Health-Related Quality of Life in Publicly Insured Children With Special Health Care Needs

Our objective was to examine health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in publicly insured children with special health care needs (CSHCN). Data were obtained from 183 caregivers of CSHCN (M = 10 years; 54% African American) in urban health clinics. CSHCN had poorer physical and psychosocial HRQOL than children in a normative sample. In regression analysis, children who had more health problems and more health visits in the previous 12 months had poorer physical HRQOL. Poorer psychosocial HRQOL was associated with more health problems and urban life stressors. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.     

A literature review of the prehospital use of neuromuscular blocking agents by air medical personnel to facilitate endotracheal intubation

Air medical personnel in the United States have used neuromuscular blocking agents to facilitate endotracheal intubation in the field for more than a decade. This literature review examines 15 studies to investigate their experience and explores the following specific areas: the intubation success rate in patients who did or did not receive these agents, the intubation success rate of air medical personnel before and after they incorporated these agents into their practice, the neuromuscular blocking agents and adjunct medications used by air medical personnel, and the disposition of patients who could not be intubated after an agent was given. The data suggest that, overall, air medical personnel use these agents safely and effectively. Suggestions are offered for future studies, including examining ground time when agents are used to facilitate intubation, complications of their use in this setting, and the use of simulators to train personnel in the administration of these medications.     

Evaluation of a "heads-up" display for cardiopulmonary bypass

Multiple variables must be analyzed during cardiopulmonary bypass in order to judge the adequacy of perfusion. Variables when viewed singly can be confusing and lead to inaccurate representation of the physiological status of the patient. Communication between the perfusionist and members of the surgical team requires accuracy and complete presentation of pertinent data. Toward this goal of improving the assimilation and processing of information during cardiopulmonary bypass, a multivariable computer-aided "Heads-up Display" (HUD) was developed. Modern jet pilots use heads-up display for rapid assimilation of information when making judgments about the performance of their aircraft and weapons systems. Heads-up display is an electronically generated display that is superimposed upon a pilot's forward field of view. An analogy between a jet pilot and a perfusionist can be made. A geometric form, a hexagon, is used as part of the heads-up display for cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB-HUD). The polygon represents a performance evaluation graph. Each of the six "spokes of a wheel" represents a physiological parameter. The represented variables are: cardiac index, peripheral vascular resistance, hematocrit, dynamic operating blood level, venous saturation, and mean arterial pressure. The perfusionist inputs target values. Target values are then compared to actual values and expressed as a percentage. If all targeted values are achieved, the graphical representation is a hexagon. The surgical team rapidly recognizes abnormal patterns that are outside individual target values. They include, but are not limited to, patterns of: vasoconstriction, vasodilatation, hypovolemia, decreased oxygen carrying capacity, and several others. The CPB-HUD has proved to be of value for planning, real time evaluation, retrospective analysis of cardiopulmonary bypass benchmark data, and as an aid in the teaching of new personnel concerned with cardiopulmonary bypass.     

Differences in survival by histologic type of pancreatic cancer.

OBJECTIVE: Although pancreatic cancer has an extremely high case fatality rate, little is known about differences in mortality by histologic types. We examined median survival and risk of mortality for endocrine pancreatic tumors and two types of exocrine tumors, adenocarcinomas, and mucinous tumors. METHOD: This analysis included 35,276 pancreatic cancer cases reported to the nine population-based cancer registries participating in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program from 1973 to 2000. Survival among cases with pancreatic adenocarcinomas, mucinous tumors, and endocrine tumors were compared using Kaplan-Meier plots. Comparative risks of mortality were evaluated using multivariate adjusted Cox regression models. RESULTS: Endocrine pancreatic cancer cases had a median survival of 27 months compared with a median survival of 4 months for adenocarcinoma and mucinous tumor cases. Compared with adenocarcinoma cases, endocrine tumor cases had a 0.28-fold lower risk of mortality [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.26-0.30], and mucinous tumor cases had a 0.88-fold lower risk (95% CI, 0.84-0.91). These results were similar for men and women. Within histologic types, advanced tumor stage, older diagnosis age, surgery, and Black race were associated with increased risks of mortality, whereas female sex and more recent year of diagnosis were associated with decreased risks. CONCLUSION: This study confirms the clinical observation that patients with endocrine pancreatic cancer survive longer than patients with exocrine tumors. A better understanding of these differences could contribute to identifying the underlying causes of pancreatic cancer and to improving survival rates across all histologic types.     

Mutant huntingtin impairs immune cell migration in Huntington disease

In Huntington disease (HD), immune cells are activated before symptoms arise; however, it is unclear how the expression of mutant huntingtin (htt) compromises the normal functions of immune cells. Here we report that primary microglia from early postnatal HD mice were profoundly impaired in their migration to chemotactic stimuli, and expression of a mutant htt fragment in microglial cell lines was sufficient to reproduce these deficits. Microglia expressing mutant htt had a retarded response to a laser-induced brain injury in vivo. Leukocyte recruitment was defective upon induction of peritonitis in HD mice at early disease stages and was normalized upon genetic deletion of mutant htt in immune cells. Migration was also strongly impaired in peripheral immune cells from pre-manifest human HD patients. Defective actin remodeling in immune cells expressing mutant htt likely contributed to their migration deficit. Our results suggest that these functional changes may contribute to immune dysfunction and neurodegeneration in HD, and may have implications for other polyglutamine expansion diseases in which mutant proteins are ubiquitously expressed.     

Efficiency of neuromuscular electrical stimulation: A comparison of elicited force and subject tolerance using three electrical waveforms

Objective: Efficacy of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) is limited by the discomfort of electrically elicited contractions. Most studies of tolerance to NMES have examined stimulation to maximal tolerance. NMES efficiency is the amount of elicited force at a specific level of tolerance. This study is the first to describe and examine such. Design: A repeated measures design was used. Electrically elicited force (EEF) was measured using three waveforms: burst-modulated alternating current (BMAC), pulsed current (PC), and burst-modulated pulsed current (BMPC). EEF at a tolerance rating of 5/10 on a visual analog scale (VAS) was recorded. The dependent variables were EEF up to 5/10 VAS, current amplitude at 5/10, and percent maximal isometric force at 5/10. Results: EEF and percent maximal voluntary isometric force were significantly greater with BMPC versus BMAC (p = 0.001 and 0.004). No differences were noted between PC and BMAC or BMPC and PC. Amplitude was significantly greater with BMAC compared to BMPC and PC (p = 0.003 and 0.015). No difference in amplitude was noted between PC and BMPC. Conclusion: For the same level of discomfort, BMPC yielded one-third greater muscle force than BMAC and at a lesser current amplitude. These data evidence a greater efficiency for BMPC than BMAC.