Trends in prescriptions for glaucoma and ocular hypertension in France between 2014 and 2019.

PURPOSE: To explore the national trend in prescriptions for glaucoma and ocular hypertension (OHT) in France between 2014 and 2019. METHODS: This is a retrospective descriptive study based on prescription data from the Primary Health Insurance Fund databases. All patients with a social security number who received one or more glaucoma/OHT prescriptions between 2014 and 2019 were identified. Figures for 2020 are not yet available as of the date of submission of this article. Demographic characteristics from Common Classification of Medical Acts information and from National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies were analyzed. The data analysis was carried out using the R version 3.6.2.software from the available databases of the Information Systems Medicalization Program. RESULTS: Our results suggest an increase in the number of patients treated with glaucoma drugs, which cannot be explained simply by demographic growth. There is also a change in drug prescription habits, both in the class of medication used and in the use of fixed combinations. We also note the increasing use of SLT (Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty), a relatively newer tool in the therapeutic arsenal. Over the same time period, demographic characteristics remained stable; age and sex distribution for each year remained constant. In addition, the phenomenon of poor therapeutic compliance, which we attempted to explore, remained stable. DISCUSSION: This study updates the French epidemiologic data available on prescriptions for glaucoma and ocular hypertension, a true public health concern. CONCLUSION: On the one hand, prescribing practices have evolved over the study period. On the other hand, the number of patients treated has increased faster than the growth of the French population over the same period. These findings are consistent with trends observed in previous studies.

Healthcare professionals and students' knowledge on termination of pregnancy legislation and clinical practice: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Legal and safe termination of pregnancy (TOP) has long been recognised as an important public health issue internationally. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) and students have a key role within TOP services, and it is crucial that they have sufficient understanding of laws, guidelines and clinical practice to facilitate safe and effective care. The current systematic review aims to study the level of knowledge of both HCPs and students on TOP legislation, methods and procedures and potential associated complications. METHODS: PubMed, Embase, Scopus and EBSCOhost were searched for peer-reviewed studies published until July 2020. After initial selection, 239 articles were screened in full and 31 studies (qualitative and quantitative) were included. A narrative review and synthesis of the findings was completed. MAIN FINDINGS: Poor knowledge on TOP legislation and clinical practice was reported for HCPs and students. The main issues identified included limited awareness of specific circumstances for legal TOP and poor understanding of methods and medical regimens recommended. Overall, education/training, experience in provision of TOP and receiving reminders of legislation were the main factors associated with increased levels of knowledge. CONCLUSION: HCPs must be fully aware of the clinical practice and circumstances in which TOP is legal in their country/region so adequate provision of this service is ensured. This study highlighted the importance of involving and promoting participation of HCPs and students in the provision of TOP services. A clear need and desire for staff education and training on TOP was shown. Adequate training allows preparation of current and future HCPs to provide respectful and compassionate care.

Development of a PCR assay for diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia based on amplification of the multicopy major surface glycoprotein gene family.

We have evaluated a PCR technique using primers based on Pneumocystis carinii major surface glycoprotein (MSG) genes, a multicopy gene family, for utility in detection of P. carinii in BAL and oropharyngeal samples obtained from immunosuppressed patients. These primers were able to detect P. carinii DNA in as little as 16 fg of genomic DNA. PCR using MSG primers detected P. carinii DNA in 7 smear-positive BAL samples (100% sensitivity), and found no P. carinii DNA in 12 smear-negative BAL samples (100% specificity). Mitochondrial ribosomal RNA (mrRNA) primers, commonly used in PCR studies of PCP, detected P. carinii in six of seven positive samples (85.7% sensitivity) and none of 12 were negative samples (100% specificity). Diagnosis of PCP by amplification of 81 oropharyngeal samples using MSG primers had a 50% sensitivity (4/8) and 96% specificity (70/73). PCR with mrRNA primers was 37.5% sensitive (3/8) and 100% specific (73/73). All three false-positive MSG results showed a very low intensity on Southern hybridization. PCR using MSG gene primers should prove valuable in the diagnosis of PCP.

Human Mycobacterium bovis infection in the south-west of Ireland 1983-1992: a comparison with M. tuberculosis.

