Concurrent Validation of Substance Abusers Self-Reports Against Collateral Information: Percentage Agreement VS. k Vs. Yule's Y

The ability for chemical users to give an accurate self-report of (ubrbnce use vs. abstinence has been questioned. This study hatlgated its concurrent validity, against collateral ratings. The results indicated that validity of reports of chemical use must be evaluated in the context of the validity of other types of information. Chemical use items were corroborated about as often as such nonchemical use items as reports of emergency room visits, arrests, md hospitalizations, thus arguing against the presence of a specific denlal syndrome or overarching tendency toward self-misrepresenletion. Relative concurrent validities seemed more a function of such factors as item salience and specificity. No consistent trend in patient over-or underreporting of chemical use was found. The choice of concurrent validation statistic is important and can influence interpretation of results. Current standards such as percentage agreement and K were seen as flawed; comparisons of results based on these two measures, as well as Yule's Y led to the conclusion that Yule's Y is the statistic of choice.     

Human papillomavirus typing with a polymerase chain reaction-based genotyping array compared with type-specific PCR

BACKGROUND: Type-specific persistence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection can cause invasive cervical cancer. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the efficacy of HPV detection and typing with a general polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based genotyping array and to compare it with a type-specific PCR assay. STUDY DESIGN: Four hundred and thirty-three cervical samples were tested with a modified MY11/GP6+ PCR-based reverse-blot assay (EasyChip HPV Blot; King Car, Taiwan [hereafter HPV Blot]) and with 20 genotypes of L1-type-specific PCR (HPV-6, -11, -16, -18, -31, -33, -35, -39, -45, -51, -52, -53, -56, -58, -59, -62, -66, -68, -70, and -71 [CP8061]). RESULTS: The concordance of the two tests in determining HPV positivity was 96.8% (419/433), with a Cohen's kappa=0.93 (95% CI: 0.90-0.97) and McNemar's test of P=1.0, which indicates excellent agreement. The overall concordance of the two tests in the identification of type-specific HPV was 91.0% (394/433). Sensitivity (90-100%), specificity (99.2-100%), and accuracy (98.6-100%) rates of HPV Blot against the gold standard were satisfactory for HPV-16, -18, -58, -33, -52, -39, -45, -31, -51, -70 while HPV-71 (63.6%) had suboptimal sensitivity. Though the kappa values between the two tests for many individual genotypes could not be reliably calculated because of low positivity, the kappa values for HPV-16, -52, and -58 were excellent (0.93, 0.96, and 0.95, respectively). CONCLUSION: The modified MY11/GP6+ PCR-based HPV Blot assay is accurate and sensitive for detection and genotyping of HPV in cervical swab samples.     

CSS-Ⅱ型ECG微机自动诊断与临床金标准在1160例中的比较研究

作者自行设计的CSS-Ⅱ型心电图微型计算机自动诊断系统试用于临床,受试者1160例,其中波形异常和心律失常共247份心电图,从913份正常心电图中随机抽样106份,两者共计353份图纸,用本研究诊断确定的“金标准”(Gold standard)与该系统的自动诊断结论进行比较。结果:波形诊断及心律失常的诊断一致率均在90％以上,排除了机遇诊断一致率,其波形为90％,心律失常为88％。     

社会文化与知情同意的伦理原则

由于社会文化的原因,知情同意原则在我国并未得到充分的认同,但对知情同意原则未实施的原因应具体分析,对癌症病人的心理能力的考虑,病人知情同意权利意识的缺乏,医务人员对病人知情权利的漠视,缺乏知情同意实施的社会文化土壤是知情同意原则在我国衽的主要阻力。     

临床知情同意准则确立的伦理和法律意义

由于临床医生忽视病人知情同意权而引起的医疗法律纠纷案不断增多,成为医院医疗和管理工作的一个新的关注点。维护病人在医疗中享有的知情同意权是临床医疗的基本准则;病人的这种自主权利受到道德的支持和现行法律的保护,提高医院和医生对医疗中知情同意的意识和相关问题的敏感性在未来的医疗和医患关系中显得越来越重要。     

