Developing a Point-of-Sale Health Communication Campaign for Cigarillos and Waterpipe Tobacco

ABSTRACT

Adolescents and young adults smoke waterpipe tobacco (WT) and cigarillos, at least in part, based on erroneous beliefs that these products are safer than cigarettes. To address this challenge, we used a systematic, three-phase process to develop a health communication campaign to discourage WT and cigarillo smoking among at-risk (tobacco users and susceptible non-users) 16- to 25-year-olds. In Phase 1, we used a national phone survey (N = 896) to determine salient message beliefs. Participants reported constituents (i.e., harmful chemicals) emitted by the products were worrisome. In Phase 2, we developed and evaluated four message executions, with varying imagery, tone, and unappealing products with the same constituents, using focus groups (N = 38). Participants rated one execution highly, resulting in our development of a campaign where each message: (1) identified a tobacco product and constituent in the smoke; (2) included an image of an unappealing product containing the constituent (e.g., pesticides, gasoline) to grab attention; and (3) used a humorous sarcastic tone. In Phase 3, we tested the campaign messages (17 intervention and six control) with a nationally representative online survey (N = 1,636). Participants rated intervention and control messages highly with few differences between them. Exposure to messages resulted in significant increases in all risk beliefs from pre to post (p < 0.05). For WT, intervention messages increased beliefs about addiction more than control messages (p < 0.05). This systematic, iterative approach resulted in messages that show promise for discouraging WT and cigarillo use.     

Use of CO2 to move structures as an aid to percutaneous procedures

By injecting small amounts of CO2 through a needle, one can move bowel or bladder from the intended path of instruments during interventional procedures. The technique worked well in six of seven cases in the pelvis and retroperitoneum; it was not effective in the mediastinum or midabdomen (n = 6).     

外科手术中产生的烟气:仅仅是大量的热空气吗?

外科医生和手术室人员经常接触手术设备产生的烟气,病人也会暴露于烟气中,特别是腹腔镜手术中产生的烟气滞留于腹腔内这一密闭空间并被吸收.这些烟气是一种与香烟烟气相似的毒性物质,然而对这种毒性物质的影响还未引起足够重视.应该采取必要措施尽可能减少手术中烟气的不良影响.     

Detection of frequent allelic loss on proximal chromosome 17q in sporadic breast carcinoma using microsatellite length polymorphisms.

Analyses of losses of heterozygosity and linkage studies have implicated a gene(s) on chromosome 17q in the genesis of sporadic and early-onset familial breast carcinomas, respectively. To define the critical region of 17q, we examined DNAs from a series of 20 sporadic breast carcinomas and corresponding blood samples for allelic losses of chromosome 17q using microsatellite length polymorphisms. With these highly informative markers (average heterozygosity, 0.73), we observed frequent deletions of 17q at several loci. We found that D17S250 was deleted in 50% (7 of 14), THRA1 in 79% (11 of 14), D17S579 in 59% (11 of 19), NME1 in 29% (5 of 17), MPO in 36% (4 of 11), and GH in 25% (4 of 16) in the tumor set examined. A common region of deletion was found that was flanked by D17S250 to D15S579. These markers have recently been localized to a 6-cM interval of proximal chromosome 17q in bands 17q11.2-q21 and map within the region of the early-onset familial breast cancer locus, implying that the same gene or genes may be involved in both sporadic and familial breast tumors. Thyroid hormone receptor alpha and retinoic acid receptor alpha are two potential candidate genes in this region.