[The phenomenology of delusions of poisoning in persons with paranoid schizophrenia]. / Die Phänomenologie des Vergiftungswahns bei Menschen mit paranoider Schizophrenie.

GOAL: The aim of the study was to investigate delusions of poisoning in people with paranoid schizophrenia. Specifically, how often delusions of poisoning occur, how the delusional content is represented and to what extent women and men differ in delusions of poisoning were analysed. METHODS & SAMPLE: Data were collected retrospectively from two psychiatric wards in Germany. Base material comprised the medical records of all persons receiving inpatient treatment due to their paranoid schizophrenia between 2010 and 2014 in one of the two psychiatric wards. The sample consisted of 156 people (96 women, 60 men) diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia showing delusions of poisoning. RESULTS: Delusions of poisoning were a common delusional theme which significantly more often occurred in women than in men. Moreover, women were significantly more likely to have delusions of persecution in addition to their delusions of poisoning. Overall, people with delusions of poisoning often reported being poisoned by close relatives or health workers. Most of those affected assumed that poisoning was carried out through medication, food or drinks.

[Deliberations of the expert advisory council on innovation fund applications]. / Überlegungen des Expertenbeirats zu Anträgen im Rahmen des Innovationsfonds.

The "Innovation Fund" provides incentives for the development and testing of healthcare innovations in the area of the statutory health insurance with the aim to improve the quality of care in Germany. Over a period of initially four years (2016-19), 300 million Euro will be allocated annually to projects on "innovative forms of healthcare provision" and "health services research". Using a formalized procedure, the ten-member expert advisory board appointed by the German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) assess all applications on the basis of various criteria for scientific quality, potential of innovation, relevance for health service delivery, and implementability. The present discussion paper sets out important considerations for submission and assessment and puts them up for discussion. (As supplied by the authors).

Barrier protective use of skin care to prevent chemotherapy-induced cutaneous symptoms and to maintain quality of life in patients with breast cancer.

PURPOSE: Chemotherapy with anthracyclines, taxanes, or alkylating agents often causes cutaneous side effects. Nonspecific inhibition of the proliferative activity of keratinocytes has antidifferentiation effects that lead to defects in the barrier function and, thus, to dry, itchy, and irritable skin. These cutaneous symptoms reduce the quality of life of the patients considerably. Conditioning with topical application of niacinamide uses the cytoprotective and barrier stabilizing effect of vitamin B3. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A multicenter randomized crossover study investigated the influence of the test preparation on the quality of life compared to standard care for 73 patients with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant or neoadjuvant cytostatic therapy. Primary target parameter was the Dermatology Life Quality Index with its respective subscales after 6 weeks of a twice-daily application of the respective preparations. Additionally, specific symptoms such as pruritus, dryness, and irritability have been assessed using visual analog scales. RESULTS: Regarding the total score of the Dermatology Life Quality Index, no relevant differences could be observed. However, the results for the "symptoms and feelings" subscale show a significant advantage in favor of the test preparation. Significant superiority of the test preparation could also be observed in the secondary target parameters, the visual analog scales (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The results show for the first time a significant superiority of prophylactic application of niacinamide for maintaining quality of life while undergoing cytostatic treatment.

Assessing psychosocial vulnerability and care needs of pretransplant patients by means of the INTERMED.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether the INTERMED, a generic instrument for assessing biopsychosocial case complexity and direct care, identifies organ transplant patients at risk of unfavourable post-transplant development by comparing it to the Transplant Evaluation Rating Scale (TERS), the established measure for pretransplant psychosocial evaluation. METHOD: One hundred nineteen kidney, liver, and heart transplant candidates were evaluated using the INTERMED, TERS, SF-36, EuroQol, Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and Hospital Anxiety & Depression Scale (HADS). RESULTS: We found significant relationships between the INTERMED and the TERS scores. The INTERMED highly correlated with the HADS,MADRS, and mental and physical health scores of the SF-36 Health Survey. CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate the validity and usefulness of the INTERMED instrument for pretransplant evaluation. Furthermore, our findings demonstrate the different qualities of INTERMED and TERS in clinical practice. The advantages of the psychiatric focus of the TERS and the biopsychosocial perspective of the INTERMED are discussed in the context of current literature on integrated care.