Consistency of gait characteristics as determined from acceleration data collected at different trunk locations

Estimates of gait characteristics may suffer from errors due to discrepancies in accelerometer location. This is particularly problematic for gait measurements in daily life settings, where consistent sensor positioning is difficult to achieve. To address this problem, we equipped 21 healthy adults with tri-axial accelerometers (DynaPort MiniMod, McRoberts) at the mid and lower lumbar spine and anterior superior iliac spine (L2, L5 and ASIS) while continuously walking outdoors back and forth (20 times) over a distance of 20 m, including turns. We compared 35 gait characteristics between sensor locations by absolute agreement intra-class correlations (2, 1; ICC). We repeated these analyses after applying a new method for off-line sensor realignment providing a unique definition of the vertical and, by symmetry optimization, the two horizontal axes. Agreement between L2 and L5 after realignment was excellent (ICC > 0.9) for stride time and frequency, speed and their corresponding variability and good (ICC > 0.7) for stride regularity, movement intensity, gait symmetry and smoothness and for local dynamic stability. ICC values benefited from sensor realignment. Agreement between ASIS and the lumbar locations was less strong, in particular for gait characteristics like symmetry, smoothness, and local dynamic stability (ICC generally < 0.7). Unfortunately, this lumbar-ASIS agreement did not benefit consistently from sensor realignment. Our findings show that gait characteristics are robust against limited repositioning error of sensors at the lumbar spine, in particular if our off-line realignment is applied. However, larger positioning differences (from lumbar positions to ASIS) yield less consistent estimates and should hence be avoided.     

Performance of EAST in diagnosing inhalant allergens in children with allergic rhinitis

The performance of enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (EAST) for identifying six indoor allergens was evaluated using skin prick test (SPT) as reference tests in 154 children with allergic rhinitis. Sensitivity of EAST ranged from 9% (cat) to 54% (HDM) with specificity of 74%(cockroach) to 100% (cat) with an agreement ranged from 58 to 86%. Cut off values ?> ?0.35 kU/L showed best sensitivity and specificity. Our findings agree with extant literature which suggests that the ability of EAST to determine the precipitating allergen is moderate. Assays for definitively identifying the inhalant allergen are currently not available.     

Multidisciplinary team meeting for complex bone and joint infections diagnosis: The PHICTOS study

Background

In France, the most severe bone and joint infections (BJI), called “complex” (CBJI), are assessed in a multidisciplinary team meeting (MTM) in a reference center. However, the definition of CBJI, drawn up by the Health Ministry, is not consensual between physicians. The objective was to estimate the agreement for CBJI classification.

协定肢伤Ⅰ方口服、热敷治疗四肢闭合损伤大样本随机平行对照研究

[目的]观察协定肢伤I方口服热敷治疗四肢闭合损伤疗效。[方法]使用大样本随机平行对照方法,将2468例门诊及住院患者按掷骰子法随机分为两组。对照组1212例协定肢伤I方(红花、延胡索各15g,桃仁、川芎、赤芍、生三七粉另包冲服、当归、泽泻、桂枝、牛膝、山楂各10g),1剂/d,水煎300mL,早晚温服;蜡疗机熬化粗石蜡装塑料袋敷于患处,12h/次。治疗组1256例协定肢伤I方药渣加水送入湿热敷机内与敷布同煮30min,于伤后或术后24h将敷布外套棉布贴敷于伤处,30min/次,2次/d;协定肢伤I方口服同对照组。连续治疗7d为1疗程。观测临床症状、疼痛积分、肿胀指数、不良反应。治疗1疗程,判定疗效。[结果]治疗组痊愈922例,显效248例,有效63例,无效23例,总有效率98.16%。对照组痊愈705例,显效278例,有效105例,无效124例,总有效率89.76%。治疗组疗效优于对照组(P0.05)。相关指标两组均有改善(P0.05),治疗组改善优于对照组(P0.05)。[结论]协定肢伤I方口服热敷治疗四肢闭合损伤效果显著,值得推广。