After a basic package of health services was introduced by Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Health, the development and performance of Afghanistan's health care services improved dramatically in many areas between 2004 and 2008, particularly in health service capacity and delivery of care. However, the editors of PLoS Medicine warn of the dangers of security issues for health staff and patients, which is seriously hampering progress, and argue that the likelihood of Afghanistan emerging from its fragile status is far from certain.
Culture
Two research studies in this week's PLoS Medicine suggest that a new automated DNA test for tuberculosis (Xpert MTB/RIF), which can detect TB within 2 hours and has been endorsed by the World Health Organization, can significantly increase TB detection rate compared to other tests, particularly in HIV positive patients who have a high risk of being infected with TB, including multidrug resistant TB. An accompanying Essay and Perspective highlight the economic challenges and implications of such diagnostic tests.
"High-dose vitamin D seems to be really effective in reducing the musculoskeletal pain caused by aromatase inhibitors," Rastelli says. "Patients who get the vitamin D weekly feel better because their pain is reduced and sometimes goes away completely. This makes the drugs much more tolerable. Millions of women worldwide take aromatase inhibitor therapy, and we may have another 'tool' to help them remain on it longer."
Among elderly Medicare beneficiaries with limited prior drug coverage, implementation of Medicare Part D was associated with significant reductions in nondrug medical spending, such as for inpatient and skilled nursing facility care, according to a study in the July 27 issue of JAMA.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers have found a way to help growers minimize emissions of fumigants used as soil treatments.
Research leader Sharon Papiernik, with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Brookings, S.D., used specially designed chambers to test the permeability of dozens of films used to cover fumigated soil. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, and the research supports the USDA commitment to agricultural sustainability.
Amsterdam, 26 July 2011 - Several commentaries in Reproductive BioMedicine Online are on the subject of how many embryos it is safe and proper to place in a uterus, and how best to regulate this decision.
It is a dilemma faced by all patients anxiously caught between no pregnancies at all or facing the prospect of twins or triplets. In this difficult place it is often all too easy to think that the latter option must be the best. But is it?
Oxford, July 26, 2011 – Adrenaline has kept its place in cardiac arrest guidelines despite limited evidence for or against its use. The PACA (Placebo versus Adrenaline versus Cardiac Arrest) study by Jacobs and colleagues, soon to be published in Resuscitation, the official journal of the European Resuscitation Council, provides the best evidence to date supporting the use of adrenaline to treat cardiac arrest.
Parents who move to the United States without legal status generally seek better opportunities for their young children. Their kids grow up Americanized: speaking English, attending public school, going to the prom and dreaming about what they want to do when they grow up.
WASHINGTON, DC, July 21, 2011 — Parents who move to the United States without legal status generally seek better opportunities for their young children. Their kids grow up Americanized: speaking English, attending public school, going to the prom, and dreaming about what they want to do when they grow up.
WASHINGTON, DC, July 21, 2011 — Union membership in America has declined significantly since the early 1970s, and that plunge explains approximately a fifth of the increase in hourly wage inequality among women and about a third among men, according to a new study in the August issue of the American Sociological Review.
A clinical trial led by Newcastle University shows that the drug, idebenone (Catena®), improved the vision and perception of colour in patients with Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON). The inherited condition means patients, who can see normally, lose the sight in one eye then within 3 to 6 months lose the sight in their other eye.
The NHS is poorly prepared to care for obese patients, lacking dedicated equipment and adequately trained staff, among other things, reveals an analysis of patient safety incidents, published online in Postgraduate Medical Journal.
The authors analysed patient safety incident data reported to the National Reporting and Learning System, which is run by the National Patient Safety Agency.
They looked for all incident reports relating to, or caused by, obesity over a period of three years from 2005 to 2008, to identify any common themes.
Programs designed to help transition care for hospitalized older patients to outside healthcare clinicians and settings are associated with reduced rates of hospital readmissions, according to two reports in the July 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Warfare, triggered by political conflict between the fifth century B.C. and the first century A.D., likely shaped the development of the first settlement that would classify as a civilization in the Titicaca basin of southern Peru, a new UCLA study suggests.
Jacinta Conrad, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Houston, likens her research into how bacteria move to "tracking bright spots on a dark background."
Using a digital camera affixed to a microscope, Conrad and her collaborators videotape hours of moving bacteria. They then analyze these tens of thousands of images to determine exactly how they cross surfaces before forming biofilms, colonies of potentially dangerous bacteria that can be found in industrial, natural and hospital environments.