Epidemiological and bacteriological aspects of human Mycobacterium bovis disease were investigated in south-west Ireland (counties Cork & Kerry, population 536,000) over the years 1983-92 inclusive and compared to M. tuberculosis. Results showed a small, stable incidence of culture positive M. bovis human disease, mean annual incidence 0.56 per 100,000 population compared to a higher but declining incidence of culture positive M. tuberculosis (15.3 per 100,000 in 1983, 9.0 per 100,000 in 1992). Male patients were the majority, 63.4 per cent of M. bovis; 62.4% of M. tuberculosis (p = 0.03). Fifty three per cent of M. bovis cases (n = 30) were pulmonary, compared to 85% of M. tuberculosis (n = 626; p = 0.0001). M. bovis patients were older (p = 0.02), mean age 58.4 years (SD 18.9) compared to 48.5 (SD 22.2). The mycobacterial smear positive rate was similar in both groups taken as a whole. No rural-urban difference in incidence was found in either disease, suggesting in the case of M. bovis initial infection in childhood via contaminated milk in the pre-pasteurisation era.

Bladder dysfunction: a remedial social problem.

Urinary bladder dysfunction is a leading disability of persons with multiple sclerosis. The study reported here demonstrates that the critical management of this neurologic deficit can improve the patient's quality of life in terms of personal, social, and occupational activities. The urodynamic studies of urinary flow rate, voiding cystourethrography, and positional cystometrography were used to establish the type of neurogenic bladder (areflexic, uninhibited, or mixed). Management regimens were individualized using a combination of anticholinergic or cholinergic drugs, intermittent self-catheterization, and managed fluid intake and voiding.

Sequelae of mild closed head injuries.

Thirty-nine minimal to mild closed head injuries without neurological signs were evaluated by a series of clinically available psychometric tests to determine the presence of identifiable intellectual deficits, rate of recovery, and personality or occupational changes. Even minimally head-injured patients suffer measurable cognitive deficits and occupational and behavioral changes.

What is a clinical fact?

As a preliminary to the question, 'What is a clinical fact?', the author asks the wider question, 'What is a fact?', answering that facts are double in aspect: they both say how the world is, and they also depend on our species, our language, theory, etc. A claim of fact in any empirical discipline--in the natural sciences or in human studies with their different methods--is a truth claim which is not infallible or unique to the fact, and also a claim that must offer itself for verification. Using the clinical record of three sessions, she then tries to answer the question, 'What is a clinical fact?', offering the starting formulation that clinical facts, under the unusual conditions of an analytic hour which give an analyst access to a patient's inner world, manifests themselves in the form of immediate psychological realities between patient and analyst. On the way, the author discusses the analyst's anxieties about making a claim of clinical fact; further striking features emerge about clinical facts in the three sessions, and some unsolved problems, i.e. the variety of analytic theories, subjectivity and objectivity, are noted. Even while they bear the perplexities of their problems, clinical facts are of great significance to the study of the mind. They extend the domain of psychology to the area of the mind's interiority, with its human experiences of subjective meaning, conscious, and especially unconscious.

Can a liar be psychoanalysed?

At first glance a liar is an inauspicious patient for a psychoanalysis, a treatment based on truthfulness. Because it presents in speech, lying may seem a mature difficulty, but analysis reveals that it is primitive, linked to the habitual liar's doubts and anxieties about communication with primary objects which, from several causes, have become for him lying objects. As expected, lying makes for a series of problems which handicap the analytic process. Even so, the paper illustrates clinically the view that if the fundamental level of the lying that emerges in the analysis is addressed by understanding it as the liar's communication that he is a liar in identification with, and acutely anxious about, his lying object--in the transference the analyst--a genuine analytic process can be set in train.

Words and working through.

The paper discusses communication--its modes and its changes--between analyst and patient, and, more particularly, within the patient himself in the course of a psychoanalysis. Clinical material from two cases illustrates how patients may need to communicate to the analyst both in words and also--in order to bring their less developed self--by more primitive modes, which can be understood and conceptualized by Melanie Klein's notion of projective identification. As the patient feels understood by the analyst's words (the mutative interpretations) he may slowly become more aware of his primitive modes of relating, until, ultimately, his method of communication changes and he is himself able to express his understanding of himself in his own words. This brings structural change and a resumption of ego development, and is a mutative moment. In brief: mutative interpretations are not by themselves the agency of change. They put the patient in a position to change. He himself must do the active, mutative working through in his own words.

Enclaves and excursions.