Symptom presentation, interventions, and outcome of emotionally-distressed patients in primary care.

BACKGROUND: Patients with psychosocial problems often present somatic symptoms in primary care. OBJECTIVE: The authors compare interventions and outcomes of emotionally-distressed patients by presenting physical disease, somatoform symptoms, or psychological symptoms. METHOD: General practitioners (N=191) documented data from 1,286 patients with psychosocial problems. Experts rated the presented reasons for encounter. RESULTS: Somatoform symptoms, as well as physical disease, result in patients' receiving physical treatments. Psychologically-oriented treatment is more likely with psychological presentation, but not significantly related to somatoform symptoms. CONCLUSION: These findings underline the importance of a specific treatment approach for patients with somatoform symptoms, so as to avoid inappropriate treatment.

Silicosection and elucidation of the plant circadian clock using Bayesian classifiers and new genemining algorithm.

Datasets with a high dimensional feature space, advancing statistical methods, and computational efficiency were analyzed to uncover the rules of the circadian rhythms. The aim of the study was to uncover the identity, the dynamic behavior, and the interactions among the components of the circadian clock. Transcriptional profiling has exposed the regulon conferring benefits for circadian biology and bioinformatics. Circadian plant time course gene expression data was examined, this was the prerequisite for Naive Bayes classifiers which were trained and led to expression model with a success rate of up to 87%. The model showed new combinatorial rules, including presence of elements and their frequencies in driving particular phases. Implementation of Genemining V2.3 multipotent algorithm showed the specific combinations of elements responsible for expression patterns, highlighting the role of GATA motifs. State-of-the-art technologies allowed for a model in silico, the first such model was made using time course circadian data.

[Evidence-based treatment of depression: what does the new S3- and national healthcare guideline Unipolar Depression really recommend?]. / Evidenzbasierte Behandlung bei depressiven Erkrankungen--was empfiehlt die neue S3-/Nationale Versorgungsleitlinie "Unipolare Depression" wirklich?

The paper reflects central recommendations and methodological issues of the new German guidelines for the treatment of depression, as discussed in the article New German Guidelines for the Treatment of Depression - The Central Role of Psychotherapy (Schauenburg et al. 2009). Members of the steering group for these guidelines disagree with the authors' description in several points, especially with reference to the efficacy of pharmacotherapy with antidepressants and psychotherapy, as well as the relationship between both strategies of therapy and their combination in diverse phases of treatment (acute/maintenance). Furthermore, we try to clarify some misunderstandings in matters of the guideline's methodology which arose in the paper cited.

A preliminary report of the dopamine receptor D(4) and the dopamine transporter 1 gene polymorphism and its association with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent childhood-onset psychiatric syndromes affecting 5%-10% of school-age children worldwide. Distortions in the catecholaminergic system seem to be responsible for this condition. Within this system there are several candidate genes, the dopamine receptor D(4) (DRD4) and the dopamine transporter 1 (DAT1), with common polymorphism which might be associated with ADHD. We performed a family based association study with 36 trios and 19 parent proband pairs. All diagnoses were confirmed by the "Hypescheme" diagnostic computer program. In this study we did not observe an association of ADHD with DRD4 and DAT1 polymorphism neither by the haplotype relative risk (HRR) method nor by the transmission disequilibrium test (TdT) method. The odds ratio for the DRD4 7-allele was 1.01 and 0.94 for both statistical tests, respectively, and the respective odds ratio for the DAT1 6-allele were 0.91 and 0.88.

Synthesis, characterization, and in vitro cytotoxic activities of benzaldehyde thiosemicarbazone derivatives and their palladium (II) and platinum (II) complexes against various human tumor cell lines.

