Positive, negative, unknown: assumptions of HIV status among HIV-positive men who have sex with men.

Serosorting (i.e., engaging in unprotected sex with partners known to be of the same serostatus) can be a difficult process for men who have sex with men (MSM) who frequently make assumptions about their partners' serostatus. This process can be further complicated by a partner's dishonesty as well as other individual and contextual factors. The present study specifically examined how assumptions of serostatus made about unknown serostatus partners impact on the sexual behavior of 110 alcohol-abusing HIV-positive MSM. Although previous research has shown that HIV-positive MSM are more likely to serosort with other known HIV-positive men than with known HIV-negative men, our data suggest that unprotected sex behavior may not be specifically driven by whether or not they made assumptions of seroconcordance or serodiscordance. The types of assumptions these HIV-positive MSM made about their unknown status sexual partners and the basis for such assumptions were also examined. Owing to the ambiguities involved in assumptions of a partner's serostatus in sexual encounters, the 'unknown status' partner category is analytically distinct from 'known status' categories, and needs to be more fully explored because of its impact on perceived serosorting, rather than actual serosorting, among HIV-positive men.     

The Video Display Terminal Eye Clinic: clinical report

The Video Display Terminal Eye Clinic was designed to relieve the symptoms of video display terminal users by diagnosing and treating visual problems and by analyzing the patients' work station environment through an in-office simulation and making suggestions for improvements. The Clinic was open to the public and patients were therefore self-selected. The symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments were compiled retrospectively and reported for 153 patients. Vision problems were diagnosed in most patients. The most frequent diagnoses included: presbyopia, improper spectacle design for presbyopia, accomodative deficiencies, esophoria, exophoria, and hyperopia. The results suggest that proper visual care and work station arrangement can improve comfort.     

Cancer of the maxillary sinus treated with surgery and/or radiation therapy

This is an analysis of 37 previously untreated patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the maxillary sinus treated with curative intent at the University of Florida from January 1966 through January 1984. All patients were followed for at least two years and 86 per cent (32/27) were followed for a minimum of five years. Patients were treated for cure with radiation therapy alone (25), surgery alone (1), or surgery and preoperative (6) or postoperative (5) radiation therapy. This study presents the results of treatment and the incidence of treatment-related complications in this group of patients.     

Pregnancies after in vitro fertilization and transfer of human blastocysts

In a study of 29 cycles of IVF, ET was performed on day 5 after oocyte recovery when embryos had developed to the morula/blastocyst stage. Three preclinical pregnancies and three live births resulted (2 singleton and 1 twin), giving a viable PR per ET of 10%. It is concluded that while day 5 ET may well be important in terms of embryo biopsy for the preimplantation diagnosis of genetic disease, day 2 ET remains preferable for therapeutic IVF. Although these data would not support the introduction of day 5 ET into routine therapeutic IVF, delayed ET should be considered as an alternative approach to preimplantation diagnosis. Indeed, because the latter will generally involve the treatment of normal, fertile couples, it might be predicted that embryo survival rates, and thus the rate of pregnancy after day 5 ET, would be better than those presented here.     

Neuropsychological efficiency measures in male and female alcoholics.

The role of time in performance on many neuropsychological tests has been relatively neglected in the literature to date. Neuropsychological functioning in 90 male and female alcoholics and 65 peer controls was examined using both accuracy and time measures for four basic types of neuropsychological functioning: verbal skills, learning and memory, problem-solving and abstracting, and perceptual-motor skills. Alcoholics had significantly lower efficiency ratios (accuracy/time) than controls in each of the four areas, and had significantly lower overall accuracy and time scores. There were no significant Group x Gender interactions for efficiency, speed or accuracy scores, indicating that male and female alcoholics have similar deficits as a result of chronic alcoholism. The study is the first to apply systematically an empirical measure of neuropsychological efficiency to different areas of cognitive function; the results have implications for neuropsychological testing procedures.     

Semantic (verbal) and figural memory impairment in alcoholics

In two separate studies, episodic semantic (verbal) and figural-memory abilities as measured by the Wechsler Memory Scale (Russell Method) are compared in middle-aged detoxified male alcoholics and controls. Both studies gave rise to similar findings. Alcoholics recalled significantly less verbal and figural material at both immediate recall and 30-min delayed recall than did the controls. Contrary to expectation, compared to controls, alcoholics did not have a greater differential deficit for the figural material as compared with the verbal or a greater differential deficit on delayed than on immediate memory. The percentage of material recalled at the delayed testing, when taken as a function of the amount of material recalled immediately, did not differ for the two groups on the semantic or figural tasks in either study. Thus, rates of forgetting were equivalent in alcoholics and controls suggesting that the alcoholics' deficit lies in the initial acquisition process. Whether that deficit is in encoding or initial retrieval processes remains to be investigated. Implications for future research are given.     

Adrenergic and purinergic neurotransmission in arterial resistance vessels of the cat intestinal circulation

The contribution of adrenoceptors and purine receptors in mediating neurogenic vasoconstriction was investigated in the autoperfused intestinal circulation of anaesthetised cats treated with atropine and propranolol. Prazosin (0.5 mg/kg) and yohimbine (1.5 mg/kg) reduced but did not abolish the vasoconstrictor responses to stimulation of the efferent sympathetic nerves. The inhibitory actions of the two antagonists were additive but even after alpha 1- and alpha 2-adrenoceptor blockade nerve stimulation still elicited a residual, frequency-related vasoconstriction. The initial, rapid, phase of this response was completely abolished after desensitisation of P2x-purinoceptors with a high dose (1.5 mg i.a.) of alpha,beta-methylene ATP. In the absence of alpha-adrenoceptor antagonists, alpha,beta-methylene ATP reduced neurogenic vasoconstriction particularly at low frequency (1 Hz) nerve stimulation, but also caused a short-lasting decrease in noradrenaline and methoxamine responses which indicates that the drug may have some non-specific effects on arterial smooth muscle. The results suggest that neurotransmission in arterial resistance vessels of the cat intestinal circulation is predominantly under adrenergic control mediated by postsynaptic alpha 1- and alpha 2-adrenoceptors, with a possible purine involvement in the initial rapid response of the blood vessels, particularly to low frequency nerve stimulation.