African-American patients with cancer Talking About Clinical Trials (TACT) with oncologists during consultations: evaluating the efficacy of tailored health messages in a randomised controlled trial-the TACT study protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Low rates of accrual of African-American (AA) patients with cancer to therapeutic clinical trials (CTs) represent a serious and modifiable racial disparity in healthcare that impedes the development of promising cancer therapies. Suboptimal physician-patient consultation communication is a barrier to the accrual of patients with cancer of any race, but communication difficulties are compounded with AA patients. Providing tailored health messages (THM) to AA patients and their physician about CTs has the potential to improve communication, lower barriers to accrual and ameliorate health disparities. OBJECTIVE: (1) Demonstrate the efficacy of THM to increase patient activation as measured by direct observation. (2) Demonstrate the efficacy of THM to improve patient outcomes associated with barriers to AA participation. (3) Explore associations among preconsultation levels of: (A) trust in medical researchers, (B) knowledge and attitudes towards CTs, (C) patient-family member congruence in decision-making, and (D) involvement/information preferences, and group assignment. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: First, using established methods, we will develop THM materials. Second, the efficacy of the intervention is determined in a 2 by 2 factorial randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness of (1) providing 357 AA patients with cancer with THM with 2 different 'depths' of tailoring and (2) either providing feedback to oncologists about the patients' trial THM or not. The primary analysis compares patient engaged communication in 4 groups preconsultation and postconsultation. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study was approved by the Virginia Commonwealth University Institutional Review Board. To facilitate use of the THM intervention in diverse settings, we will convene 'user groups' at 3 major US cancer centres. To facilitate dissemination, we will post all materials and the implementation guide in publicly available locations. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02356549.

[Reflex activity of the elevator muscles of the human mandible: electromyographic study]. / Activité réflexe des élévateurs de la mandibule chez l'homme: étude électromyographique.

In this study of global electromyography, of the masseter and anterior temporal muscles of man, the stimulus used was the mechanical percussion of the chin, the results being recorded on an oscilloscope. The twenty-two subjects used presented no sign of pathology after clinical examination. On the same subject, for one given muscle, the reflex was identically reproduced. The latency time was a very constant parameter; 7,8 ms for the masseter muscle and 10 ms for the temporal muscle. These values are not significantly different from one another. They are compared to those obtained by other authors. On the other hand, the reflex response of the anterior temporal muscle can present a particular pattern comparable with that of the trigemino-facial reflex.