[What do Interpreters Cost? - A Retrospective Analysis of the Costs for Interpreters in Treatment of Refugees in a Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic in Berlin]. / Was kosten uns Dolmetscher? ­ Eine retrospektive Analyse der Dolmetscherkosten in der Behandlung von Flüchtlingen in einer Psychiatrischen Institutsambulanz in Berlin.

Clinical diagnostics of mental disorders especially among refugees and asylum seekers come with unique difficulties: language barriers, different forms of expression and concepts of the understanding of mental illness as well as a different cultural background. Therefore professional interpreters are needed but associated with a higher effort related to costs and time. We conducted a retrospective analysis of costs, which incurred by the use of professional interpreters in our outpatient clinic in Berlin, Germany, in the first quarter 2016 for the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. The sample consisted of 110 refugees and asylum seekers; the highest costs in the use of interpreters incurred among Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders (53.04%), especially Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (39.04%), as well as affective disorders (38.47%), especially major depressive episodes (25.23%). Our data point out the crucial need of a regulation of costs with regard to the service of professional interpreters in Germany.

[SPECT and FDG-PET in diagnostics of neurolues]. / SPECT und FDG-PET in der Diagnostik der Neurolues.

Syphilis is a recurrent treponematosis of acute and chronic evolution. In general it is either sexually or congenitally transmitted. Primary syphilis appears as a single and painless lesion. Secondary syphilis may manifest years later, the secondary bacteremic stage is accompanied by generalized mucocutaneous lesions. Tertiary disease can be disseminated to bones and virtually any organ, involving principally the ascending aorta and the central nervous system. Nuclear medicine provides diagnostic methods in case of skeletal manifestations by bone scan - identifying periostitis and osteomyelitis. Hepatic gummas can be imaged by 99m-Tc-colloid liver scintigraphy. In neurosyphilis brain perfusion SPECT enables imaging of cerebral involvement by small vessel endarteritis resulting from syphilitic vascular disease. 18-FDG PET is also useful to evaluate neurosyphilis, a reduction of brain glucose consumption is observed. The technique adequately enables imaging of therapeutic response and might be superior to morphologic imaging. We present our experiences with these nuclear medicine methods in patients with neurolues. The incidence of neurolues is estimated at 2 per 100.000 inhabitants worldwide, migration processes might bring a re-emergence of this disease to Austria and other developed countries of the EU. Scintigraphic methods should be kept in mind for diagnostic evaluation of neurosyphilis.