures in which button wires were utilised in their treatment.