Recording practices and satisfaction of hemophiliac patients using two different data entry systems.

Record keeping is integral to home treatment for hemophilia. Identified problems with paper diaries include suboptimal compliance and questionable data validity and quality. The effects of an electronic data recording system, Advoy, on data quality, patient adherence, and satisfaction were examined. An exploratory approach was used to examine the sequential use of paper diaries and e-diaries by 38 patients. Data were obtained from paper records for the 6 months preceding the introduction of the electronic record and from the first 6 months of use of Advoy. Completion of mandatory and additional treatment details was also compared. More mandatory information (27.57%) was recorded with the e-diary. As well, the amount of completed additional fields nearly doubled (19.9%-36.5%). Patients tended to complete a greater variety of additional fields with the e-diary than with paper records. Finally, a higher percentage of survey respondents (29.4%) indicated that they were "very satisfied" with Advoy compared with paper records (6.7%). Most survey respondents (94.4%) had a previous experience with electronic programs. The use of the e-diary significantly improved patient adherence in recording mandatory treatment information; the increase in additional data provided by the patients was also found to be an added benefit of this technology.

Assessment of Toll-like receptor 2 gene polymorphisms in severe chronic rhinosinusitis.

BACKGROUND: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is believed to reflect an inflammatory response of the sinonasal mucosa to bacteria and/or fungi. Staphylococcus aureus, a gram-positive organism, is frequently implicated. Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) is involved in innate immunity, recognizing gram-positive organisms via detection of bacterial lipopeptides. As a poor response to sinus surgery has been associated with reduced levels of TLR2 expression, and given the frequent recovery of S. aureus in this condition, we suspected that polymorphisms in TLR2 genes are implicated in this condition. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the TLR2 gene and CRS. METHODS: Two hundred six patients with severe CRS and 200 controls were recruited prospectively. A maximally informative set of SNPs in the gene encoding TLR2 were selected from the HapMap data set and genotyped. RESULTS: Eleven of 12 SNPs were successfully genotyped. No significant associations could be detected for the SNPs tested within the limitations of our study, which has the power to detect only those SNPs with a relative risk of 2.0 or greater. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings do not support a role for polymorphisms in the TLR2 gene in the pathogenesis of CRS. Nevertheless, other genetic variants within genes regulating innate immunity may be involved and will require further assessment.