Effect of Assertive Community Treatment for Patients with Substance Use Disorder: A Systematic Review.

PURPOSE: Substance use disorders (SUD) are an important health issue internationally. Traditional outpatient programmes often do not adequately address the substantial medical and social needs and in addition many patients have difficulties accessing the care needed. The assertive community treatment (ACT) model was originally developed for patients with a severe mental illness but has been adapted for patients with SUD by integrating specific SUD treatments into the traditional ACT model. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of ACT for patients with SUD on a number of measures. METHODS: We performed a systematic review of ACT interventions for patients with SUD by analyzing randomized controlled studies published before June 2017 found on the electronic databases PsychINFO, MEDLINE, PsychARTICLES. Eleven publications using 5 datasets were included in the analysis. Quality of studies was analyzed using the JADAD scale or Oxford quality scoring system. Outcome measures used were substance use, treatment engagement, hospitalization rates, quality of life, housing status, medication compliance and legal problems. Patients included in the studies had a diagnosis of SUD. Two datasets included homeless patients and 2 datasets included patients with high service use. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The results of the very few existing randomized control studies are mixed. Treatment engagement was higher for ACT in 4 datasets. One dataset reported higher service contact rates for the ACT group than for controls. In 2 datasets a positive effect on hospitalization rates was found. Higher fidelity to the ACT model appears to improve outcomes. Substance use reduced only in half of the datasets, of which only one showed a significant reduction in the ACT group. Overall, ACT is a promising approach that may be useful for promoting treatment engagement for patients with SUD. According to earlier studies on patients with severe mental illness, patients with high inpatient service use benefit most from this assertive approach. We hypothesize that a similar high need user group among patients with SUD might benefit most from ACT. Further research is needed to examine which types of clinical interventions might help difficult-to-engage patients with addictions.

Immunohistochemical and Molecular Diagnosis of Mucocutaneous and Mucosal Leishmaniasis.

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic infection transmitted by the bite of infected female sandflies. It principally affects the skin, and the frequency of mucosal involvement is about 5% to 20%. Considering the rarity of leishmaniasis affecting the upper aerodigestive tract mucosa, we evaluated the characteristics of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis and mucosal leishmaniasis and the diagnostic difficulty when the parasites are scarce in tissue samples. The clinical, histopathological, histochemical, immunohistochemical, and molecular features of 17 cases of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis and mucosal leishmaniasis were assessed. Mucosal disease was principally found in the soft palate, oropharynx, and nose, manifesting mainly as a solitary ulcer. In hematoxylin and eosin-stained sections, 10 cases revealed abundant amastigotes within the macrophages. Giemsa staining was not shown to be helpful to confirm the diagnosis in 6 cases with scarce or nondetectable amastigotes. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) showed high sensitivity by positive staining in 14 out of 17 cases (82.3%). Polymerase chain reaction was shown to be more sensitive than IHC with 13 out of 14 (92.8%) positive cases, including the 3 IHC negative cases; however, this technique is not available in many endemic regions. In summary, we suggest that the IHC is a simple technique with rapid results and relatively low cost, when compared with other laboratorial procedures; thus, IHC is a helpful tool that should be implemented in the routine diagnosis of leishmania.

Systematic Review of Food Addiction as Measured with the Yale Food Addiction Scale: Implications for the Food Addiction Construct.

BACKGROUND: The concept of food addiction attracts much interest in the scientific community. Research is mainly based on the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), a tool developed to assess food addiction. Substance use disorder criteria have been used to develop this scale. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper was to review the clinical significance of food addiction diagnoses made with the YFAS and to discuss the results in light of the current debate on behavioral addictions. METHODS: We performed a systematic review of the studies that assessed food addiction with the YFAS published between January 2014 and July 2017 by searching the electronic databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and PsycARTICLES. RESULTS: Sixty publications were included in the analysis. Thirty-three studies examined nonclinical samples and 27 examined clinical samples. All studies used YFAS scoring results to define food addiction. The prevalence of food addiction according to the YFAS varied largely by the studied samples. In general, a higher body mass index and the presence of eating disorders (EDs), especially binge eating disorder (BED), were associated with higher YFAS scores. CONCLUSION: The concept of food addiction has not been established to this day although it can be grouped with other EDs such as BED. More research is needed to understand this behavior and the differences between food addiction and other EDs. The criteria for food addiction should be revisited in light of the concepts currently used to examine behavioral addictions.