The palladium (II) bis-chelate Pd (L(1-3))(2) and platinum (II) tetranuclear Pt(4)(L(4))(4) complexes of benzaldehyde thiosemicarbazone derivatives have been synthesized, and characterized by elemental analysis and IR, FAB(+)-mass and NMR ((1)H, (13)C) spectroscopy. The complex Pd(L(2))(2) [HL(2) = m-CN-benzaldehyde thiosemicarbazone] shows a square-planar geometry with two deprotonated ligands (L) coordinated to Pd(II) through the nitrogen and sulphur atoms in a transarrangement, while the complex Pt(4)(L(4))(4) [HL(4) = 4-phenyl-1-benzaldehyde thiosemicarbazone] has a tetranuclear geometry with four tridentate ligands coordinated to four Pt(II) ions through the carbon (aromatic ring), nitrogen, and sulphur atoms where the ligands are deprotonated at the NH group. The in vitro antitumor activity of the ligands and their complexes was determined against different human tumor cell lines, which revealed that the palladium (II) and platinum (II) complexes are more cytotoxic than their ligands with IC(50) values at the range of 0.07-3.67 microM. The tetranuclear complex Pt(4)(L(4))(4), with the phenyl group in the terminal amine of the ligand, showed higher antiproliferative activity (CI(50) = 0.07-0.12 microM) than the other tested palladium (II) complexes.

Synthesis, characterization and antitumor activity of copper(II) complexes, [CuL2] [HL1-3=N,N-diethyl-N'-(R-benzoyl)thiourea (R=H, o-Cl and p-NO2)].

The copper (II) complexes (CuL(2)) were prepared by reaction of Cu(CH(3)COO)(2) with the corresponding derivatives of acylthioureas in a Cu:HL molar ratio of 1:2. Acylthiourea ligands, N,N-diethyl-N'-(R-benzoyl) thiourea (HL(1-3)) [R=H, o-Cl and p-NO(2)] were synthesized in high yield (78-83%) and characterized by elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, (1)H and (13)C NMR spectroscopy. The complexes CuL(2) were characterized by elemental analysis, IR, FAB(+)-MS, magnetic susceptibility measurements, EPR and cyclic voltammetry. The crystal structure of the complex Cu(L(2))(2) shows a nearly square-planar geometry with two deprotonated ligands (L) coordinated to Cu(II) through the oxygen and sulfur atoms in a cis arrangement. The antitumor activity of the copper(II) complexes with acylthiourea ligands was evaluated in vitro against the mouse mammary adenocarcinoma TA3 cell line. These complexes exhibited much higher cytotoxic activity (IC(50) values in the range of 3.9-6.9 muM) than their corresponding ligands (40-240 muM), which indicates that the coordination of the chelate ligands around the Cu(II) enhances the antitumor activity and, furthermore, this result confirmed that the participation of the nitro and chloro substituent groups in the complex activities is slightly relevant. The high accumulation of the complexes Cu(L(2))(2) and Cu(L(3))(2) in TA3 tumor cells and the much faster binding to cellular DNA than Cu(L(1))(2) are consistent with the in vitro cytotoxic activities found for these copper complexes.

[Social network and social support in patients with chronic inflammatory bowel disease]. / Soziales Netzwerk und soziale Unterstützung bei Patienten mit chronisch entzündlicher Darmerkrankung.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to make a precise analysis of social network and social support to patients with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (CEDE) in comparison with healthy controls. METHODS: 35 patients with colitis ulcerosa and 47 patients with Morbus Crohn were interviewed using the questionnaire for investigating social network and social support (SONET). Medical data on disease activity were also assessed. CEDE patients were compared with healthy controls, and patients with active disease were compared with those whose disease was in remission. RESULTS: In comparison to healthy controls, the patients demonstrated a significantly smaller network, comprising fewer extra-familial persons but more relationships to the closest core family members. CEDE patients also reported a significantly smaller number of persons from whom they received social support. Patients with active disease were generally more unsatisfied with the support received than those whose disease was in remission. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that the closest family members are usually responsible for the patient's social support. Further investigation is necessary to assess the needs of the core family in this stressful situation.

Differences in family functioning between patients with chronic headache and patients with chronic low back pain.

The family climate in 36 families, comprising 154 individuals, was investigated. The objective of this study was to compare families where the mother suffered from chronic headache to families with pain-free mothers and to those where the mother suffered from chronic low back pain. The Family Environment Scale (FES) was used to evaluate the family climate in these 3 groups as perceived by the members of the family. The results in sufficiently standardized groups show a significantly reduced intra-family openness (P < 0.0001) in families where the mother suffered from chronic headache. Both pain groups were less active in their leisure time than the pain-free families. Based on the findings of the present study, the impact of the psychosocial environment as a novel normative value for chronic pain syndromes is discussed in relation to the need for further research and treatment modalities.