Prevention of Post-Mastectomy Pain Syndrome: A Review of Recent Literature on Perioperative Interventions.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Up to 60% of breast cancer patients continue to experience pain three months or more after surgery, with 15 to 25% reporting moderate to severe pain. Post-mastectomy pain syndrome (PMPS) places a high burden on patients. We reviewed recent studies on perioperative interventions to prevent PMPS incidence and severity. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent studies on pharmacologic and regional anesthetic interventions were reviewed. Only nine of the twenty-three studies included reported a significant improvement in PMPS incidence and/or severity, sometimes with mixed results for similar interventions. Evidence for prevention of PMPS is mixed. Further investigation of impact of variations in dosing is warranted. In addition, promising newer interventions for prevention of PMPS such as cryoneurolysis of intercostal nerves and stellate ganglion block need confirmatory studies.

Management of gunshot wound-related hip injuries: A systematic review of the current literature.

PURPOSE: To propose a gunshot wound-related hip injury algorithm and improve patient outcomes. METHODS: Multiple online databases were queried to identify studies reporting on management of gunshot-wound hip injury. RESULTS: Of 47 papers included, 5 and 14 studies recommended surgical intervention for the treatment of low- and high-velocity gunshot wounds, respectively, and 1 paper advocated the use of prophylactic antibiotics in the treatment of high-velocity injuries. All remaining papers had mixed and conflicting results. CONCLUSION: Various therapeutic strategies have been used for the management of gunshot wound-related hip injuries but further prospective studies are necessary to determine the optimal therapeutic modality.

A summarization approach for Affymetrix GeneChip data using a reference training set from a large, biologically diverse database.

BACKGROUND: Many of the most popular pre-processing methods for Affymetrix expression arrays, such as RMA, gcRMA, and PLIER, simultaneously analyze data across a set of predetermined arrays to improve precision of the final measures of expression. One problem associated with these algorithms is that expression measurements for a particular sample are highly dependent on the set of samples used for normalization and results obtained by normalization with a different set may not be comparable. A related problem is that an organization producing and/or storing large amounts of data in a sequential fashion will need to either re-run the pre-processing algorithm every time an array is added or store them in batches that are pre-processed together. Furthermore, pre-processing of large numbers of arrays requires loading all the feature-level data into memory which is a difficult task even with modern computers. We utilize a scheme that produces all the information necessary for pre-processing using a very large training set that can be used for summarization of samples outside of the training set. All subsequent pre-processing tasks can be done on an individual array basis. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by defining a new version of the Robust Multi-chip Averaging (RMA) algorithm which we refer to as refRMA. RESULTS: We assess performance based on multiple sets of samples processed over HG U133A Affymetrix GeneChip arrays. We show that the refRMA workflow, when used in conjunction with a large, biologically diverse training set, results in the same general characteristics as that of RMA in its classic form when comparing overall data structure, sample-to-sample correlation, and variation. Further, we demonstrate that the refRMA workflow and reference set can be robustly applied to naïve organ types and to benchmark data where its performance indicates respectable results. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that a biologically diverse reference database can be used to train a model for estimating probe set intensities of exclusive test sets, while retaining the overall characteristics of the base algorithm. Although the results we present are specific for RMA, similar versions of other multi-array normalization and summarization schemes can be developed.

Odontología preventiva en acción

Prefacio de la tercera edición. Muy necesario: un cambio de actitud. Incorporación de la prevención en el ejercicio de la odontología. Programa de odontología preventiva. Concepto de prevención. Comprender al paciente como un ser humano: una necesidad para el éxito de cualquier programa de odontología preventiva. Implementación de los programas de educación y motivación del paciente. Placa dental: definición e importancia preventiva. Placa y caries dental. Placa y enfermedades periodontales. Programa de control de placa. Pruebas de actividad de caries ( o de susceptibilidad a la caries). Tratamiento sistémico con fluoruros y prevención de la caries dental. Tratamiento tópico con fluoruros. Principios de nutrición. Dieta y caries dental. Programa de asesoramiento sobre la dieta para el consultorio dental. Selladores de puntos y fisuras. Control de la maloclusión. Cáncer oral: magnitud del problema. Odontología preventiva en acción

Odontología preventiva en acción

Prefacio de la tercera edición. Muy necesario: un cambio de actitud. Incorporación de la prevención en el ejercicio de la odontología. Programa de odontología preventiva. Concepto de prevención. Comprender al paciente como un ser humano: una necesidad para el éxito de cualquier programa de odontología preventiva. Implementación de los programas de educación y motivación del paciente. Placa dental: definición e importancia preventiva. Placa y caries dental. Placa y enfermedades periodontales. Programa de control de placa. Pruebas de actividad de caries ( o de susceptibilidad a la caries). Tratamiento sistémico con fluoruros y prevención de la caries dental. Tratamiento tópico con fluoruros. Principios de nutrición. Dieta y caries dental. Programa de asesoramiento sobre la dieta para el consultorio dental. Selladores de puntos y fisuras. Control de la maloclusión. Cáncer oral: magnitud del problema. Odontología preventiva en acción