This paper describes and names as 'enclaves' and 'excursions' two deteriorations of the psychoanalytic situation, which occur when an analyst exceeds the limited, partial acting out inevitable in clinical work. Under pressure from his patient an analyst may unwittingly turn the analysis into a refuge from disturbance, i.e. an enclave. If he succumbs to pressures to move away from, instead of towards, knowing what is psychically urgent, an analyst may turn the analysis into a series of flights, i.e. an excursion. Unrecognized, these deformations interfere with or even halt the therapeutic process, which requires that the analyst find a way of working which accommodates both the patient's communication of, and need for, a refuge or flight with the analyst, while at the same time analysing it.

Urodynamic evaluation of voluntary detrusor response in healthy subjects.

The ability of healthy subjects to voluntarily inhibit a bladder detrusor contraction was evaluated using standard urodynamic techniques. Ten healthy subjects (five men and five women) were appraised using trichannel techniques which included measuring bladder volume, bladder pressure, intraabdominal pressure, and electromyographic activity of the anal or external urethral sphincter. Each subject was first evaluated to determine normalcy of urine flow rate. All subjects were assessed in three positions: supine, sitting, and standing. All ten subjects were able to inhibit their detrusor responses without increasing external urethral or anal sphincter activity or raising the tonus pressure limb of the bladder. Three of the subjects were unable to void during any part of the urodynamic evaluation. In one subject, voiding was accomplished by Valsalva maneuver which mimicked detrusor contraction. At least two subjects did not demonstrate their first urge to void until 300 to 400 cc, and one of these individuals was unable to void until his bladder capacity reached 600cc. These results indicated that normal subjects can inhibit their detrusor response during urodynamic studies. Inability to inhibit this response would therefore appear to be an abnormal pattern. Conversely, inability to produce a detrusor response cannot be called an abnormal retention pattern. Bladder volumes in healthy subjects may be higher than the traditional norms, and this must be taken into account during urodynamic evaluations.

Micturition monitor as an aid to management of neurogenic bladder.

A portable, battery-operated micturition monitor has been developed for use by patients with spinal cord injuries. The monitor, when integrated into the external urinary collection device for a male with a spinal cord injury, provides an accurate measure of the elapsed time in minutes since the patient last voided. This measure greatly reduces the efforts required by the medical staff to obtain a reliable residual urine volume measurement.

Detrusor reflex contraction inhibited by anal stretch.

Anal stretch has been advocated as a method to overcome detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia. In evaluating candidates for this technique, it has been observed that in some cases the detrusor reflex and the external sphincter contraction is inhibited. The detrusor-sphincter unit then assumes a lower motor neuron pattern. This explains the need of the Valsalva and Credé maneuver that had been incorporated in the anal stretch technique to allow dyssynergic patients to void.

Urinary bladder dysfunction as a remedial disability in multiple sclerosis: a sociologic perspective.

Forty-two patients formed the sample for this study. They represented a self-selected subset of 115 patients who complained of bladder dysfunction as a disability secondary to multiple sclerosis. The study generated data on previous management and results, subjects' desired current intervention goals, urodynamic evaluation, and current intervention outcomes. Results indicated that bladder dysfunction disabilities are either ignored or mismanaged and that the disability can be reduced to the patient's satisfaction using clinically available diagnostic methods and indicated management.

Correlation of in vitro susceptibility results for amoxicillin-clavulanate and ampicillin-sulbactam tested against Escherichia coli.

The results of amoxicillin-clavulanate (AUG) and ampicillin-sulbactam (A/S) susceptibility testing by three different susceptibility testing methods, the MicroScan, Etest, and Kirby-Bauer methods, for 61 consecutive isolates of ampicillin-resistant Escherichia coli from different patients were compared. There was poor correlation of results for the two agents, the most and least marked discrepancies being observed by the MicroScan method (86.9% susceptible to AUG and 4.9% susceptible to A/S) and the Kirby-Bauer method (39.4% susceptible to AUG and 32.8% susceptible to A/S), respectively. More organisms were susceptible to AUG than A/S, regardless of the susceptibility testing methodology. The results from a College of American Pathologists survey with one E. coli isolate tested at different institutions also indicated greater susceptibility to AUG than to A/S. These agents are thought to be equally efficacious clinically. The discrepancies observed among methods for each antimicrobial inhibitor combination and the discrepancies observed between the two agents by each testing method suggest that the breakpoints for these agents need to be reevaluated.