Frequency, nature and determinants of pharmaceutical consultations provided in private by Dutch community pharmacists

OBJECTIVE: According to a report published by the federation of Dutch patients' associations, patients would like to see a pharmacist, who acts more as a personal adviser. This raised the question, how often Dutch community pharmacists have personal consultations with their patients in daily practice, on which factors this depends, and what kind of topics are discussed during these meetings. SETTING: Community pharmacies in the Netherlands. METHOD: A questionnaire was distributed among 800 randomly selected pharmacies. Questions were restricted to consultations characterized by one-to-one contact, drug therapy related content, and adequate privacy. These consultations were labelled as pharmaceutical consultations in private to distinguish them from other contacts between pharmacists and patients. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Number, content, and character of consultations. RESULTS: 198 (24.8%) community pharmacies responded. The pharmacists provide an average of roughly 1.2 consultations in private per working day. The vast majority of respondents provided face-to-face and telephone consultations (94.4 and 91.9%, respectively), only a minority gave consultations by e-mail (30.8%). These consultations primarily dealt with topics related to medication safety. The mean overall time spent was 290 min per month. A relatively high frequency of personal consultations was significantly associated with the absolute number of full-time equivalent pharmacists in the pharmacy. CONCLUSION: The frequency of pharmaceutical consultations in private is low, but may be improved by reorganisation of the pharmacist's activities. The possibility of personal consultations by e-mail is not yet well-developed. Further research is needed to assess the patient's view of pharmaceutical consultations in private.     

Infantile hypopituitarism: etiological variability evidenced by MRI

In this study, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed to document potentially present morphostructural abnormalities of the hypothalamopituitary region in seven infants (age 0–21 months) who presented very early in life with clinical and biochemical evidence of hypopituitarism. Four infants had associated congenital cerebro-facial malformations.The following anatomical abnormalities were identified in variable combinations: ectopic neurohypophysis absence of the pituitary stalk, extreme elongation of the pituitary stalk, aplasia of the anterior pituitary lobe and no identification of the hypothalamopituitary complex.MRI proved to be very sensitive in the identification of structural malformations of the hypothalamopituitary region in infants with or without cerebro-facial malformations. AllhwuLll the magnetic resonance image does not appear to be a good predictor of endocrine dysfunction, it provides us more insight into the precise aetiology of this disorder and may be therefore of diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic importance.     

Shoulder instability: impact of glenohumeral arthrotomography on treatment

We used arthrotomography to study the glenoid labrum in 114 patients. Sixty-nine of the patients had anatomic instability of the shoulder (including recurrent dislocation and subluxation of the shoulder), and 45 patients had functional instability of the shoulder (denoted by chronic pain, clicking of the joint, and the sensation that an unstable condition exists without the objective signs of it). Labral tears were revealed arthrotomographically in 86% of the patients with anatomic instability, while only 40% of the patients with functional instability had labral abnormalities, and these were primarily of minor severity. Fifty-six patients (44 of whom had anatomic instability; 12, functional instability) required surgery. The surgical findings were correlated with the arthrotomographic findings, and no false-positive results were revealed. However, arthrotomography demonstrated only part of the pathologic condition of two patients. These results confirm that there is a strong correlation between labral pathologic conditions and anatomic instability of the shoulder. Arthrotomographic studies have a great impact on the selection of therapy in cases of both anatomic and functional instability of the shoulder.     

Inflammatory properties of recombinant tumor necrosis factor in rabbit skin in vivo

We have investigated the ability of recombinant TNF (mouse and human) to produce acute inflammatory lesions in an established experimental model of inflammation. Upon intradermal injection in rabbit skin, TNF, in amounts as low as 3 x 10(-14) mol/site, was found to be very potent at inducing local neutrophil accumulation and neutrophil-dependent oedema formation, thereby fulfilling two important criteria to be considered as an inflammatory mediator. Our findings further indicate that the pro-inflammatory properties of TNF are probably more related to its immediate stimulatory effects on neutrophils rather than to its slow (protein biosynthesis-dependent effects on endothelial cells. Our data thus show that very low amounts of mouse and human recombinant TNF can initiate an acute inflammatory reaction in vivo in rabbit skin and that TNF is able to evoke two of the four cardinal signs of inflammation.     

Eosinophilic granuloma of the head and neck: CT and MRI features in three cases

We report the radiological findings and more specifically the MRI features in three typical cases of Langerhans' cell histiocytosis of the head and neck. All three cases were of solitary eosinophilic granuloma of bone: two mandibular and one temporal bone lesion. Reports on the MRI features of head and neck eosinophilic granulomas are rare.